Reference point
A glowing lump of charcoal, the rising heat smelled from half a metre away.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Dry, hot, mineral, with a deep burnt-wood note and almost no smoke. Heavy, lasting, and clings to clothes all day.
It differs from straw smoke in that the charcoal burned off its volatile part long ago. What you smell is the last stage of combustion, when only carbon and minerals remain. Straw gives sweet, tarry smoke; charcoal gives a dry, clean heat.
This is the last entry in the smoky and mineral family in both senses: last on the volatility band, and last in the chain of changes wood goes through in fire.
How to smell it
Light a charcoal stove and wait until the coals glow evenly and the smoke has stopped. Smell the rising heat from half a metre away — don’t smell while there is still smoke, because then you are smelling smoke, not charcoal.
Why this one is hard
Because people smell too early, while the charcoal is still smoking. You have to wait for the glowing, smokeless stage, and that takes patience.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Charcoal ember
Smoky & Mineral family
Straw gives sweet, tarry smoke; charcoal has burned off all its volatile part, so only a dry, mineral heat remains.
Scientific note
Charcoal is wood from which pyrolysis has driven off all the volatile part, so it has almost no smell when cold. The smell that appears when it burns comes from the carbon reacting with oxygen, together with traces of remaining resin. The better the charcoal is made, the less it smells — the opposite of what beginners at the grill expect.
In Vietnamese life
Charcoal stoves and honeycomb coal-briquette stoves were once a common sight in Vietnamese cities, and are now restricted because of pollution. The smell of glowing charcoal now survives mainly at grill stalls and in the countryside.