For most of us, charcoal means one thing – summer barbecues! However, charcoal can also be used for cooking outdoors year-round. It is also a great option to store for cooking during emergency, SHTF scenarios. Additionally, good quality homemade charcoal can also be used to make effective DIY water filters. Charcoal can also be used to treat poisoning when consumed in small quantities (make sure you know what you are doing!).
Charcoal isn’t all that expensive to purchase, but if you have some hardwood, you can easily make your own charcoal for free. It could be especially useful to make and store for an SHTF, grid-down scenario, where charcoal could be used for cooking, heating and bartering etc. If nothing else though it is actually very, very satisfying to make your own charcoal.
Watch the video below by Mike Pepler to see just how easy it is to make your own charcoal in your backyard. Mike covers making charcoal using a small steel drum placed inside a larger oil drum, to create a kiln to cook the wood and make charcoal. This method could be scaled up or down depending on your requirements or the size of drums you have available.
