I just tried the Royal Oak all natural briquettes. First time seeing them at Walmart. Been wanting to try Royal Oak Chef Select. I'm hoping they are the same product. Does anyone know if they are same? My first cook was very successful. The smoke flavor on my ribs was less harsh. By less harsh I mean didn't taste like dirty smoke
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Good to know, Sacred Smoke BBQ .
I like trying other fuels besides Kingsford now and then as well, even though I'm happy with the Kingsford products. I keep wishing that B&B would make it up to our neck of the woods.
KathrynComment
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Have been wishing the same about b&b. I had been using only my gateway drum lately because I had become unhappy with PBC results. Now with this charcoal and cleaning the barrels like gateway does, I'm very happy. I only like gunk build-up to seal the lid. Everything else comes out using a degreaser. Wash clean and season with oil every few cooks (maybe 5) -
Hmmm interesting. I'll have to look into that Gateway cleaning regimen. Thanks for the tip, Sacred Smoke BBQ .
K.
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I’ll never buy Trader Joe’s Briquettes again. 1/3 of the bag was crumbled/powdered charcoal. Horrible.Comment
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Guys, great stuff here. I am a longtime PBC owner and have had tons of success. I’ve seen on PBC’s instagram page that they are now working with Cowboy Charcoal (that’s a brand...I think...). I have always used Kingsford Blue and augmented with some wood chips or chunks in moderation for a light smoky flavor and had good success. That said, even when I crack the lid at the end I struggle with crispy skin on my poultry.
Anyone used Cowboy Charcoal that can give an update on the results? I guess I always followed Noah’s advice at the start to just use Blue, but if there is a better way, and even faster cooking times, I want to give it a whirl!
Thanks for any feedback and wishing you all a great holiday season. Go Bears! -suhey26Comment
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A lot of the marketing materials from PBC have them using Cowboy brand lump. When I got my PBC eons ago, Owen stayed aligned always on using Blue only...not even any other type of briquette. I’ve never veered away from Kingsford blue and a couple of wood chips.
That said, as it starts to get cold, I note that the PBC doesn’t quite get as hot. Lump may alleviate that. Interested if anyone is having success here.Comment
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Bobmcgahan , according to Kingsford, Kingsford Competition (Professional) runs hotter than Kingsford Original. They recommend it for searing, for example. I use it for all my poultry cooks which I want to run at 350°F or so. For everything else I use KBB or Weber (for long cooks).
Adjusting the lower vent does not have a marked effect, unless you adjust it a fair amount. It's not responsive like lower vents are on kettles, for example.
If you don't want your fire as hot, you could start with fewer lit coals, but be sure to get a good burn going after you pour them over the unlit coals and before you add your meat.
Sometimes barrel temps can run hot because the lid is not well secured. If you see even small smoke wisps coming from around the edge of the lid, it can have a pretty dramatic effect on barrel temperature, especially in the beginning of long cooks or for short cooks.
Kathryn
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Spray the lid lip with Pam and see if that doesn’t help. It will help build the seal.Comment
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Yesterday afternoon, I grilled a small ribeye on the PBC. It as my first time using Jealous Devil lump. Can't tell yet what's at the bottom of the bag, but the two PBC chimney loads that I took out of the top of the bag were pretty impressive.
I followed Noah's video. Lit one chimney and let it burn for 12-15 minutes then dumped it into the empty charcoal basket. Then immediately topped up the chimney again and dumped it on top of the previously lit coals, inserted the grill grate and waited for another 15 minutes with the lid cracked and the rods out.
Using a pistol grip infrared thermometer, the coals were a little over 1,000°, the exterior on the side of the PBC was at 382° and the grill was around 385° when I put the steak on. Cooked it for 8 minutes, turning it every 2 minutes, then tried to temp it with a Thermapen. The heat was so intense at grill level that I had to put on a BBQ glove so I could leave my hand there long enough to get the temp. Of course that little delay meant that the meat was a little bit overcooked - just a tad more than medium rare. However, as we all pretty much know, since it was cooked on a PBC the steak was still tender and very juicy. I didn't buy Grill Grates for the PBC because I have them on two other cookers but in future, I might borrow the ones on the PK-360 and see how they work, or not, and just cook steaks on the PK which is a true blue steak cooking machine.
If the size of the lumps of Jealous Devil are consistent throughout the bag, and I don't know that yet, they seem to be of a size more geared toward a long cook. It kind of seemed like a waste to use it on an 8 minute cook.Last edited by AZ Fogey; July 6, 2019, 05:17 PM.Comment
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Brought Maple Leaf charcoal, made in Quebec from hardwoods and wasn't happy with it.
Didn't last as long as I would have liked, only a bit over 4 hours.
Royal Oak usually gives me a good 6 hours.
Temps seemed to be lower to, when I went for a sear just wouldn' climb like RO does.
Disappointed with lump size too, lots a small nuggets, no really big chunks in the bag I got anyway
It did burn really clean though, hardly any ash to clean up.
