I Have A Situation & A Question

[pit 4 brains]

Ok so I decided to try out the Minion method in my char-griller this morning. I took the old warming rack and cut in half with bolt cutters. I built me a little "box" in the side box and put in some lump mesquite charcoal. I tossed in a few hickory chips towards the middle in an attempt to add a little smoke. Now, here's the deal, I ran out of lump mesquite and put in some Kingsford lump hardwood. This stuff was as light as styrofoam and looked as if it was made from lumber cutt-offs. I never have used this and it came to me by accident. So I load up the rest of my basket and toss in some red hot kingsford lump out of my chimney. The temp came right up to 225 on the original thermo (which I have always used as a guage and have had good results) and stayed there. After two hours allof my fuel was burnt out and my temp was down! So I added some more of the kingsford and it too burned up right away. So I resorted to my firewood pile for the house and found a good chunk of split mesquite and tossesd it in there.
I have never bbqed with wood so now I need to know if I should have flame in the side box? If i close the damper the smoke goes brown and thick. With it open about 1/3, it turns to the nice blue smoke I like but I have flames around the log.
Second, has anyone ever used that kigsford junk with any luck. I usually get my mesquite lump from Smart and final and it comes from Mexico in a big brown bag. Good stuff.
If these ribs pan out, it looks like I may move to natural wood and leave the lump cc behind..

 

[alx]

Bump...........

 

[the dude abides]

I run a WSM so I can't speak for the method with your cooker. But I have used the Kingsford Charwood Lump a few times. My grocery store sells it so sometimes I'll grab it out of convenience when i don't have time to go get my regular lump. But I don't hate the stuff. It does burn faster and hotter than normal from what I've noticed. But overall, I didn't think it was awful.

Now do remember that when doing the Minion Method. You're creating a pile of unburned and pile of burned. So that as the burned touches the unburned, it creates a slow and even burn across the pile of unburned. I've found that in my cooker, I create a ring of unburned with wood chunks mixed in and leave the center open. Thats where I dump my chimney of lit lump.

I'd guess (SFB owners chime in here) that you'd want your pile of unlit (mixed with chunks) closest to the cooker and put the lit pile closest to the air intakes. That way as the air comes in it pulls the heat towards the unlit and does the slow even burn that way. But I would also think that you'll get some actual fire from time to time.

Hope that didn't make things more confusing.

 

[pit 4 brains]

That is exactly my old way of doing things. I make my initial fire by the damper and stack the lumps so they are just touching all the way to the other side. i have actually walked the fire back the other way while doing an over-night untrimmed brisket. This time I piled the coals in my expedient basket and I think the heat just combusted everything in the side box. I'm sure that the Kingsfors hardwood just burnt up in a matter of minutes. It was so light that I can't believe there were any BTU's left in it..
I just got back from a short quail hunt and the Q looks good with the mesquite logs. I just added one more small chunk to carry it until my target time of 1800. I think I'm going to practice with some more with raw wood now. Heck, spare ribs are cheap and hard to ruin..

No, i didn't bring home any quail.. been a dry season so the coveys are few and far between..

 

[smokebuzz]

I do something simalar to Jay when I use my WSM, but use mostly wood chuncks. With my Horizon,I just get a good fire going on 1 side of the fire box then start adding wood to as needed.

Yes you want fire/orange embers in there.
Do you have a baffel/heat deflector in your smoker?, It will help alot.

 

[pit 4 brains]

Yeah, I used some spanish roof tiles and some saltillo floor tiles to tune my Q. After burning the raw mesquite for a while I got it to what "looked good" (orange embers and a whif of flame) and ran the smoker at a good temp for hours. The ribs came out really sooty but I think that happened after I tossed in the mesquite and developed an orange / yellow carbonized flame and brown smoke.
Mesquite and pecan is easy to come by around here so I might pull up my pants and switch to natural wood and leave the lump cc behind..

 

[smokebuzz]

try smaller peices of wood, thats something i have to remember to do, not stooken the wood stove.

 

[pit 4 brains]

Yeah, I will definately use smaller logs for the Q. The wood I put in was big enough for my corner fire place.
After my ribs went to ruin, I put in enough of the Kingsford hardwood coal to run a 4-8-4 Northern across the country and it barely even got hot.
My advice; Don't bother with Kingsford "authentico" natural hardwood charcoal. It's not lump and it doesn't give you that fire you expect from lump mesquite anyway.

 

[smokebuzz]

ya, there is some lump/products that don't work for some but does for others. I don't use lump much anymore, but when I do it's either OiK or seven oaks.