The main fuel that compounds Black Powder and many other pyrotechnic compositions is Charcoal . Charcoal is basically burned wood, but for an excelent Back Powder the kind of wood and how it is made matters. In this post I'm going to talk about how I made a good quality charcoal for Black Powder. First, I started by collect some young and thin Willow branches from some Willow trees near a river close to my home. Then, I cut them into small pieces and put them to dry in the sun for a couple days as you con see in the picture below: The next step is to "cook" the wood. For that, we need a metal pot with small holes on the top. In this case, I used a large tin can: Now, all we need is to put the wooden pieces inside, close the lid and put in the middle of a bonfire. After a few seconds you will start to see the wood gas going up and it (the gas - smoke) will start burn. Let it "cooking" and wait until the wood gas stops ...
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