Coconut Charcoal Briquettes Manufacturing Process
Coconut charcoal has many advantages over other traditional charcoals. In addition, you can also make coconut charcoal at home, although it takes some equipment and takes a long time. However, generally, specialized manufacturers produce coconut charcoal briquettes.
Manufacturers carry out several stages of the process to produce quality coconut charcoal. Starting from the process of selecting, cleaning, producing, crushing, sifting, pressing, to forming. If you want to know how manufacturers process coconut charcoal briquettes, here’s the review:
1. Coconut Shell Selection and Cleaning
Before getting into the manufacturing process, it is important to choose the best coconut shell. This is because quality coconut charcoal comes from good coconut shell conditions. It would be better to use coconut shells from ripe and fresh coconuts to ensure the best production quality. The next process is to check the coconut shell and clean it manually.
2. Charcoal Production
After selecting the best quality coconut charcoal, it is now entering the production process. Then, put the coconut shell in a carbonization furnace and heat it to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit or 590 degrees Celsius. After that, the coconut shell is carbonized under anhydrous conditions, under high temperature, high pressure, and free of oxygen.
However, it is the process of manufacturing coconut charcoal on a large scale. If on a small scale or at home, this process only burns it in drums or large holes within 2 hours or so.
3. Charcoal Crushing, Sieving, and Mixing
After the carbonization process is complete, it’s time to crush it. Then, sift and remove excess ash. It is important to maintain the ash level in coconut charcoal briquettes below 2.5%. Then, it becomes powder with a fine consistency.
The next process is to mix coconut charcoal powder in an industrial mixer using an environmentally friendly natural binder. The binder allows it to remain during the pressing and production of briquettes.
4. Coconut Shell Briquette Pressing and Forming
The next process is to put a mixture of coconut shell charcoal powder and binder into the briquette press. Then, the it is sliced to produce briquettes in the shape you want. There are several sizes of coconut briquettes according to their function.
Briquettes for shisha or hookah, generally have a cube and hexagonal shape. For barbecue, coconut charcoal is generally hexagonal with a hollow center. All shapes of briquettes must be the same, neat, and the edges and surfaces are straight and smooth.
5. Drying and Packaging
The last process is to dry the briquettes until the water content is below 5%. For a large scale, the drying process will use an industrial oven so that the drying can reach 80 degrees Celsius.
This allows the coconut charcoal to dry completely before the packaging process. Then, the next process is to cool the coconut charcoal to room temperature before the packaging process.
Each coconut charcoal manufacturer has different packaging standards. For example, 1kg of coconut charcoal can be wrapped in clear plastic. Then, several 1 kg packages are put into master carton boxes weighing up to 20kg or 30kg.
Now you know how manufacturers make coconut charcoal briquettes. Coconut charcoal manufacturers do many things to produce quality coconut charcoal. So, By producing the best quality coconut charcoal, there will be a lot of demand.