Charcoal ash in compost

NOT BRIQUETTES! But wood charcoal is good for the garden soil. The smaller they are the more surface area you get per weight. In hot composting, I don't think they would serve any function but doubt that it would hurt anything.

I'd leave it out. In the 'olden days', before the advent of cheaply available garden chemicals that come in a plastic bag, all gardeners used naturally occurring products. These products included animal poop and ashes from wood burning open fires and kitchen ranges.

The practice was to save the ashes over winter, to sieve out any large 'klinkers' (charcoal) and then in Spring the ashes were spread lightly around the garden. It has a sweetening effect on the soil ie, its similar in action to garden lime. Spread it thinly like icing sugar (I think this is called confectioners sugar in the US).

The klinkers were pounded up until very fine because these are what is known as biochar and this was then also spread around the garden.

I do this each year with the ashes from my fires.

I tilled mine into the vegetable garden for the potash, carbon and trace elements. I use a combination of charcoal briquettes and hickory ash (I have three large hickory trees). You can add a small amount of ash to a compost bin, but too much may stop the composting process or raise pH.

I buy bagged charcoal in small irregular bits of burned wood.

Last year, Wikipedia defined briquettes as "a block of COMPRESSED COAL dust, charcoal, or sawdust and wood chips, used for fuel and kindling."

This year, Wikipedia defined briquettes as: Charcoal briquettes sold commercially for cooking food can include:[1][2] ? Wood charcoal (fuel), ? mineral char (fuel), ? mineral carbon (fuel), ? Limestone (ash colorant), ? Starch (binder), ? Borax (release agent), ? Sodium nitrate (accelerant), ? Sawdust.

Some briquettes are compressed and dried brown coal extruded into hard blocks. This is a common technique for low rank coals. They are typically dried to 12-18% moisture, and are primarily used in household and industry.

Kingsford list the following ingredients in their briquettes. Kingsford contains the following ingredients:

? wood char ? mineral char ? mineral carbon ? limestone ? starch ? borax ? sodium nitrate ? sawdust

I am unable to find a definition for mineral char or mineral carbon.

Until better defined, I will stick with irregular bits of real wood charcoal.