Coal cakes.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 12:23 pm

When the economy gives you lemons,..... bake coal cakes.

Thanks to a few tons of last year's bagged coal, plus cleaning out my coal bin after two bulk dealers not delivering washed coal- like my now retired coal dealer did - I have about 600 pounds of fines in 5 gallon buckets.

I've experimented with making fines into easily burnable bricks in past, but still experimenting to improve my method. Nice to have a coal fired oven but theses could be "baked" on top of a box stove.

I dry mix the fines with cheap all-purpose flour. 4 parts fines, 1 part flour. Then add in water as I mix that to a firm consistency like mixing brick mortar. Then I pour that onto a half-sheet sized baking pan that has been covered with parchment paper, so it does not stick to the pan. Poured about an inch and a half thick and well pressed down to remover as much trapped air as possible. Then I score the mix with a dull knife to create fault lines so that after it's baked hard, I can easily break it into 3-4 inch squares. Then into the oven to bake overnight. That gives me chunks of coal I can just toss into the firebox like pieces of stove-sized coal and not waste the heat and money of 600 pounds of coal fines. ;)

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tcalo
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Post by tcalo » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 1:42 pm

How well do they burn? Are they brittle once dry? That’s a great idea.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 2:05 pm

Tommy, they burn nice and almost as slow as a big piece of coal. And since the flour is also burnable it contributes some BTU'S, too.

After I refill the firebed, I place one or two in the middle of each round cover opening of the firebed and let the edges of the firebed burn them inward.

Yes, they are quite hard and brittle. That is why I had to score them with a knife to break them into chunks. Then after they cool down, I can snap them apart by hand. Otherwise, I'd need a hammer to break the sheet up and end up getting lots of small pieces, which is what I already have too much of.

Paul
Last edited by Sunny Boy on Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 2:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by freetown fred » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 3:20 pm

You still da man Paul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol:

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 3:49 pm

freetown fred wrote:
Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 3:20 pm
You still da man Paul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol:
Thanks, Fred, but not yet. I still have more experimenting to do .... they taste terrible. I may have to change the title ? :lol:

Paul

 
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Post by freetown fred » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 8:13 pm

I'm thinkin ya best stick with burnin em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

 
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Post by waytomany?s » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 8:56 pm

That's awesome! I don't have 600# of fines, but I have enough to try this. Definitely post if you come up with a better batter.


 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Tue. Oct. 11, 2022 9:36 pm

What I've found so far.

The first batch is the top left picture above of the mix in the baking pan. I didn't compress them well into the pan. They had more small gaps and air pockets and did not burn as long.

Second batch is the two pictures with the yellow bucket. Before scoring with the dull knife, those were more compressed down into the pan and smoothed using the back of a large spoon. That made them denser, and they did not burn up quickly.

I think finding a better, simple method of compressing the mix into the pan will make the chunks burn more like big pieces of coal.

Paul

 
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Post by BunkerdCaddis » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 6:20 am

What you need is one of the block presses like they use for making seed starting blocks or sawdust blocks.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 7:33 am

Looks like a good solution, provided you have a coal fired oven or hot surface to cure them. I can imagine mamma’s reaction if I cooked a batch in her gas range. :-)

What little fines I get from my nut coal I feed to the stoker.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 9:16 am

Some easy way of pressing them into the baking pan (12 inch by 18 inch) would be good.

What would also be good is if I remembered to score this third batch before I put it in the oven. Was so concentrating on get it all pressed down evenly that I forgot that last step. :oops:

Paul

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Sunny Boy
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 9:28 am

Rob R. wrote:
Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 7:33 am
Looks like a good solution, provided you have a coal fired oven or hot surface to cure them. I can imagine mamma’s reaction if I cooked a batch in her gas range. :-)

What little fines I get from my nut coal I feed to the stoker.
One more nice thing about these old ranges is that the oven is vented into the back flue just before the exit collar. No baking stink from the fines gets into the house to upset the ruler of the kitchen. :D

For many years my bulk dealer washed the coal. After 5 years I ran the 6 ton bin get empty figuring there must be a lot of fines in the bottom by then. Only about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket.

Since he retired and sold off the business his replacement, and another bulk dealer nearby, don't wash the coal. One of them I even had to ask him to wet it because it was so dry and dusty that his helper and I were choking on the dust shoveling it into the corners of the bins. In just the past three years the bins have accumulated ten 5 gallon buckets worth of fines.

Added to that, the tons of bagged Lehigh nut that I've been buying the past two years have been loaded with fines. So much that I have to screen it out or it's often enough to choke the firebed.

Paul
Last edited by Sunny Boy on Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 10:05 am

That's really cool Paul! Just curious, do the cakes fall apart/disintegrate while shaking or raking? Or do they hold together..

 
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Sunny Boy
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Post by Sunny Boy » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 10:29 am

Lightning wrote:
Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 10:05 am
That's really cool Paul! Just curious, do the cakes fall apart/disintegrate while shaking or raking? Or do they hold together..
Lee,
They hold together very well until they are mostly burned through. Then they shake down like ash of regular burned coal.

Out of the oven and cooled down, you'd need a hammer to break them up. Which is why I score them so I can easily snap them by hand into burnable sized squares.

I'll have to try a chisel and hammer on this last batch because I forgot to score it before baking. :oops:

Paul

 
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Oct. 12, 2022 11:02 am

What temperature are you baking them? For how long?


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