Mesquite charcoal

junkyard dawg · Post by **junkyard dawg** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:13 pm

Just a progress report on this pet project... I made up a small box with 3" stainless square tubing and flat 16 guage on the ends to close it up and make a tight, but not totally sealed cap. I put 3/4" blocks of wood to about half fill it. Put it into the forge for about half an hour. The forge is for blacksmithing, like a tunnel of fire... There is no smoke after about ten minutes. The whole thing glowing bright red gets taken out and and set into a pan with Reverse osmosis water in it. (Steam activation?) Anyhow, I did this with some mesquite the other day. It held onto a very faint aroma of mesquite smoke if you break up the charcoal and worked very nicely to flavor some whiskey. It seemed to really mellow the flavors.

Comments? Thoughts? warnings???

Uncle Remus · Post by **Uncle Remus** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:27 pm

I've done the same kinda thing with sugar maple. You burn it without oxygen you got charcoal. I've heard a lot about mesquite for smoking meats etc...obviously it 's not poisonous...I would think it would be fine.