User:Duiker/Guides/Charcoal

This is mostly guesswork based on my experience making charcoal.

Hey, Listen!: If you've never tried making Charcoal, check out Charcoal Hearth for notes about basic operation.

The first thing to understand is that most of the charcoalizing process is indirect. If you're heard of "systems thinking", that's a good way to think about it: touching the system has ramifications a few steps removed from the place you touched it, and the key actions you can really take are "leverage points". What really makes charcoalizing hard is that the same thing can So instead of talking about what you can do, I think it's more important that you get a sense of what affects what.

Meters

Pay attention to how the bars are moving as much as you pay attention to how big they are.

What you really want is a feel of how the meters are moving around. Think about putting your hand on a sleeping puppy: you can often get a sense of how they feel even with your eyes closed. Obviously, you can't sense anything without looking at the screen here, but you want to aim to get that kind of intuition. If you're familiar with Newtonian mechanics, think about how position, velocity, and acceleration all relate to each other.

Heat

HEAT is the most important bar, for obvious reasons. Without HEAT, you get no progress. No progress, no charcoal.

• HEAT is created by Wood + Oxygen. It is dampened by Water.
• In my experience, HEAT is best generated when Oxygen is stable between 30-40%.
• Most of the time, you want your HEAT to be moving upwards. The ideal is 100% HEAT, but that's impossible because of Danger.

Danger

DANGER is the next most important bar. DANGER makes your wood catch fire and vanish.

• DANGER is created by Heat + Oxygen. It is dampened by Water.
• With enough experience and attention, you can usually keep DANGER from overflowing with a single splash of Water at the last moment.
• If your Oxygen is out of control, this will make your DANGER spike too. Closing the vent control can make DANGER plunge in this case.

Oxygen

OXYGEN comes in at #3, because it behaves in non-intuitive ways. This is what really makes charcoalizing tricky.

• OXYGEN will naturally fill up. Adding Wood often dampens this.
• Above all, what you want is for your OXYGEN to be stable around 30-40%. This is really, really, really hard to do.
• Ideally, your OXYGEN meter will stay below your Heat level, because your Heat should never be under 50%.
• When your OXYGEN is dropping, you will sometimes see your Heat rise a little bit.
  • Closing the vent control can squeeze out a little bit of emergency Heat this way. This trick is largely worthless because closing the vent also destabilizes OXYGEN very badly.
  • Use it only when your Heat is dropping due to high OXYGEN, and add 1-2 Wood when you're ~25% OXYGEN and reset the control. With luck, this can stabilize your system.
• As a rule, it is better to modulate OXYGEN using Wood rather than the vent control. Two reasons:
  • 1) The vent control makes your OXYGEN levels swing wildly. This is almost always a bad thing.
  • 2) Adding Wood helps increase Heat. You're always happy to have more Heat.
• This doesn't mean "don't touch the vent control". It means do it rarely and very, very deliberately.
  • If OXYGEN is high and Danger is also high, close the vent. Unless Heat is in a free fall already, it will bump up a bit as your Danger drops. Reset the vent around 20%. You don't want to run out of OXYGEN!
  • If OXYGEN is less than 10%, wait and give it a few ticks to go up by itself. If it doesn't, then open the vent for a little. Throw in one or two Wood to slow how fast it rises.

Wood

WOOD is your basic leverage point. The secondary goal of charcoalizing is to use as little WOOD as possible, for efficiency.

• WOOD naturally drains out.
• Don't let it reach 0. 5-10%, however, is okay: Oxygen will keep your Heat floating by itself for a bit.
• Ideally, your WOOD meter will stay below your Oxygen meter, because you're spending as little as you can get away with.
• Spend only 1 per tick. Most ticks, you won't need any. It's not dangerous to use 2/tick sparingly, but pay attention to how everything else is moving before you do.
• There are two reasons to spend WOOD:
  • 1) The Oxygen meter is moving up.
  • 2) You want more Heat, or your Heat is starting to drop.
  • These two reasons are usually happening at the same time.

Wood + Oxygen

Think about these two meters as sharing the same amount of space. If you fill your charcoalizer with wood, then you've choked it out and it can't breathe.

On the other hand, if there's no fuel, then all oxygen is is air flow that actually cools down the charcoalizer, which is the opposite of what you want.

Maintaining a careful balance between these two meters is 90% of the game.

Water

WATER is your emergency meter. The only purpose of WATER is to keep Danger from hitting 100%.

• You should never need to use a 3rd WATER before it has emptied out.
• Using too much WATER can and will crash the charcoalizing system, i.e., put the Heat meter in a free fall.
• I have noticed that WATER will increase Oxygen. I haven't been able to figure out how direct the causation is.

Progress

PROGRESS is... you know what it is. If you believe something about the PROGRESS bar, you're probably right.

• PROGRESS does not move under 50% Heat.
• The higher the Heat, the more PROGRESS will move per tick.
  • This seems to have diminishing returns. 95% Heat doesn't seem noticeably faster than 85% Heat.

Guidelines

Stability

Think in terms of stability. Stability means

• (1) everything is changing slowly and
• (2) Progress is moving steadily because
• (2a) Heat is above 60% and rising.

Your system is either stable or you are rescuing it from instability. Instability is occurs when

• (1) Danger is very high and rising, or
• (2) Heat is dropping.

You can anticipate instability if

• (1) Oxygen is rising, or
• (2) Wood is running out.

Ideal Positions

• The ideal, but realistic, position for the Danger meter is around 85%. Just barely low enough that 1 or 2 wood won't make it hit 100%.
• The ideal, but realistic, position for the Heat meter is 75-90%. Not so high that it pushes Danger up too far, and not so low that you can't react to a drop.
• Ideally, you want Oxygen at 30-40%. More realistically, it will swing between 20% and 70%.
• Ideally, you want Wood at 25-30%. More realistically, it will swing between 5% and 50%.

If you ever see your Danger significantly below your Heat, be happy, add wood. (It probably means you overdid your attempt to fix high Danger, but hey, take the win.)

Specifics

• Worry about how the Heat meter is moving more than where it is. If you see it drop a bit, consider adding 1 wood.
• When you see the Oxygen meter moving up, try adding 1 wood to stabilize it.
• If the Oxygen meter is going down, keep an eye on things, but you generally don't need to do anything.

Tips

• Pay attention to where the Danger meter is when your Water is almost empty. It can be surprising when it suddenly jumps when the Water isn't slowing it down anymore.
• It is easier to let the Danger meter come down on its own than to try to make it come down.
• The most important indicators of what to do are small movements. Big movements usually have too much inertia to address quickly.
• Your main tools are Wood and time. Be patient and sparing.
• Water and Vent are emergency tools. Hold back until absolute need, and then act decisively.

Finishing a Batch

• After Progress hits 100%, the goal is to drop Heat to 0.
• Always add 2+ water immediately. Water is free. Spend it. The last thing you want is to burn up your batch after you finished it.
• After you've added water, open the vent. Making Oxygen spike dramatically will kill Heat quickly. (This is why you never do this during the process.)