Ammonia smell from lump charcoal?

[Paul Morrison]

So this is a first for me after 3+ years of owning a big green egg. I started the lump, as normal, and everything seemed fine. Let the temp stabilize to 225 and went to add the meat and that is when I noticed the ammonia smell for the first time. I held the meat back for about 30 minutes and checked it again. At that point I couldn't really pick up the smell. Finished the meal, the short ribs turned out great and no problem. Since I wanted to clean the egg, I cranked the heat up to about 600-650 and once again the ammonia smell was really noticeable.

I searched this site and couldn't find much. A google search turned up others indicating similar problems. Some of this appears to be related to humidity in the lump. If that is true, what is the best way to store lump in areas with humidity? Granted this is our first really humid summer since we have been in OKC and I'm looking for any suggestions.

[jbeck1986]

I have ran into this with standard kingsford blue with my Webber kettle and had no idea what the heck the smell was or why. I just assumed it had something to do with the pork butt I was cooking and the amount of humidity from me spraying the coals with water after the temp spiked

[jbeck1986]

I was cooking a brisket today and used my water bottle sprayer to cool things down. When directly spraying the hot coals it produced the smell when it wasn't there before.

[DanielMelancon]

Ammonia is a neat chemical. Your nose can detect it at less than 3 parts per million.

I don't know specific numbers, but there is a bit of organic nitrogen in your charcoal. When burned, this will generally turn into nitrogen oxides. Also, some nitrogen from your combustion air is converted to nitrous oxides. There is a good article on this site about the smoke ring that had some good info.

Now, how is ammonia being generated? I can think of 1 possible reason.

By by adding the water you're cooling it down enough that the organic nitrogen isn't fully combusting into nitrous oxides. The organic nitrogen is probably in an amine (protein kinda) form. The charcoal is still hot enough to decompose the amine, but not hot enough to burn the released gasses. Since the amine will release ammonia and your nose can detect it at such a low level, voila.

We see ammonia emissions from coal boilers all the time due to cold spots in the combustion bed.

[Breadhead]

Welcome to the Pit DanielMelancon ... I think you're correct on your comment.

[Paul Morrison]

Well it is good to know I wasn't imagining anything! Thanks for the detailed response. This was the end of a very large bad and I never smelled anything using the previous lump.

[Meathead]

As I discuss in my article on charcoal, I don't trust lump. I often suspect it has treated lumber in it.

[Paul Morrison]

I may have had some American lump, but most of it was the big tree limb sized stuff from South America.