So I currently am building a forge to run off of feed corn out of an old pellet grill it will be a side blast my question is should I have the air inlet low compared to the level the corn will be filled to or should it be higher up?

You need the blow below the Fire

Towards the bottom. Corn works like coke. I used it a bit back in the day.

While it can work, it's not particularly good solid fuel, you'd do better to buy or make charcoal but seeing as where you live by metallurgical coal.

Frosty The Lucky.

14 hours ago, Frosty said:

where you live by metallurgical coal.

Oh my god I am such an idiot i completely forgot about how Pennsylvania is one of the largest coal exporting states and how cheap it would be, thanks for reminding. (P.S I am not being sarcastic i completely forgot about that lol thanks again)

Frosty- you’re right but….

if you use a corn forge the bragging rights are *insane*!!!

26 minutes ago, Ridgeway Forge Studio said:

Frosty- you’re right but….

if you use a corn forge the bragging rights are *insane*!!!

lol

I don't need a corn forge to brag about insanity.

Frosty The Lucky.

But think of the jokes one could make!

Of course, they wouldn’t be good.

Theyd be….

 

….. corny

Corny, or they could be a-maize-ing. 

I've never heard of a corn forge before but its cool to know its been done.

Would some of the corn turn into popcorn if it was around the edges of the forge?

Not unless you had popcorn you were burning! Popcorn is a specific type of corn which had a hard kernel and a significant internal moisture content. Now, it smells the same as Burning popcorn, so just keep that in mind.

 

i used old cracked corn from the chicken coop. It cokes up like bituminous coal and fused into chunks. Of course, you need to start with some charcoal or something similar so they corn doesn’t jus get poured down the air grate. I found it to get as hot as quick as anything else, but granted this was a decade ago I forged in corn. It’s nest for a party trick. If you ever run across some free feed or cracked corn, give it a try to see how it works. 

Sideblast trench forge like a JBOD (just a box of dirt), the blast an inch +-off the bottom. Corn has a lot of oil in it so it'll have an odor that may be pretty strong.

Frosty The Lucky.

On 1/9/2026 at 3:58 PM, Frosty said:

Corn has a lot of oil in it so it'll have an odor that may be pretty strong.

Yes. Good luck getting it out of your hair and clothes.

In a somewhat related story, when I was a college seminarian, a friend asked me to watch his popcorn that he was microwaving. I did not think this was necessary, as most people put popcorn on in the microwave for 2 minutes max. But he had set it to 10 minutes so tha every kernel would pop.

he came back after 5 minutes to a bag of popcorn on fire in the microwave, and we jumped into action to take the entire microwave outside before we burned down the building! Now, we saved the building, but the stench of burnt popcorn filled all three floors of the building…

This all would have been laughed off, undoubtedly, had that evening not been the annual donor dinner and seminary tour: and the place smelled of burnt corn. We were so deeply worried, but the office manager came to us with an ingenious solution: cups of water with dryer sheets half in the water. About a dozen of these contraptions took every last smell out of the entire building- absolutely amazing.

Needless to say, popcorn was banned for about a year after this….