Re-light old coals, or start with all new every cook?


 
T

Tom Henderson

TVWBB Member
OK -- I'm a noob so please forgive a basic question.

After a cook, I close the vents and the fire dies. So... when I come out to cook the next time, there is a bed of partially-burned coals on the grate.

Should I load those into the chimney, top it off with new coals, and use that mix?

Or should I throw the old stuff out and start with all new?

Just wondering what the pros and cons are...

Thanks in advance. I learn a lot from every cook and everytime I visit this board.

-Tom in SoCal

PS -- I tried to post this topic earlier today but got an error message; if I end up with duplicate threads I hope the moderators can merge the threads.
 
The old coals will burn but they might fall through your chimney. I would just cover with new coals from the bag or chimney and proceed as normal.
 
I reuse partial coals all the time, my mini and I just found out my new to me 18.5 WSM are much more efficient then I thought. I get lots of unburned and partially burned coals. I place the old coals in a plastic bag and when I fire up the performer I place some new coals in the baskets and put the used ones on top. Same with the chimney, works great.
For the smokers I always start with fresh though.
 
Should I load those into the chimney, top it off with new coals, and use that mix?

Exactly the contrary. First the new then the old in the chimney.
 
I save my left over briquettes and put them in a bag. Depending on what I'm cooking next, I may or may not use them. If I've got a big cook coming up, I'll just keep the old ones stored, and start off fresh. The next small or fast cook I do, burgers, dogs, veggies, I'll break out the old ones and they'll usually give me 30 minutes of good heat.
 
I always cook indirect on the OTG so leftover coals get stirred over than a new bed gets laid on top.
Chimney also gets new charcoal, leftover coals seems a pita to me as far as sorting and adding them to a chimney.
I like to keep it simple, and fuel is fuel, partially burnt or not.:)

Tim
 
Agree with Pete and Enrico. Briquettes can fall apart a little after being used once, but they still work. Lump is just about perfect. Reuse and Recycle, I say!
 
I always burn the rest of the coals after the cook at high heat. At the same time I brush the grates. It keeps everything a lot cleaner that way by carbonizing all of the volatiles and liquids from the cook.

Be forewarned, I got bad sick recently when handling cold, dirty grates while cleaning one of my grills. It wasn't pretty. Since then I burn off everything I can with the extra coals from the cook and always use nitrite gloves if I have to handle a cold dirty grate.

That stuff on the grates, when left to sit will turn into a giant bacteria colony. Not and issue after you heat them up again, but I can't take that chance anymore because on a WEBER you have to handle the grates to light the coals.

On my WSM, which leaves a lot of wet stuff on the grates, I open the side door and all the vents and let it go to max temp.

Being that sick is not worth saving a couple of dollars....
 
Last edited:
I reuse all of my coals in my grills. I always do long cooks in my smokers with new briquettes as I know how long they will burn, etc. I save all of the partially burned coals for my short cooks in the grills. When starting a new chimney, a layer of new coals go in the bottom of the chimney with the partially burned ones on top.

Waste not, want not!

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
I always reuse the charcoal. I add a little bit of new charcoal to the chimney first, and then I'll put the used on top of that and fire it up. Don't waste your money! Use your leftover charcoal.
 
For me, its easy to leave the used coals on the grate and add the new hot ones on top of the oldies. Just think how much more charcoal
you would need to buy if you did not re use what you could.
 
I definitely reuse charcoal. Because some time passes between cooks on some of my grills I have gotten in the habit of putting the partially used into plastic colanders and shaking them to remove the loose ash and then cleaning out the grills. When I light the chimney the next time I use maybe half a chimney of new on the bottom and pick out only the large pieces of used to put on the top of the chimney. This prevents the problem of packing the chimney too tight which is easy to do when using lump in particular. After I dump the chimney on the grate I put the remaining small pieces on top of the lit coals. May seem like extra work but makes start up much easier and more consistent in terms of time to get up to cooking temp quickly.
 
Last edited:
I don't really reuse my charcoal; I have a couple times but most of the time i just let the charcoal burn out after a grill session.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top