B&B First Impression

[phoccer]

Did a short salmon cook last night and used B&B char logs along with briquettes. As others have mentioned, the B&B take FOREVER to light and get going in my experience. I do love how long a little bit of that charcoal lasts though. I lit 8-10 briquettes and a char log in a PBC starter chimney. They took about 45 minutes to get fully ashed over and ready to dump in the SnS in my Weber. In the SnS I had another 6 char logs along one side of the SnS. I poured the lit coals in and it still took a while for the Weber to come up to 225. The salmon cooked for a little under an hour and the remaining coals were still putting out good heat 4 hours after the salmon cook was done.
I’m not a fan of how long B&B seems to take to get going so I think what I‘ll do in the future is keep a bag of Kingsford Pro around and use those in the chimney to get things going and pour them on top of the B&B for long cooks. Most likely I’ll stick with Kingsford Pro for any cooks under 4 hours.

[jlazar]

Here is an example of my Chubby G2 loaded with char-logs for a low and slow cook. I was up to temp in less than 20 minutes.


A picture of the nice smoke coming out.

[Attjack]

I usually buy B&B lump and have zero complaints. But most recently I tried the Rockwood lump since it was on sale but it was still $1 more than the B&B. I'll go back to B&B when that Rockwood is gone.

[phoccer]

One last run with B&B briquettes and char logs. Lit 8 briquettes in the small chimney starter and they didn't take too long to get ashed over. Dumped them on top of about 8 char logs lying flat in the basket of my PBJr. Going on an hour now from the start of lighting the briquettes and I'm at 150 and slooooooooooooooowly climbing. These char logs may last a long time but they may take the same amount of time just to get up to temp.

[kelton]

I have had nothing but a fight recently with B&B. I know I don’t have the best Kamado, but this last cook just to keep the fire going and at 246 I have to have my intake halfway open. I had always used royal oak prior to these last two bags and probably going to switch back. It may just be my kamado, but I am not sure.

Yeah because those briquettes are so huge, they don't operate like KBB at all. I once put some in my slow n sear and let me tell you the chicken I was cooking got done so fast i almost burned it. They really take some getting use too.

[Jerod Broussard]

This was after 12 hours. I probably had a good 3 hours left. I ran 225 to 230 until the last couple hours, things ran 250 to 270 cuz I kept opening the lid to check things. It was ridiculously humid last night.

[jfmorris]

My most recent cook on the kettle was with B&B Oak lump, and I was very impressed with the ease of lighting in a chimney on the Performer. I then dumped it on top of some additional unlit charcoal on the grate of the kettle, and dropped the grate and Grillgrate set onto the Performer, and cooked potatoes, 4 split chickens, and 3 boneless breasts over the nexts hour or so. The kettle was still going strong when I killed the fire about 90 minutes later. For direct cooking, I liked the lump, and I will try it in the SnS next, but worry that the irregular sizes and shapes of the lump won't work as well as briquettes.

I've yet to buy the B&B briquettes, but see from others that they are larger than most brands. I've still got a good amount of the Char-logs leftover from Thanksgiving, and those did well for running my offset along with wood chunks.

[Jerod Broussard]

Do you feed the Char logs into the offset Firebox or do you just pile them up in there?

[jfmorris]

Jerod Broussard I used them only on Thanksgiving day, and not since, to smoke a couple of turkeys, but as I recall, I piled them in there, and lit about a half chimney of them, and let it burn across the firebox just like I would in the SnS with briquettes on my kettle. Threw some wood chunks on top. I think I didn't start with enough lit, as it took a while to get up to 325-350, to crisp the turkey skin.

[Jerod Broussard]

The B & B briquets aka little char-logs take a good bit to light compared to KBB. So sometimes it's not a matter of how many but rather ""how lit." But yeah, probably a bit more than that for turkey temps.

[phoccer]

Picked up some Kingsford Pro yesterday and I think I’ve found a combination I like. I put 20 of the KP in the PBC starter chimney and let them go for 15 minutes. I put a single layer of B&B Char Logs across the bottom of the charcoal basket. Poured the KP on top when ready and let it go for another 10 minutes. This was doing steaks in a drizzle and I left the rebar out and lid ever so slightly off center. My Jr ran around 320-350 and we enjoyed some delicious filet for a family dinner. I thought I might like this combination because the KP light easily, get really hot, and the char logs seem to last a long time. That combination kept going in the barrel for about 4.5 hours. I had to leave it out overnight to cool down. I’ll be curious to see what happens if I have two layers of the char logs for a long cook and dump KP on top.

[kelton]

I had trouble too, AverageJoe , keeping the temp up in my PBC with my first long cook with B&B briquettes. Ended up keeping the lid cracked for most of the cook. I thought it was just me, or the briquette vs. lump effect, but since you used lump and had the same experience, I'm questioning whether to use up the rest of the B&B bags for long cooks or go back to Weber or KBB.

I do like the way that there is little if any white smoke. Nice blue smoke right away.

The B&B briquettes and lump have worked OK in my WSCGC, kamado mode, though, but not as steady in temp as KBB or Weber. In kamado mode, the B&B tended to run hotter than the other brands.

Kathryn

Hey Kathryn, I tried responding to your post to me and ended up deleting the whole thing but I read it. Yeah I agree B&B does take a while to heat up and so does Weber. Since you already own a smaller chimney the only thing that I can think of as to why you may be losing heat is maybe there needs to be more charcoal in the PBC basket. I fill mine way up because I noticed that when I was transferring the charcoal to the chimney that I didn't have a whole lot in there ( I could see the bottom of it after just removing one briquette), the briquettes are so big that I don't think it adds up to the same amount as KBB.

