The factory — and what to look at when you see it

We recommend you see the factory before you order, in person or on a video call. §5 is what to look at — and it works on any factory you are considering, not only on ours.

A gallery of photographs proves nothing: every supplier in this trade has one, and the photographs are frequently of somebody else’s plant. What is worth publishing is where the factory is, what it can make, and a checklist you can hold up against it — or against the factory of whoever else you are quoting.

§1 · Where it is

Jl. Mayor Unus KM 1.5, Gate B, Magelang 56117, Central Java, Indonesia. Running since 2015.

That is the full address rather than a city, because a city is not checkable and an address is. It is also the address on the invoice and on the export declaration, and the name on the gate is the last item on the checklist in §5 for that reason.

§2 · What it produces

Capacity is 12 t/day. Put that against what a container carries — about 18 t, confirmed at quotation — and one container is about 1.5 days of output.

That arithmetic is the useful part, and it cuts both ways. It means a single container order is not a strain on this plant and does not need to be scheduled around. It also means we are not a factory that can absorb an unplanned twenty containers, and a supplier who tells you they can absorb anything is telling you about their sales desk rather than their kilns.

Capacity is what the plant can run, not a promise about your order. What your order actually takes is about 2 weeks from artwork approval, which is a different figure and is set out with the rest of the terms.

Three formats — cube, flat and disc, in five inner weights — and one grade of charcoal throughout. The formats differ in geometry rather than in formulation, so what changes between them is how long a piece burns and how long it takes to ash over, not what it is made of.

§3 · How it produces

Four steps, in the order they physically happen. Each one is argued in full somewhere else on this site and none of it is restated here — this section is where the steps sit on the ground, not what they mean.

1. Carbonisation. Coconut shell, in low oxygen, at 400–650 °C. It is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation, and the page that owns the figure explains what it sets and what it costs.
2. Extrusion. Ground char and a native tapioca starch binder, with the paste held at 80 °C for 30 minutes. The temperature is the control that matters, and the page linked there is the one that says why it is the temperature and not the ratio.
3. Drying. Down to the moisture we pack at — the figure, with its basis and its method. This is the step that decides whether a cube cracks on someone else’s burner months later.
4. Weathering, then packing. Charcoal sits for the period the maritime code requires before it goes into a box. Our stock is weathered before an order is confirmed, so that window is behind you by the time you order rather than inside your lead time.

§4 · Come and see it — or ask for the video call

Our position is plain: visit or video call recommended before you order. Either one, and the video call is available before you commit to a sample, let alone to a container.

We are aware that recommending a visit is what every supplier says. The difference worth anything is not the invitation but what you do once you are there, and §5 is that — written so it is equally useful on a factory that is not ours. If you use it on three suppliers and it rules us out, it has still done its job.

§5 · Six things to look at, on any charcoal factory

A tour shows you what the host chose to show. A checklist shows you what is missing, which is the information you came for.

1. The weathering area. Charcoal has to be weathered before it is packed. A factory with no covered stock sitting and waiting is not doing it, whatever the paperwork says. why the maritime code requires it, and the three documents to ask for.
2. Carbonisation. Kilns running, with feedstock going in and char coming out. A yard of bought-in char in sacks is a different business from a factory, and it looks the same in a photograph. the temperature range we run and what it sets.
3. Extrusion and drying. Ask to see the binder being prepared, and ask what temperature the paste is held at. A factory that cannot answer that question in its own plant is not controlling the fault it causes. why paste temperature is the diagnostic and not the ratio.
4. The packing line. Your format and your packaging, in production. Not a sample shelf — a line running the thing you ordered, in the box you chose. the formats, the inner sizes and what the print minimum commits you to.
5. Retained samples and COAs. Ask to see retained samples matched to lot numbers, and the certificate of analysis that goes with a lot. Retention is cheap and every real factory does it. Ours are third-party, and the reports are named by issuer, number and date beside the figures they carry — the source column in the specification table.
6. The name on the gate. It should match the PT on your invoice and on your quotation. This takes four seconds and it is the single cheapest check on this list.

A trading house can show you a warehouse, a printed brochure and a stack of sacks. It cannot show you a weathering yard, kilns running, and your own artwork on the packing bench, because it does not own any of the three. That is our reading of what the list separates rather than an accusation against anyone in particular, and we do not name companies.

§6 · How to arrange it

WhatsApp on +628118797070, or email export@albakhoor.com. Say which you want — a visit or a call — and roughly when.

A video call can be arranged before any sample and before any order, which is the point of offering it: it costs you an hour and it settles the question this whole page is about. The person on the call is the person who signs off the specification, not a sales desk with a phone in a corridor.

Reviewed by Mohamed Noor, Director — 23 September 2026

§7 · What supports each claim on this page

Four claims. One is arithmetic you can check on the page, two are what the client stated about their own plant, and one is our reading. None of them is a measurement.

Request the 1 kg sample, and ask for the video call in the same message