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Thanks Kathryn. Much appreciated. By the way, I should add that I didn't see smoke coming from the lid; just the rebar holes. Any comments on Kingsford Long Burn and wood flavored briquettes (i.e. Hickory, Applewood, and Pecan)?Originally posted by fzxdoc View PostLast edited by Bobmcgahan; July 7, 2019, 05:35 AM.Comment
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I also use Kingsford Pro in my PBC. The key for me to getting temps to run in the 275-300 range, if I want that, was to adjust the lighting steps. I only let the coals heat up for around 12 minutes in the chimney before dumping them on. You can also adjust how much time you run your PBC with the lid off, letting the coals heat up, before adding meat to the cook.
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Bobmcgahan I'm not a big fan of the wood-flavored briquettes only because I want to know how much wood is going into my fire. I know that with 4 to 6 oz of wood in the PBC for a short cook I will have the flavor I'm looking for, for example. I almost double that (6-10 oz) for a long cook. I tried the Applewood for a pork butt in the PBC and went right back to my old way of adding the wood chunks from www.fruitawood.com for subsequent cooks .
Haven't seen Kingsford Long Burning in my neck of the woods yet, but it gets good reviews on some of the sites I visit.
KathrynComment
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I know this is two years in the past, but I had never used KBB in my PBC until last week and I bought it funnily enough almost to the day this post was made. And the only reason I bought KBB was I randomly found a screaming deal on Craigslist when I was looking for something else.Originally posted by fzxdoc View PostLifting a quote from the first post on this topic, here's some info for you, UncleFester :
Royal Oak: (from David Parrish over on another topic here in The Pit)
"I personally cannot recommend Royal Oak. I used to like it quite a bit, but the past several bags I've purchased had foreign objects in them. One of those objects was a rock the size of two human fists. In the latest bag I found a melted pile of plastic in my ash pile. Who knows what that was and how it made it through their manufacturing process... Next few times you cook with Royal Oak check your ashes. It would not surprise me if you found a few rocks or other materials leftover."
Having read this, I decided long ago not to try Royal Oak in my PBC. Perhaps others who have tried it will chime in soon.
Kathryn
I'd only used Royal Oak and RO produced house brands (Walmart, Kroger, etc are all RO), having now used KBB I'm severely underwhelmed. RO burns hotter, longer and produces less ash. And I've never found any foreign materials either in 5 years of smoking/grilling exclusively with charcoal.
It's also cheaper, now that Academy apparently stopped selling RO years ago (a fact I was unaware of due to stocking up for a couple years at ~2.50 a 15.6 lb bag ~$0.17 per lb) I use expert grill from Walmart. Which is, as I said RO in a different bag.
I also use RO lump in my PK grill and I've been very pleased with it as well, especially for the price.
I've heard universal praise of B&B briquettes, so when I found out last week that Academy didn't carry RO anymore as they now stock the full line of B&B products and stock RO branded as Outdoor Gourmet, I figured I'd give them a shot. Sadly, they were out of the B&B briquettes but they did have their newest product "Competition Char-logs" these are really unique.
They're an extruded tube of all hardwood charcoal with a hole in the middle like an elongated donut, they're designed for long slow cooks so my plan is to bed the PBC basket with them then level off with KBB and use 40 ashed over briquettes to light.
I'll report back tomorrow with results / pics.Attached FilesComment
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Thanks! Glad to be here. I haven't forgotten about reviewing the Char-logs. Just been too busy to remember to post my results.
Long story short, they burn hotter than the gates of hell for a long time. I was sitting at 425 after 6.5 hours when I went to sleep. I'll try to get pics and temps posted up tonight. I plan to reperform the test when the Fireboard I ordered gets here later this week. So it'll present nicely and I don't have to track it by hand (or stay awake).
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Had the opportunity to test the Char-logs yesterday and I was very pleased with the results. This is sadly less than an ideal test from a scientific perspective, due to the number of variables which I'll detail below. However, I think you'll see once things got settled in the consistency was great and fuel to temps ratio was superior to regular briquettes.
Lighting method:
I bedded the basket with a single layer of B&B Char-logs and lit 25 KBB briquettes in a chimney starter. Added them to the basket evenly distributed, then placed in barrel with the rods in (for hanging probes) but with lid off. Left this for 20 minutes as the temps were struggling due to 1st variable listed below. Added an additional 15 unlit KBB briquettes after 15 minutes (this was entirely unnecessary).
After 20 mins, the water had burned off so I closed the lid. Temps spiked massively and refused to come down for a long period of time. I added foil to each rebar hole to get the temp down to where I could add meat.
I do not have enough evidence at this time to conclusively state whether foil will be required with each cook. However, I can say with reasonable certainty that a large volume of meat such as multiple briskets/butts/ribs etc would most likely make this unnecessary.
Variables affecting the test:
-It had rained the day before & when taking the lid off some water went to the bottom of the barrel. This held down initial starting temps, which I over-corrected for when performing lighting procedures both
a. time with lid off
b. adding 15 additional unlit KBB briquettes
- I foiled the rebar holes to bring the temps down, as I didn't immediately add meat
- I was cooking ribs and opened the lid more frequently than I would for a probed piece of meat, this of course burned additional fuel due to the addition of oxygen
Concluding thoughts:
Despite the above mentioned issues, I'm extremely pleased with this product and believe they are an excellent tool to add to the arsenal.
