Just wondering if anyone has had experience with smaller charcoal loads in the PBC. I recently did a pork shoulder sous vide for 18 hours and a finish smoke that needed 275 - 300 degrees for 1-/2 - 2 hours. Knowing that 275 - 300 degrees is the defacto sweet spot on the PBC I was tempted to go that way but was reluctant to blow through the standard charcoal load for a two hour max cook so tweaked my Weber SNS to 280 to get it done with much less charcoal. I did consider going with just a fully lit chimney of 40 in the PBC but decided this wasn't the time to experiment. Would this have been sufficient on the PBC for a predictable result?
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Alternate PBC Charcoal Load for Shorter Cooks
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Club Member
- Dec 2018
- 3188
- Texas Gulf Coast
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Grills:
Weber 22" Kettle Premium w/Slow N' Sear 2.0
Pit Barrel Cooker
Grilla Grills Chimp
W.C. Bradley & Co. Char Kettle CK-115 ~1980s Vintage Grill (inactive)
I have been slowly and haphazardly playing with this myself. I've done half an initial basket followed by a fully PBC chimney; that is instead of filling basket up full, I fill it up half or a bit more than half and then remove the 40 coals for the chimney.
I have yet to try just 40 coals, but I've been itching to do some salmon (a really short cook), so I might try it then.
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I have tried full, half, and about a quarter basket. When using half or less I cut the number in the chimney to 25 or 30 coals. I found that temps did not seem to be reduced much, perhaps somewhat. A quarter or perhaps a third basket gave me a 2.5 to 3.5 cook time. Great for shorter cooks. You can always add more hot coals a half hr in if its not hot enough or you see you will be short of fire.
EDITED TO ADD: The above references 2.5 to 3.5 failed to indicate that to be hours of time.Last edited by Alabama Smoke; September 7, 2020, 10:57 AM.
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Originally posted by cgrover60 View PostJust wondering if anyone has had experience with smaller charcoal loads in the PBC. I recently did a pork shoulder sous vide for 18 hours and a finish smoke that needed 275 - 300 degrees for 1-/2 - 2 hours. Knowing that 275 - 300 degrees is the defacto sweet spot on the PBC I was tempted to go that way but was reluctant to blow through the standard charcoal load for a two hour max cook so tweaked my Weber SNS to 280 to get it done with much less charcoal. I did consider going with just a fully lit chimney of 40 in the PBC but decided this wasn't the time to experiment. Would this have been sufficient on the PBC for a predictable result?
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Yes all the time. I always start with 40 coals in the chimney and vary what I have in the basket based on length of cook.
no coals in basket - very short cooks like steak or chicken pieces
1/2 basket - wings, sous vide brisket/pork when you need 2-3 hrs of smoke time, half chickens
full basket - full low and slow cooks of >5-6 hrs.
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Brewmaster that is about what I expected. I noticed little difference in temps either, but did of course notice a difference in time before the coals burned out.
BFlynn noticed a difference in temp when he used fewer in chimney. Makes sense, at least early on in the cook as fewer hot coals would take longer to light the cold coals, etc.Last edited by Alabama Smoke; September 8, 2020, 02:52 PM.
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This is a great discussion since no where else could I find any information other than following the full basket method. Unfortunately for me, I have a hard time eye-balling 1/2 basket or 1/4 basket of 5/16 basket or whatever, and I don't always have the patience to count out my coals.
I wanted to do cedar plank salmon yesterday so I tried filling up a regular size Weber chimney to the top, took enough coals out of that to fill up about 3/4 of the PBC chimney (did eye-ball that but didn't count out how many coals that made) and dumped the rest into the basket, in the center, so there were actually no coals touching the sides of the basket.
The temperature ran pretty much as it usually does in a PBC (265 to 275 degrees for the 30 minutes it took). I thought it might run hotter since I had no rebars in place (but it did shoot up to 290 after the cook since I had the top off while taking pictures and removing the salmon and the corn on the cob I cooked at the same time).
The bottom line is that after 30 minutes it was maintaining temperature and there were still a few unlit charcoals in the basket. Oh, and the salmon was great.
Just thought I would toss this out there since I didn't see any methods mentioned besides eye-balling and counting.Last edited by MarkN; September 12, 2021, 09:50 AM. Reason: Changed from "smoked" salmon to "cedar Plank" to be more precise.
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I have never counted or measured. I have a 10 gallon galvanized can that the PBJ basket fits in. I may load basket with different things. Sometimes I use lump and sometimes charcoal. I always throw in a few pecan or apple chunks. If I am doing hot and fast, I raise the basket by placing a cinder block in form of a "T" and leave the vent wide open with no rebar. Basket goes in can to snuff out fire. Last cook, I put the basket in my crawfish burner (180k btu gas burner) to get it lit.
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Club Member
- Dec 2018
- 3188
- Texas Gulf Coast
-
Grills:
Weber 22" Kettle Premium w/Slow N' Sear 2.0
Pit Barrel Cooker
Grilla Grills Chimp
W.C. Bradley & Co. Char Kettle CK-115 ~1980s Vintage Grill (inactive)
Huskee did this wonderful tutorial a few years ago with some excellent pictures on how to estimate the number of coals in a chimney: https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...ties-pictorial
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Originally posted by MarkN View PostThis is a great discussion since no where else could I find any information other than following the full basket method. Unfortunately for me, I have a hard time eye-balling 1/2 basket or 1/4 basket of 5/16 basket or whatever, and I don't always have the patience to count out my coals. [...] Just thought I would toss this out there since I didn't see any methods mentioned besides eye-balling and counting.
Each Kingsford briquette weighs 25 grams, so there are 18 per pound. In a regular cook, I generally ballpark a pound per hour, plus a pound -- so, 5 pounds for a 4 hour cook, approximately (a bit more if it's cold or windy). 5 pounds is 90 briquettes, but if you use the chimney as a measuring cup you don't have to count each time.
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