I should have put a disclaimer on my part for all of this. I don't advocate
cooking the charcoal because new charcoal is not going to be overly
expensive. And the old charcoal, although regenerated, will have lost some
efficiency over the years due to oxidation, change in pore size, etc.
My concern was if you are going to do it, do it at moderate temperatures to
prevent the charcoal from igniting. And that is why I made my comment about
proper drying temperatures. What James says about an explosion is unlikely
but not impossible - unless your carb(s) were not stopping fuel in the
float bowl and it was pumping it directly into the charcoal canister.
Otherwise, the charcoal will only contain very small amounts of the aged
hydrocarbon vapors, not enough to create a sufficient fuel/air mix and the
use of moderate temperature should not be high enough to reach what we call
the ignition point.
However, the oven or microwave will most assuredly acquire a residual odor
also as James mentioned.
I should mention that my 71BGT still has the original unaltered charcoal. I
have not baked it nor do I intend to. My comments were based on many years
as a coal chemist where I frequently used ovens and microwaves to dry coal
and/or determine what point it would ignite. If temperatures are high
enough, you may not get an explosion but you will see a lot of smoke.
David
67 BGT
71 BGT
At 08:32 AM 4/1/00 -0500, James H. Nazarian, Ph.D. wrote:
>Someone please refresh my memory: Isn't the charcoal in the canister
>supposed to
>collect gasoline fumes? I wonder if re-using the activated charcoal will
>even be
>possible after the explosion. I suppose most of it will be contained in
>the oven
>or microwave, but I'm sure the next dinner to be baked in said device will
>be a
>big hit in the flavor department.
>
>I know this will start an argument over the likelihood of an oven igniting the
>released gasoline vapors, for that I apologize, but I still ask that you wait
>until after I leave before turning the oven on.
>
>Jim
|