I burned out (I think) my drum over the weekend, I loaded it up with orange tree and pallet wood, and it burned way out the top for about 3.5 hours, and was still smoldering 18 hours later. The paint was almost all gone, flaking off with the rub of a brass wire brush...
I think I have a problem... The drum used to contain food grade kosher Glycerin from an ice cream factory... it looked like there might have been some kind of coating on the inside, kinda beige... During the burning out, nothing on the inside looked like it was melting or flaking off, and even the bottom right above the ventilation holes I drilled, the metal glowed red hot, after the burning, the inside in those areas looks the same as everywhere else...
The barrel only smelled like burning chemicals for about 10 minutes into the burn, then it smelled like campfire... Could the coating on the inside been as simple as wax? Or could the coating be tough enough to handle 1200 degrees of glowing red hot steel?