I thought I remembered reading that the PBC was designed for KBB charcoal so I'm thinking that there maybe a curve to trying to get the equivalent. But if that doesn't work, then theres nothing wrong with KBB just go with what works.

[fzxdoc]

Good thoughts, kelton. I always fill the basket to the top and add a chimney of 42 burning KBB coals after a good 15 minute burn-in. This results in an overfull basket for every long cook with B&B or Weber briquettes. So I don't think that's the problem with B&B. Perhaps I just got a dud bag. I store all my charcoal in sealed Rubbermaid containers in my garage. The other charcoal, including Weber, works fine, but B&B does not play well, so far, in my PBC.

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

The burning 42 KBB coals in the chimney is a nod to Douglas Adams.

K.

[Jerod Broussard]

fzxdoc With a PBC I filled the basket with B & B but I used KBB to light it and deposit on top. Without B & B I would have been miserable cooking 4 briskets in the PBC.

[fzxdoc]

I do exactly the same thing, Jerod. I can't get B&B to light in a timely manner all by itself. A chimney full of KBB does the trick.

Kathryn

[kelton]

wow that's inventive I would have never thought of that.

[kelton]

fzxdoc With a PBC I filled the basket with B & B but I used KBB to light it and deposit on top. Without B & B I would have been miserable cooking 4 briskets in the PBC.

Dang I have a PBC and I've never thought of trying to cook 4 briskets in it. How'd they turn out?

[Jerod Broussard]

Good. It's definitely some work because I only leave them hanging 5 1/2 to 6 hours. Then I go to the grate stacking them 2 x 2 using an extra grate. I then rotate them around to get all the bark I can before they get the 203-ish.

[jfmorris]

Ok, my last cook on the kettle was a bunch of chicken 5 days ago, and I lit a chimney of B&B lump, along with a little leftover Weber charcoal that was in the SnS, and added it on top of about a half chimney of unlit B&B lump in the kettle, and direct cooked chicken for about 90 minutes total using Grillgrates, with all vents wide open.

Today when I prepped the grill for today's indirect SnS cook of Char Siu ribs, I was shocked that I was able to collect a FULL chimney of charcoal out of the kettle, using my charcoal scoop. That went back into the SnS for today's cook, after I lit a few chunks in the corner of the SnS and let them burn for 15-20 minutes.

This will be my first SnS cook with the B&B lump, and I will report back on how well it works out. Right now I am just blown away at how much charcoal was still left and usable after a 90 minute direct cook last weekend.

[jfmorris]

As a followup, I did a rib cook using mostly leftover B&B lump, for 3+ hours, and STILL have a good amount of leftover charcoal. Still impressed with the B&B lump's performance!

[Craigar]

I find myself using lump almost exclusively these days. The only exception is the Char-Logs for the long cooks.

[jfmorris]

Craigar I've only used the char-logs in my offset, and they worked well there to do the Thanksgiving turkeys. I'll probably reserve the rest of the bag for that cooker, as they seem big to go in the SnS.

[jfmorris]

Ok folks, I promised an update after a true low and slow long cook on the kettle with B&B lump, and I did that last night, so here we go.

I started up a little pile of lump in the corner of the SnS with a starter cube, then filled in the rest of the SnS with lump once that was fully lit, and spaced out a few chunks of hickory across the top, and dropped a butt on around 9pm, to smoke overnight, with the PartyQ to control the fire (set to 225F) and the Smoke to monitor things.

I woke up around 6:50AM to find that the Smoke Gateway battery had died, and my iPhone did not alert me when the pit temp dropped below 200F. I went out to find the fire down to about 170F, with the butt at an IT of 178F. So we were safe, but just a few chunks of charcoal were still burning. So, I raked it all to one side and added more. 20 minutes later we were back to 225. So, all was well.

So, if I had to guess, I needed to refuel around 5am. That gives me a burn time on a SnS full of lump of about 9-10 hours from the time I lit the initial charcoal. Not bad. Aside from that, the other thing that I noticed was that there were many periods during which the PartyQ did not have to run, as the temp would jump up above 225, and would often be up to 240-250. Eventually I shut the top vent down from 1/2 open to 1/3 open, and that seemed to help with this. I have to think this is caused by the uneven sizes of the pieces of lump - there were some large hunks in there, that I am sure when ignited, bumped the temp up, plus bridged the fire to more additional charcoal than if using briquettes.

Right now, comparing other charcoals I have used, I am seeing cook times on a single load in the SnS of the following:

Weber Briquettes - 12+ hours
B&B Lump - 9-10 hours
Kingsford Original (KBB) - 7-8 hours
Royal Oak Briquettes - 5-6 hours

I feel I need to get some B&B briquettes at some point to compare, but the lump has been good so far for direct grilling, and I think will be good with the SnS once I learn to adjust vent settings a little down from what I am used to.

[fzxdoc]

Nice report, jfmorris . Thanks! There's a lot of good info there, especially burn times for a full SnS.

I still have some B&B Lump to use up. The fluctuation in temp that you report is what I saw in my PBC, although for it was always trending down. I still prefer the steadier temps I get with KBB in my SnS and PBC. I save the lump for kamado mode in my WSCGC.

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

Yes, I think that the uniform size of about any briquette will result in steadier temperatures than lump, with its large variance in size and shape of the pieces.

One thing that probably helped me not see falling temps until the SnS was almost empty was the fact I was using a temp controller - the PartyQ - it was doing its best to keep things going by running the fan full blast when I woke up yesterday at 6:50AM to find that I missed a low temp alarm on the pit due to dead batteries...

[jfmorris]

(Cont'd)

Unlike most cooks with briquettes, I found that the PartyQ had long periods where it was not running at all, due to the temp spiking above the set point. With briquettes, the PartyQ usually chugs along doing little puffs of air with the fan every few seconds.