Sifting out charcoal/embers from ash

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A pretty ingenious system you have there, but just a couple of cautions... Is your Corona bucket is a beer-cooling bucket? I was using a Bud Light bucket I found, and was getting an odor when hot coals were in there. Then I read a thread here that stated that electro-plated steel can give off toxic metal fumes when heated. !!! You don't want to be breathing that, IMO.
As far as the ashes cooling off, I have still seen hot coals in an ash bucket after several days...be careful. :oops:

And I thought you were going to warn me about having Corona bottles in there? These are standard heavy galvanized buckets. No fumes coming from them. As for hot coals, yah, they can stay hot and usually they are out there in 30-40 degree temps for about a week before I get around to dealing with them. By them they are dust. Usually the Earthstove has 2 bucket full of ashes per cleaning, and after they have aged out back I put them in a 5 gallon plastic tub where they sit for another week or two. Then I do it again, and fill the plastic bucket with ashes. When the plastic bucket is full and the galvanized Corona buckets are full, then I take them all to the side of the house and put the screen on the metal wheelbarrow and sieve out the charcoal and nails. I pull any nails out with a magnet taped onto the end of a stick if I have been burning construction scraps. I have a lot of 2x6s to burn this winter from my garage remodel. Nails I recycle, charcoal I re-burn. I usually wait for a mild breeze and clear weather to do that. Its dusty work.

If there are toxins from Teflon pans at 400 degrees, I should be dead by now. I have had dozens of Teflon, Silverstone and T-fal no-tick pans. I smoked Winstons for 7 years too. I have beaten colon cancer and I am still kicking. I should be dead from commercial fishing, tree falling, tractoring, kayaking rivers, off-roading, caving, scuba diving, boating, heavy drinking, motorcycle riding, motocross and road racing, driving 1960s muscle cars really fast, mountain climbing, downhill skiing (ski patrol and avalanche search and rescue), target shooting and hunting, ocean sailing, living in Southern California, and a lot of other "hold my beer while I do this" stuff that I have done. *shrug*
 
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