BBQ Flavor Binchotan White Maitiew 5kg has a carbon percentage of 96-98%. The charcoal bed can reach a temperature of 1000 to 1200 degrees. The total burning time is on average 6 hours. Binchotan does not smoke, does not splash and burns at a constant temperature. Compared to Marabú charcoal, it is actually its quiet brother that handles everything more calmly and neatly. However, you don't get all these extra qualities for nothing; it is a bit more expensive than Marabu.

No chemicals are added during the traditional production process. This means there will be no smoke or flavor development. The ash content is approximately 1.8%. The charcoal used in Japan, because that's what we're going to talk about, is called binchotan.

Binchotan is a type of charcoal with an unearthly high carbon percentage, which ensures an almost pure composition. And you can taste that. Binchotan is made there in a beautiful traditional way - after all, we are in Japan, so what do you expect - in stone and clay ovens. Burning this charcoal requires such great expertise that there is a separate profession for it: binchotan burner. However, this profession is unfortunately disappearing. Very few young people from the new generation are interested in it, which is very disappointing, because it is truly one of the most valuable things from traditional Japanese culture. But for now it's still here, so enjoy it while you can! Making binchotan according to Japanese quality requirements is therefore very difficult, but certainly not impossible. It mainly takes a very long time. Very, very, very long. One cycle of making about four hundred kilos of binchotan takes fifteen days. That cycle naturally starts with collecting wood and ends with packing it into boxes.

Here's a little overview of what's happening in between. The collected wood is first carefully placed - everything carefully - in the oven and heated for about ten days with minimal oxygen supply at about two hundred degrees. This minimal oxygen supply ensures that the wood does not burn but decomposes. Because so little oxygen is supplied, an almost completely pure composition of carbon is ultimately formed. When the smoke coming from the oven has just the right color, the wood has been decomposed and the oxygen supply is increased. The oven reaches a temperature of no less than a thousand degrees. This stops as soon as the charcoal gets a red glow. The final step is rolling the charcoal in ash and sand, which gives it its signature gray glow. After all, it is not called white binchotan for nothing. And then you have binchotan, with a beautiful carbon percentage of no less than 95 percent.

How do you light Binchotan?
First make a charcoal bed with a softer charcoal, for example Acacia, and place the Binchotan diagonally on the burning charcoal. Or use a gas burner for 15 minutes.