Supplier / Birchwood Forestry
One of the kilns in mid-firing at Birchwood Forestry in Herefordshire
Towards the end of March 2022 we headed over to Birchwood Forestry in Herefordshire to take a look at their setup and see how they go from forest to charcoal. We use their firewood and charcoal in our Bertha oven at The Bookshop restaurant and we’re proud to be able to use such a local and sustainable supply of fuel.
The process starts up at the nearby woods with sustainable felling of Hazel, Birch, and Oak trees. This creates a clear ground-space which soon gets taken over by a sea of brambles, protecting it from the mouths of hungry deer who would eat the new shoots of growing trees. Over the next 20 years the trees will grow back and the cycle can start all over again, in fact felling trees such as hazel can give them a lifespan of up to 200 years, compared to just 60 if left to grow and die on their own.
The timber is then brought to the yard about a 5-minute drive away, while the brash from the felling is used to section off and protect the clear areas of the forest from the deer while the brambles grow.
The wood is left here for a year to season, and then split up into chunks and made ready for the kiln. Some of the oak is kept in small chunks to be used in smokers to add a wonderful flavour to food.
The new chunks of wood are then loaded into the UK-made kiln ready to be turned into charcoal. A starter fire is made with kindling to begin the process called Pyrolysis (essentially baking the wood), once up to a temperature of 450 degrees the process becomes self-sustaining.
The high temperature forces the water out of the wood and is released as steam, this also removes various gases from the wood which in turn burn in the fire to fuel the process.
The firing takes 12 hours, after which the kiln is left for a day to cool down. The result is 95% carbon charcoal.
This is then packaged and sent out all over Herefordshire and beyond ready to be used in barbeques and ovens.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post about Birchwood Forestry, you can purchase some for yourself over on their website https://www.birchwoodforestry.co.uk/ or check out local stockists. We’re hoping to have some of the smaller bags for sale in our retail shop in The Bookshop in the near future.
Massive thanks to John and his team for showing us around!
