My homemade black powder

[DoubleBuck]

I cooked some Mimosa limb charcoal today, so I didn't have to burn it. I've used it before, and I'm gonna experiment with 78-12-10 recipe on it and try extended milling time on some of it, to see if I get a different result than many moons ago. I have past records on it to compare, and think it is good powder. It showed very good accuracy and not overly dirty, last time, with the 75-15-10 blend.
But, I came to stump with assaying the charcoal. I smashed up and cooked a chunk that weighed 5.4 grains. Ash weighed .2 grains. Someone help me, isn't that .037037037037 percent, or 3.7% Ash?

[2TM101]

I smashed up and cooked a chunk that weighed 5.4 grains. Ash weighed .2 grains. Someone help me, isn't that .037037037037 percent, or 3.7% Ash?

It is. But now if you asked me if that was good or bad I could not tell you. Just a guess that probably IS good.

[2TM101]

I've been wanting to make a vacuum chamber for some time anyway.
Vettepilot

I have a food dehydrator. If a vacuum chamber faster? I would have thought that out of my price range but Vevor, same company that made my hydraulic press, has one on Amazon for just over $100. How long does it take to dry pucks in one of those?

Another thing I have noticed now that I am mostly through grinding all of my charcoal is the bulk reduction is actually over 95%. What I am getting is far denser than the skylighter charcoal. Really wish I had known to do this sooner.

[HamGunner]

Really wish I had known to do this sooner.

Oh, there are so many improvements that I have learned in the whole process of preparing and making BP, mostly attributed to others experiments and shortcut ideas here on this forum thread. More heads working on a project certainly results in more than one way to skin a cat.

I used and enjoyed even my earliest BP efforts. I made smoke out of it even if it was not the best and most of it was burned up through my cap N ball revolvers. I can not say that what I have now is the best that I can do, but it certainly is looking so much better and I am understanding more and more about the what and why's of making it.

I noticed that if I fill and seal a container up with my powdered charcoal, that I can bounce it up and down a bit and cause it to settle and become much more dense. Makes it much easier and faster weighing it out for my BP formula.

[DoubleBuck]

2TM101;
Thank you. I thought it was right, but couldn't actually remember if I was doing the figures correct or not.
3.7% ash is not great, as 4% is considered on the higher side. Sassafras came in the smallest percentage of any wood I have checked. It was under 2%. But, the toilet paper I did came in at under a half percent. There was almost zero ash in it.