Saw something new at Homies this morning.
At first glance I thought it was just another bargain brand charcoal but upon further inspection it’s something quite a bit different.
14# for $10. I Bought a bag to try. The bag says it can be used like briquettes for grilling, or used like chunks for smoking.
Of course, it burns cleaner and hotter ( don’t they all?) because compressed white oak is the only ingredient. 🤷🏼♂️
Plan to try it for grilling sometime in the next few days
Large Big Green Egg, Weber Performer Deluxe, Weber Smokey Joe Silver, Fireboard Drive, 3 DigiQs, lots of Thermapens, and too much other stuff to mention.
It isn’t clear on how it is used for low and slow; the bag and the website says to use it in place of wood chunks, but if it also burns like briquettes it seems like it could be the heat source as well?
The only reviews I found were through Home Depot, and one user says he used Flex as heat source to smoke an Australian Wagyu tomahawk. Otherwise, for grilling they’re all positive, except for a one-star user who seemed confused, based on what he wrote.
Next time I’m buying fuel, I’ll pick up a bag and give it a go.
Retired, living in Western Mass. Enjoy music, cooking and my family.
Current cookers Weber Spirit 3 burner with a full insert griddle added. A 22" Kettle with vortex, SnS and a Smokey Joe. The most recent addition is a Pit Barrel Jr with bird hanger, 4 hooks and cover. ThermoWorks Smoke 2 probe, DOT, 2 ThermoPops and a Thermapen MK4. A Thermoworks RFX Gateway 2 probe meat thermometer.
OK. I tried these yesterday on a quick cook of a couple of Italian sausages..
I had found a demo video on YouTube that I watched and used somewhat as a template for my test run.
Just out of curiosity, the first thing i did was dump the contents of the bag. There were 47 pieces that made up the 14 lbs in the bag. All were fully intact ( no breakage at all). Almost no dust in the bag either.
short cook, so I loaded 8 pieces into my chimney (1/4 full). I used 2 tumbleweeds to light it. There was almost no smoke at light up, and it qas pretty amazing how fast they took off.
this is 2 minutes after lighting. the package noted to allow a good 20 minutes for the briqs to be ready so that is what I did.
This is at the 10 minute mark
And 15 minutes
I dumped them into the SnS at the 20 minute mark
Once I dumped them in, I put the lid on with the vents wide open.
man, did it start smoking like a locomotive at that point..revealed all the places that my kettle leaks..lol.
that lasted about 10 minutes before the smoke completely died out.
at that poit, I pulled this thing out and took a few temps.. temps were a 750ish average of several readings. I put the sausage on and closed the lid. After a few minutes the dome temp read a solid 400.
It took about 15 minutes to cook the sausage to a 165 IT. When I took the sausage off, I took a few more temp readings. Charcoal was holding at 595ish with what looked to be plenty of life left..
More experiments need to be done with a larger number of briqs, and maybe a longer cook.
Based on how just 8 pcs blazed in my chimney, I can't imagine firing up a full chimney.
I may try an open fire cook next time, as this seems we'll suited to that application.
Fire away with questions as I'm sure I probably left some details out.
I had taken some videos during the lighting process, but it won't let me load them as mp4..
edit to add this photo of the little bit of ash that was left
Murdy
More smoke than I would normally see from other briquettes in a grilling situation.
Usually when light a chimney for grilling, and am not adding it to unlit charcoal, I don't usually get much smoke. What I saw in this case (10 minutes of gray smoke) is a more common thing when adding hot coals to unlit coals at the beginning of a long cook before getting temps to settle...in my experience, anyway
Scotch: Current favorite- The Arran (anything by them), Glenmorangie 12yr Lasanta, sherry cask finished. The Balvenie Double Wood, also like Oban 18yr, and The Glenlivet Nadurra (Oloroso sherry cask finished) among others. Neat please.
About meReal name: Aaron
Location: Farwell, Michigan - near Clare (dead center of lower peninsula).
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So they're essentially large oak 'pellets' in biscuit form? I am tempted to trust that brand and your tests make it look promising. I might grab some if I see them as well. I suspect if the pellet thing is the case they won't be as flavorful as we expect from charcoal on a long smoke, not that it's a bad thing necessarily. They may also be handy in bonfires to keep 'em going nice & hot FireMan. Time to play!
That's probably a really good comparison. I've never eaten anything cooked on a pellet grill, but the sausages didn't really have a noticeable charcoal flavor to them. I think if I hadn't put the lid on, the briqs would have continued to flame, and would be good for open fire cooking..
This is very interesting. Similar to UncleSpike I am wondering about using these for gravity feed. Other experiments with briquettes in that setting have produced way too much ash, so normally I use JD lump.
If anyone gets a sense how the ash from these compares to normal briquettes, that would be very useful to hear about!
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