Just made my own pellet charcoal

keithd · Jun 27, 2012

It worked out great.

I followed the instructions from this thread: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/111962/making-charcoal-pellets-to-help-light-your-amnps

I bought a 1 quart paint can from a Do It Best hardware store and drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the center. There is a lining, so if you're concerned about it, make one batch, throw it away, and clean the can and press on. Also do it in a well ventilated area - my covered porch smells like a charcoal factory now.

Loaded it up with exactly 1.500 lbs of oak pellets which was enough to completely fill the quart can with no room to spare - I think this is the point so that there is as little free oxygen as possible.

Next I put it on my turkey fryer burner and lit it. I kept it to a semi-low flame and it started to steam/smoke right away. Following the thread, I watched for the steam & smoke to stop and the gas to start.

Once it started to gas out, I lit the gas. The idea here was to see when it would sustain a flame, then I knew it was in the middle of making charcoal.

When it started to die down I was about 10 minutes from done. At the end I could not keep the flame lit so I turned the burner off and jammed a pellet into the hole to keep oxygen out while it cooled off.

In the kitchen for more cooling...

Unlike billebuoy my charcoal weighed at 8.40 oz (0.15 for the bags). This may have been that I used oak stove pellets for this attempt. Sometime soon I think I'll try hickory from Todd and see if that makes a difference.

Here's the results. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes, but I kept my burner low. The charcoal is very light compared to the original wood like I'd expect, and I went from 1.5 pounds to 8.4 oz, nearly a 66% reduction. There was a bit of dust and tar inside the can, but not a huge amount. I will try the charcoal tomorrow to see if it makes a difference in lighting the AMNPS - I know billebuoy has had good results, but I want to see if I can duplicate his success.

My ultimate goal is to fill one entire row with this to hopefully make a smoke ring when smoking brisket on my MES 40. That's the biggest issue with the MES - I get perfectly done meat, but no eye-pleasing ring. I figure I could get 6-8 rows out of this one batch.

ironhorse07 · Jun 27, 2012

Interesting idea. Something else to try when looking for something to do with fire. Have you tried layering them on top of the regular pellets? Sort of a pellet minnion method. Or would it matter? Just thinking out loud.

keithd · Jun 27, 2012

A bit of a follow-up -

Loaded a small amount of charcoal pellets. High at the start, tapering down. Loaded oak pellets on top of that.

Here's the kicker - the oak pellets had been sitting outside uncovered for a week and I did not microwave them before like I usually do. Probably a huge amount of moisture in them.

Lighting the charcoal. These lit REALLY easily. Hold the torch for about 4-5 seconds, then blow on them to get a good cherry going.

Here's the cherry. Once that's going, it's all automatic from there.

Jasmine, my brewdog/smokedog and her tennis ball - the only toy she has not utterly destroyed.

And the money shot - the oak pellets are lit and happily making smoke. Normally I'd have to microwave the pellets for two minutes and then keep a flame going on them for 7-10 minutes, otherwise they would not sustain a smoke. It's been an hour since I took that pic and they're still going. I guess billiebuoy's theory was right - a good bed of hot, glowing coals is what's necessary to get things started.

Great Success!

chef jimmyj · Jun 27, 2012

Ironhorse07 said:
Interesting idea. Something else to try when looking for something to do with fire. Have you tried layering them on top of the regular pellets? Sort of a pellet minnion method. Or would it matter? Just thinking out loud.

Todd posted somewhere that for the best result you want a Base of pellets burning well with the unlit pellets on top to make the smoke. I have been getting my AMNPS going well then pushing a few unlit pellets on top of the glowing pellets and she takes off without issue...JJ

keithd · Jun 27, 2012

Chef JJ -

Funny that - that is exactly what I saw when the charcoal pellets had finally all been consumed - the red glowing coals were on bottom and the unburned pellets were on top. But I think Ironhorse07 was getting at a way to make a smoke ring with an electric smoker and an AMNPS, maybe letting some of the charcoal be on top might help?

