Wassledine’s lumpwood charcoal, just lit; ready to cook on in about 20 minutes
We are pretty excited about getting our first charcoal into a local retailer. So a big thank you to Stephen’s Plants on the A507 at Maulden, Beds (great bijou garden centre with expert advice on hand) for giving us this opportunity.
Even after extensive research during 2016, including a trip to beautiful Sussex to attend the wonderful and dare I say, slightly eccentric “Charfest” organised by Alan and Jo Waters, we have a lot to learn about charcoal production. I might add at this point that Alan Waters isn’t someone who has a lot to learn about charcoal production.
Our charcoal for sale in 3kg bags at Stephen’s Plants in Maulden
That was the beauty of being at the weekend event last summer – lots of very well informed people gathered together in a wood and generously sharing information about charcoal burning.
Our ambition is to acquire a retort, an alternative to a kiln that is a more efficient, cleaner and probably safer way to produce charcoal. But retorts are expensive so currently we are using 200 litre oil drums. The major advantage of oil drums is that they can be had for nothing if you know the right people – thanks Chris CAse at Town Farm Garage, Gravenhurst. Burning is still very smelly, smoky, dirty and slightly mysterious but at least it has got us going and allowed us to get a new product to market.
Fancy trying some? It’s good! But we would say that. Give us a shout info@wassledine.co.uk and we will arrange collection or why not drop into Stephen’s Plants?