The Minion Method Explained w/ Tutorial

[craigroller]

Thanks jrod

 

[craigroller]

What is a good brand of lump, and is cowboy not good ?

 

[Brackness]

Royal oak is a good one.. usually Wal-Mart has it.. even the Best Choice brand is pretty good.. used it several times with good results everytime..

 

[craigroller]

Thank guys for all the help.

 

[isosa]

Hey! i am one of those beginners that are going to benefit from this information. This is new to me.

Thank you!.

 

[leonidasmma]

I'm gonna have to try this!  it seems impossible to keep my temp consistent! I got an ECB...made a few mods but this looks like it will help alot!

 

[onewondershow]

thank you for the help, this was a very clear and concise description of how to do this I really leaned a lot.

 

[parman]

great info! In the firebox shown how high would you fill it with charcoal?
 

 

[dr k]

Dude,

Great information.  This is the only way to build a fire in my Kamado Kooker to smoke at 225* or I won't be able to keep it under 250*.  1/4 of my charcoal chimney filled and lit on the grate with unlit lump around it.  The chimney has a trap door bottom so I can just lift it to drop the coals on the grate. I make sure lit and unlit coals are touching with a few chunks of wood for smoking.  The bottom vent is closed and top is barely cracked.  I'm going to try your method on filling the offset just under the cooking chamber opening with the concave coal set up.  Since the offset is easy to quickly pitch in a chunk of wood as needed I was adding coal as needed as well and was having trouble keeping my offset at 225*.  It was mostly 185-200*.  Loading the fire box and regulating it with the fire box vent will solve that problem.

 

[bpopovitz]

Great information here.  Been on the forum for a few years, but havent posted in awhile. Recently bought the char-griller Kamado Acorn cooker and love it, I've had a gas grill and gas smoker for many years and gettin into scharcoal always kind of "scared me" since the gas was so easy I thought why change.  Well for me it was the challenge, the undiscovered country.  The minion method is perfect for the kamado.  Hopefully I'll have some Q-view coming up this weekend.

 

[wxmanmac]

When you mention the unlit charcoal on the non-food side, do you mean on the right hand side? How many charcoals, lit and unlit, did you use for about 3 hours of cooking?

 

[rhnewfie]

I found this worked well with my COS. I used a piece of expanded metal as a divider and then poured the lit coal into the open space.

image.jpg

• rhnewfie
• Jul 1, 2013

 

[cpfitness]

What do you guys do if you are doing a really long smoke I have a 10lb pork shoulder that I am anticipating taking 15 hours. Let's say I get really good lump charcoal and do everything perfect and get ideal temps for 10 hours, how should I go about getting the other few hours I need? Just light chimneys as needed?

 

[dcj438]

using charcoal briquettes with the minion method, will you not get the nasty chemical smoke taste flavor in the food? 

 

[remmy700p]

using charcoal briquettes with the minion method, will you not get the nasty chemical smoke taste flavor in the food? 

Not if you use briquets that do not have the "match-light" accelerants in them. Kingsford does not impregnate their Blue label nor their "Competition" label briquets with these chemicals.

 

[treeman75]

I have a WSM and have tried kingsford and stubs with the minion method and have got 12 hours of burn time but the meat has a bitter smoke taste. It seems like alot of smoke is coming from the charcoal and not the apple wood im using. I cant figure it out! Has anyone else had this problem? 

 

[remmy700p]

I have a WSM and have tried kingsford and stubs with the minion method and have got 12 hours of burn time but the meat has a bitter smoke taste. It seems like alot of smoke is coming from the charcoal and not the apple wood im using. I cant figure it out! Has anyone else had this problem? 

Bitterness can be caused by a lack of flow. How did you have the exhaust stack damper set?

 

[treeman75]

I always leave the top vent open.

 

[dburne]

What a great tutorial, many thanks!

The first time I did it, about a week ago, the coals lasted a long time.

Yesterday, I did it again - the temp shot up too hot at the start, and then the coals burned up very quickly. I had to keep adding coals for about every hour or so.

I also may have started with too many lit coals, I started with about a 3rd of my chimney starter loaded with coals.

The temp was a lot cooler outside, with pouring rain ( smoker was under a pop up canopy).

I used Kingsford Briquettes, next time I will pick up some lump and see how that does.

Again, many thanks for the tutorial!

Don

 

[hamature]

Great explanation on the minion method.  I had never heard of the term before but had heard of the trick..Tried it with kingsford and it choked out on me but...after reading this, going to give it a try with some good quality lump and see if that works better.