Tell ya'll what. I am making brisket for a party this saturday, and I will load up at least a half row with just charcoal pellets - maybe two half rows and light both ends like I usually do. I will post up whether it works or not and if we get any kind of a smoke ring. I used to easily get a beautiful ring from my crappy Brinkmann offset smoker burning lump charcoal and wood sticks, so it's darn frustrating to not be able to duplicate that.

chef jimmyj · Jun 28, 2012

It will be interesting to see if it works. Only problem I see is there may not be enough Charcoal burning at any given time to generate sufficient Nitrogen Dioxide to make the smoke ring. Both the regular pellets and carbonized pellets generate the gas but there is just not enough pellets burning. Lighting both ends as you mentioned will help along with smoking very cold meat and smoking as close to 225*F as possible giving maximum contact time before the myoglobin protein denatures and will no longer react with the NO2. Have you tried the 1 or 2 Charcoal Briquettes in the Chip Tray trick that is supposed to work?...JJ

keithd · Jun 28, 2012

No, I haven't tried using briquettes yet. Soon, though.

ironhorse07 · Jun 28, 2012

keithd said:
Chef JJ -

Funny that - that is exactly what I saw when the charcoal pellets had finally all been consumed - the red glowing coals were on bottom and the unburned pellets were on top. But I think Ironhorse07 was getting at a way to make a smoke ring with an electric smoker and an AMNPS, maybe letting some of the charcoal be on top might help?

Tell ya'll what. I am making brisket for a party this saturday, and I will load up at least a half row with just charcoal pellets - maybe two half rows and light both ends like I usually do. I will post up whether it works or not and if we get any kind of a smoke ring. I used to easily get a beautiful ring from my crappy Brinkmann offset smoker burning lump charcoal and wood sticks, so it's darn frustrating to not be able to duplicate that.

Yeah that's what I was wondering is about enough for a smoke ring in an electric. Interesting experiment.

ironhorse07 · Jun 28, 2012

Chef JimmyJ said:
It will be interesting to see if it works. Only problem I see is there may not be enough Charcoal burning at any given time to generate sufficient Nitrogen Dioxide to make the smoke ring. Both the regular pellets and carbonized pellets generate the gas but there is just not enough pellets burning. Lighting both ends as you mentioned will help along with smoking very cold meat and smoking as close to 225*F as possible giving maximum contact time before the myoglobin protein denatures and will no longer react with the NO2. Have you tried the 1 or 2 Charcoal Briquettes in the Chip Tray trick that is supposed to work?...JJ

That would be way to easy

. I wonder about this in the AMZNTS?

tjohnson · Jun 28, 2012

Those charcoal pellets are working great!

I hooked up with a MFG and stock charcoal pellets

70% Charcoal and 30% Oak in the pellets

They burn up pretty quick

Did not notice a significant smoke ring, but wasn't looking for it either

Todd

keithd · Jun 30, 2012

Update -

I put two half-rows of charcoal, then added oak pellets to fill up the AMNPS.

It lit fairly easily, but at the end of the charcoal burn it jumped a row into the center and is now smoking from 4 spots. I think that the charcoal may have burned a bit too hot, and when the two charcoal rows on the sides "overlapped" the heat was too much and lit the center. Temp on the MES 40 is 220F. I may have to reload the AMNPS soon as it's burning up the pellets really fast.

Too early of course to tell if there's any smoke ring.

keithd · Jul 2, 2012

Final update.

Brisket turned out really, really well. I think I will only take it to 165 in the water oven from now on - it was much better than when I took it to 174 before throwing it on the smoker.

But alas, no smoke ring at all. The homemade pellets started the AMNPS well, but apparently wasn't enough for the ring. I will have to try some charcoal briquettes next time.

chef jimmyj · Jul 2, 2012

The concept was valid. Thanks for sharing the result...JJ

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Just made my own pellet charcoal

keithd

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ironhorse07

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keithd

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chef jimmyj

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keithd

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ironhorse07

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tjohnson

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keithd

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