Briquettes

How to make paper briquettes:

paper briquettes are a wonderful addition to regular charcoal and can be used for heating up wood/clay and brick ovens.

Need:
1 large tub
a bag of old paper (a wonderful paper recycling initiative)
a pile of dry leaves (optional)
water, to fill the tub

fill tub half with water
pull up a chair, put on some music and spend the next two hours or so (you neednt do it in one sitting, you can break it up, i can get a bit boring...) tearing the paper into little pieces and mixing it in with the water.

Regarding the leaves, these are optional. From my little experience, the leaves do not actually burn as well as just the paper... Maybe it was the type of leaf we used. If you want to get rid of some leaves, you can add a little and play around with the consistency until you get a briquette that burns well. Personally, I prefer just paper.

With the leaves you need to get something that can cruch the leaves to a fine powder. We used a big pestle and mortar, a good old fashined African pounder that you see painted in all the paintings of women busy pounding maize. Make sure the leaf powder is stick free (as much as you can).

Mix some powder, if using, into the paper and water mixture. Leave to stand for two or three days.

You now have a papery slush. Once again, pull up a chair, put on some music and start squeeing out the water and chaping them into balls (of any size).

Once finished leave to dry in the sun for a few days.

Use in conjunction with regular coal or wood. Privided good heat. (I had a picture of it, alas, many pictures have been lost for the time being, working on recovering them!)

These briquettes have been used in Malawi as a prevention means to deforestation in the country for wood to make coal (used for cooking and for firing the mud bricks used in building).

Zikomo!