I say this for the following reasons:
PROS
1. All hardwood charcoal with no filler, not a huge deal for me but many care about this.
2. Consistency - they burned very consistently for a long period of time, the thickness reduced the surface area of the charcoal compared to a standard briquette
3. Heat to volume ratio - As you can see in the picture below, I filled the PBC basket with a single layer of the Char-logs and added 40 KBB briquettes. This was a disconcertingly small amount of charcoal, when compared to KBB/RO filled level with the rim. But produced equal or better results. This becomes more significant when there are greater space limitations than we have to deal with in the PBC. More applicable for us is the opportunity to really get the heat high for crisping poultry skin.
3b. Price - @ ~$14.5 per 30lb bag at Academy = ~$0.48 per lb, whereas KBB is selling for ~$25 for 36.75lbs at Lowe's = ~$0.68 per lb. While using significantly less product per cook.
4. Smell/taste - It smells clean when lighting and produces little smoke when compared to KBB/RO. This matters to some people so I thought I'd mention it.
CONS
1. Not as easy to light as standard briquettes.
2. It's burn profile is different from what most are used to and will necessitate a learning curve
3. Ash produced: to quote Chernobyl "Not great but not terrible", I'm stretching a bit here to say this is truly a con as it's no worse than KBB. But if this is a big factor for you such as BGE owners, then it's certainly not better than lump.
Picture of the Basket:
Fireboard Results:
1 - put the lid on
2 - foiled the rebar & large dip is adding the meat
3 - me opening the lid
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I'll also add my initial test for comparisons sake:
Test 1:Bedded the basket with char-logs with a 2nd layer of char-logs around the edgesAdded 40 lit KBB briquettesAllowed to go for 6 minutes with the lid off and rods inImmediately added two racks of baby backsThis test I struggled to keep the temps down and when I had taken the ribs off the temps were sitting at 425F after 6.5 hours.
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Last week I was at Sam's Club and came across a prime brisket, point only, that looked beautiful. Where I live in Arizona, I see lots of packers, some flats, but rarely a lone point. You have to wonder where all those points that were on the flats go. Probably some other lucky state.
Day before the cook, I dry brined the brisket with Kosher Salt and injected it with KosmosQ Reserve Brisket Injection and Moisture Magic. This point was tender even at that stage.
About 0900 on cook day, I rubbed the point with KosmosQ Dirty Bird Hot and Texas Beef. (This is not a KosmosQ ad, I just really like the man and the stuff he makes.)
Charcoal basket was made up of Fogo lump laid on 2 small chunks of pecan wood and 1 small chunk of cherry, with some KBB laid on top. Small PBC chimney was filled to the top with previously used KBB and lump salvaged from previous cooks on the PBC and the PK-360.
Lit the chimney and then installed the Pit Viper fan and turned on the Cyber Cloud which connected via Wi-Fi to the ShareMyCook app running on my computer. Cyber Cloud control pit temp was set to 300° so the fan started running during the charcoal chimney lighting process. Dumped the chimney, put the rebars in and put the lid on, and waited 20 minutes for pit temp to stabilize. Fogo lights a lot slower then PBB. I did not use the 20 minutes lighting process with the lid off because that tends to sky the temperature and I've found it's a lot easier to build the temp up than to try to bring it down.
At 1015 put the brisket point, fat cap down on the grill grate in the 290° PBC.
Rotated grill grate 90° every 30 minutes.
At 1230 internal temp was 160° and color looked great. Pulled and wrapped the brisket in foil with a mixture of the leftover injection liquid, KosmosQ Brisket Mop and half a bottle of Stella Artois which I hadn't yet managed to swallow, put the foil package in a disposable aluminum pan, and returned it to the grate. (And no, this isn't an ad for Stella Artois either.}
At 1420 internal temp reached 203°. Pulled the foiled brisket, wrapped it and the pan in a beach towel and put it all to rest in a cooler for 2 hours.
Outcome: tender, juicy and delicious.
My Thai wife who doesn't particularly care for beef (if you've ever eaten Thai beef, you know why), said it was very good (high praise indeed), and our dinner guests ate till they were stuffed.
Cook time 4 hours + 2 hours rest = 6 hours total. When I took the meat off, I plugged the BBQ Guru intake adapter with its silicone plug, and this morning when I lifted out the charcoal basket there was enough charcoal left for me to do chicken on the PK-360 tonight.
The last three cooks I've done on the PBC with BBQ Guru controller and fan setup, SLR, Tri-Tip, and this brisket, have been stress free for me, and the controller has turned the PBC into a kind of RecTec smoker but using charcoal instead of pellets.
First slice.
The blips in Pit Temp are from me rotating the grill, and the big food excursion was when I took it off to wrap it.
Last edited by AZ Fogey; August 27, 2019, 01:48 PM.Comment
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