Well the coffee and paper pulp briquettes are dried and now tested. I see now why so many people make them. They are seriously superior to paper alone. All of the recycled paper briquettes put out a quick 20 minute burst of heat. The difference is in the ash left behind.
The paper pulp only briquettes leave behind a fine powdery white ash that stays in the form of the original briquette. The briquettes with coffee added leave behind much less ash. I’m not sure this means they are burning hotter or simply more completely. There is something to the idea of adding spent coffee grounds to the paper pulp.
I have also tested the wet and dry roll method and it’s deeply inefficient when compared to the wet pulp method. With the wet roll method making the rolled briquette takes more time, though the resulting briquette is significantly larger (sized for my charcoal grill) it’s also significantly more wet. It was not pleasant to work with. The dry roll method required that the cardboard be crushed and compressed. I did this through the use of an old pasta maker. This went pretty quickly but did require that the pieces of cardboard be fed through the pasta machine repeatedly. My pasta maker is motorized with a drill. I should do a whole post on that alone. Once the pieces are compressed I then rolled them with the help of some paste. A little bit of paste, and roll the cardboard up around a form- I used a small travel deodorant can but a skinny piece of PVC pipe would work too. After it was all rolled up I wrapped it with a piece of rope until the paste was dry. I expect this to work about as well as the previously rolled piece I made worked. That is to say, fast and hot and not smelling great.
I may try more briquettes with coffee. Why did they have to work so well?