Converting Nut to Rice Coal

Hello all,
I have a friend who has a couple of bags of nut sized coal. He no longer wants them. I was wondering, is there any way I can break them down and use them in my stoker? I burn rice coal now. Can I just it with a sledgehammer until they break or is this a bad idea. Also is there any way to tell if it is anthracite or not? He was unsure as to what is in the bags. Thanks for the help.

If it isn't Anthracite, the coal will be soft, and crush to powder. Anthracite will crack into a few hard pieces that look almost like black glass. To test to see if it is Bituminous, break up a lump or two and put a handful on your burning fire bed, if it is Bituminous, it will flare into yellow flames with lots of soot and smoke, if anthracite, a few snaps and pops and blue flames soon follow.

You can break up the bigger pieces, but I'd screen it so you don't inadvertantly get a big piece in your hopper and have it jam the stoker mechanism. A piece of 1/2" mesh screen or 'hardware cloth' [I think it's called that] will work.

Greg L

Possible to do it. Make sure to wear eye protection because anthracite shatters and can be as sharp as glass if you have the better varieties.

Having said that it's going to be a lot of work, would only be project I'd take on because I could. Not to save money.

My buddy and I recently made some rice/buckwheat size coal out of four chunks that combined weighed around 1,100 #. We just put them on the asphalt driveway and ran them over a few times with the dozer. He had found the coal while doing an excavation project (one of the benefits of living in coal country).

There was a little dirt mixed in that I manually sifted out when I loaded the coal into my stove. But the total operation took around 45 minutes so in my view it was worth the effort.

Have fun and be careful!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, especially the safety ones. I will have to see how much he has and decide if it is worth my time or not. Thanks again.