‘I just love charcoal.’ Paso Robles man kept barbecue industry alive 40 years ago
Authentic, traditional cooking styles are the focus of cuisine television from “Chef’s Table” to “Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown.”
Those show producers would have loved an segment on a Paso Robles farmer who combined Italian tradition and Japanese kiln techniques to create the perfect barbecue oak charcoal.
The hand-crafted charcoal was prized for flavor and the quick, ready-to-grill coals it produced.
Safety and air pollution regulations would make this business unlikely in the 21st century.
Phil Dirkx wrote this Telegram-Tribune story published on July 9, 1981, edited for length.
Barbecuers like his work
Atillio Busi is a member of a rare and endangered species — he is a charcoal maker.
“I just love charcoal,” said Busi. “I could hardly ever quit making it.”
Busi has been working with charcoal since the early 1930s when, as a boy of 5 or 6, he started helping his father make it.
He was born in 1928 and has lived west of Paso Robles in the Willow Creek and York Mountain areas all his life.
His two charcoal kilns near Willow Creek Road are among the last survivors of a once-thriving industry. In 1956, almost two-thirds of the wood charcoal kilns in the state were in San Luis Obispo County.
Today, Busi said he knows of only one other charcoal maker in the county today.
Traditional charcoal, such as Busi makes, is sought after by some virtuosos of the barbecue who disdain the briquettes that are available at most supermarkets and liquor stores.
Busi had to take down his roadside sign because he could not keep up with the demand. He sells all his charcoal locally to people who call him. His regular customers, he said, include the Paso Robles Elks Lodge, Cal Poly and Dauth’s market in Paso Robles.
The only other charcoal maker in the county, as far as Busi knows, is Ubaldo Ballesteros, who also lives on Willow Creek Road. Ballesteros’ wive said her husband, 77, has a couple of small pits he fires up a few times each year to keep from sitting around.
Busi’s kilns look like buildings of rough stone, stuck side-by-side into a tree-covered hillside.
To turn wood into charcoal, Busi carefully packs the pieces of wood into the kiln as tightly as possible. The pieces are three to four feet long.
After the kiln is filled, a fire is started in wood stacked in the entryway which easily doubles as a fire box.
After the rest of the wood in the kiln “takes off” or starts burning properly, the kiln is closed up, Busi said. He can tell when it has taken off properly by the smell of the smoke.
Well-seasoned wood can “take off” in a couple of hours under proper conditions, but green wood in a cold kiln might need a week to get started, he said.
To close the kiln for the burning period, the door is replaced but not entirely sealed. A crack is left open at the bottom to let in just the right amount of oxygen.
The control of the air supply to the kiln is a critical part of the process.
The wood must be allowed to burn just enough to become charcoal but not enough to become useless ashes.
Early one cool morning recently, he opened one of his kilns to take out some of the charcoal for some rush orders. The charcoal had not cooled to his liking, but he wanted to take care of some regular customers.
He was dressed in coveralls, a white hard hat and a dust mask.
When he removed the door of the kiln, his 8-year-old nephew, Tony, started to go inside. “Don’t go in Tony. There might be gas,” Busi said.
Busi took a few sniffs in the kiln entryway and declared it free of dangerous gas.
A lifetime of making charcoal has trained Busi’s nose. Not only can he detect the smell of harmful gas; he can tell when the charcoal is properly “cooking” by the smell of the smoke that comes out of the kiln’s chimney.
Busi said he likes the smell of the smoke.
But that day, Busi was also worried that the partially cooled charcoal might burst into flames, now that the door was removed and the oxygen let in.
Moving rapidly, he pushed a wheelbarrow into the dark, dusty, hot, cave-like kiln and started loading large chunks of charcoal.
Busi placed the chunks in the wheelbarrow with his bare hands.
He later explained that the charcoal and the air in the lower part of the kiln had cooled to a tolerable temperature, but the upper level, around his head, was still very hot. He had to move fast.
Busi dumped each wheelbarrow load on a nearby flat spot and directed Tony to break up the large chunks with a short length of iron pipe. From time to time, Busi’s trained nose detected smoke coming from a piece of charcoal in the growing pile. He would tell Tony to break open the chunk and knock the embers out.
Or, Busi would leave his wheelbarrow and paw through the charcoal with his bare hands. He would hold an offending chunk in one hand and hit it with the pipe with his other hand. When the hot spot was too big, he would pour water on it from a bucket.
He said he preferred not to use water very much, because it softens the charcoal.
Asked if handling the charcoal with his bare hands led to many burns, Busi said, “I get burned a little a lot.”
He secured the kiln by replacing the four-foot by six-foot steel door. He propped a steel fence post against the door, and carefully sealed the crack around the door with a mixture of mud and ash dust, which prevents hot mud from cracking.
When the charcoal on the ground was cool enough, Busi put it into used feed sacks made of heavy paper. He loaded the charcoal into the sacks with a 12-tined fork.
Busi pointed to some of the charcoal in the pile and said it was a hollyberry stump, which, he said, makes very good charcoal.
Mostly, he uses live oak and some white oak wood. The live oak is better, he said, because white oak makes light charcoal that gives off showers of sparks. And green wood makes heavier charcoal than more seasoned wood.
When the labor of carting wood from ranch or farm to kiln is done, then Busi’s artistry takes over.
“I don’t know what makes charcoal,” Busi said. “I really don’t know what takes place in there.”
But he knows it’s ready when the smoke stops coming out of the chimney at the rear of the kiln. That usually happens in eight to 12 days. Then he seals the crack at the bottom of the door and also seals off the chimney so no air can come down through it. After that, the charcoal should cool another 10 to 12 days before being removed.
Members of the Busi family have been making charcoal in the Willow Creek or York Mountain areas since around 1914.
But the method they learned in Europe and used for many years in this county was far different than the method Busi uses today.
They used to make a dome-shaped pile of 35 cords of wood 35 feet wide and 20 feet high.
The pile was covered with straw and dirt, then the fire was started in a hollow flue that had been left in the center of the pile.
There were many disadvantages to this method, Busi said. Someone had to stay with the pile night and day to patch and tend it for the 30 days it took to “cook.”
His father camped out near the pile during the entire time.
When the burning was finished, there could be no cooling period because the pile could not be made air tight. The charcoal makers had to climb up on the pile and remove the hot charcoal. Water had to be put on every piece, Busi said.
He remembers his father nailed boards to the soles of his shoes to insulate his feet from the heat when he climbed on the hills of charcoal.
The kilns that Busi now uses are Japanese style. Japanese charcoal makers were also active in North County when Busi arrived from Italy. Busi and his late brother James convinced their father to use the Japanese method in 1948.
These are the same kilns that Busi uses today. The inside wall is made of limestone taken from the bed of nearby Jack Creek.
The roof is made of corrugated steel sheets, covered with dirt.
