There's been a lot of chatter about this product around the BBQ forums, especially since it's on sale until the end of January for around $1/lb. I used it for my overnight brisket cook.
Everything I've read about this charcoal was confirmed by my use of it.
For the cook, I used a Large BGE. Outside temp was 37* at the start of the cook, and around 50* at the end of the cook 12 hours later. There was a light rain most of the time.
I loaded up the Egg to about halfway up the fire ring, using about 60% of the box of charcoal: about 6lbs. Using 3 paraffin cubes, the coals lit very quickly.
Once lit, there was NO period of gray or white smoke: this stuff burns clean right from the get-go. Seriously, it is pretty much all heat.
I set up the DigiQ and the Maverick. Temp stabilized quickly at 225*, I put the meat on and went to bed. Checking the Maverick at 3AM and 5AM, temps were still stable in the 220-235 range.
7AM the temp was falling, and that persisted for the next hour so I went out to check the coals. And at that point, a little after 8AM, they were pretty close to all burnt out. There was nowhere near enough charcoal to get the brisket from 170 to 200. So I dumped about 2lbs more in, waited about 5 minutes for them to fire up, and finished off the cook.
Good: No bad smoke. This stuff is well carbonized, and very clean.
Bad: It burns quickly, very quickly. I've done overnight cooks in cold weather before, and never had to do a reload.
This is exactly the same as what others have reported. On one hand, there's no waiting for the fire to heat up and even out. On the other hand, you have to use more coal per hour, and forget about getting 20 hours out of it. I put about twice as much fuel in the BGE as I normally would have for a brisket, based on what I'd read, and I still had to do a reload.
So, use it for steaks, and for ribs, and chicken, and fish. Avoid it for pork butts and briskets.
Everything I've read about this charcoal was confirmed by my use of it.
For the cook, I used a Large BGE. Outside temp was 37* at the start of the cook, and around 50* at the end of the cook 12 hours later. There was a light rain most of the time.
I loaded up the Egg to about halfway up the fire ring, using about 60% of the box of charcoal: about 6lbs. Using 3 paraffin cubes, the coals lit very quickly.
Once lit, there was NO period of gray or white smoke: this stuff burns clean right from the get-go. Seriously, it is pretty much all heat.
I set up the DigiQ and the Maverick. Temp stabilized quickly at 225*, I put the meat on and went to bed. Checking the Maverick at 3AM and 5AM, temps were still stable in the 220-235 range.
7AM the temp was falling, and that persisted for the next hour so I went out to check the coals. And at that point, a little after 8AM, they were pretty close to all burnt out. There was nowhere near enough charcoal to get the brisket from 170 to 200. So I dumped about 2lbs more in, waited about 5 minutes for them to fire up, and finished off the cook.
Good: No bad smoke. This stuff is well carbonized, and very clean.
Bad: It burns quickly, very quickly. I've done overnight cooks in cold weather before, and never had to do a reload.
This is exactly the same as what others have reported. On one hand, there's no waiting for the fire to heat up and even out. On the other hand, you have to use more coal per hour, and forget about getting 20 hours out of it. I put about twice as much fuel in the BGE as I normally would have for a brisket, based on what I'd read, and I still had to do a reload.
So, use it for steaks, and for ribs, and chicken, and fish. Avoid it for pork butts and briskets.
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