Smokeless? - you got to be kidding  

Is there any thing that burns without smoke? The answer is a argumentative yes (burning desire? maybe) and no.

  During combustion proper or when our charcoal are fully alighted, you will not notice any smoke apart from the smoke that was produced initially from the fire starter used to light up the charcoal.

  But could there be such a phenomenon known as invisible smoke?

Sawdust – using the right type as a raw material.

  Our charcoal or some call it briquettes are made 100% from sawdust obtained from sawmills and furniture factories that often regards them as waste.

  But not all sawdust could be used, as the wrong choice will affect the end quality of the charcoal. Among the tree species acceptable are the types known as "Meranti and Mengkuang"

  Rubber wood is not acceptable at all as the sap will give out smoke and odour when being burnt.

Why sawdust?

  Conventional charcoal were made from the  "bakau" tree family and the area is not solid or fully compact due to the fact that the trees grow naturally.

  This type of charcoal lights easily and burns off at a much quicker pace. As they weigh lighter, not regular in shape and much larger in mass area, transporting these charcoal types proves cumbersome and not cost effective.

  They also emit smoke when being burnt and thus is not a suitable fuel where smoke is not welcomed.

  Sawdust, as the name suggests is practically dust sized and when compacted by extrusion, provides a near 100% solid mass and has numerous advantages over the conventional type of charcoal.

 Sawdust is easily shaped during manufacturing so that the convenience of transportation costs is taken into account and our smokeless charcoal is mainly in the shapes of hexagon or pillow.

  Since sawdust charcoals are compacted fully, it weighs more but most important of all, it saves a lot of space due to its lower surface area.

The process of producing smokeless charcoal.

  Many people say that this is a viable business venture since sawdust are actually discarded waste. Well yes to a certain degree but let me tell you that we actually lose 70% by weight or in other words our yield is only 30% after the carbonization process!!!

Yes, this is true and the following explains the phenomenon. The early stage of production takes us to the sieving of sawdust, from coarse to fine.

   Only fine sawdust is utilized for our charcoal process as they provide the ultimate in quality charcoal. They compact easily by screw extrusion as the high pressure exerted onto them causes them to bind naturally within themselves without the need for any binding or adhesive chemical.

  Of course heat drying the sawdust prior to the extrusion process ought to be done to get rid of moisture.

  During the extrusion process, the extruded sawdust is known as raw sawdust blocks and they were automatically measured and cut to desired lengths.

  Some cold climate countries buys our raw sawdust blocks as they could be used as another medium of burning fuel and also since it hexagon shaped, it takes less space for storage.

  After the raw sawdust blocks are extruded, they will be neatly arranged in a metal bungee to be later pushed into an enclosed brick oven for the final process called “carbonization”.

  Carbonization of raw sawdust blocks takes a period of 3 to 4 days!! (yes, you read it right) in which the blocks are burnt in a controlled environment and manner. Minimal oxygen is present and during burning period, all the sawdust blocks will be burnt until they are red hot as this serves as a process to get rid of foreign matters like oil and combustible materials and be left with only carbon, which is essentially black charcoal.

  Therefore as mentioned, 70% of foreign particles measured by weight are evaporated or get rid off (Bitumen or some call it Tar is obtained this way ) and we are left with no more than 30% yield. This is also one of the reasons why a good carbonization process will produce good quality smokeless charcoals.

  To get over the agony of this slow process of producing smokeless charcoal we have currently 50 ovens and plans are being made to build more to accommodate the ever-growing need for cleaner fuel.

Conclusion.

  But no matter how tedious or slow the process may be, we delight ourselves knowing that each and every piece of charcoal went through a thorough process before being shipped out to you.