It is important to consider the balance between pressure and speed. At the start, I tend to drill fast with steady pressure, slowing down quite considerably whilst forcing the drill a lot harder into the hearth as the smoke increases. You cannot force it at the beginning, as the wood on the end of the drill is not soft and charred. As you get more consistent at making embers, you will start to understand how the amount of smoke being produced relates to the ember beneath it. However for your first ember, drill either until the drill pops out, or you cannot continue due to fatigue.

As you increase pressure on the drill the volume of smoke will increase.

With luck you should have filled the entire notch with dust, you will know its an ember if it continues to smoke after you have removed your drill and block.

Notch full of dark fibrous dust.

Note the fine stringy nature of the dust around the edge of the notch on top of the hearth, this is the sort we are looking for. Also, underneath the hearth is a shaving from earlier, this will become important when we come to move the ember. If I had blown on it a lot before removing it from the hearth, you would see it glow red. However this would waste precious fuel, and therefore cut down the chances of you making fire.

Roll back the hearth and prick the ember out with a twig. Unfortunately mine fell over here, but that matters little as it stays alight just fine.

You now need to get your prepared tinder. Here you have two options, either put the ember straight into the tinder bundle, or add something to it such as a cramp ball (King Alfred's Cake) to sustain the ember. I did both methods for this tutorial but decided to only include the latter as there is a greater chance of success with a small first time ember.

Adding the ember alone