Jeff Bittel
TVWBB Fan
I have a love/hate relationship with Kingsford in my WSM. I love it because it is always dependable (unless the bag is wet!). I hate it because:
So off and on over the years I have played with lump. Sometimes the results were good, but the disasters were very memorable. My typical problems with lump would be either I could not control well the temperature, or it burned out even quicker that Kingsford, or both. Both of these two issues kept me from using it full time. When I did use it I really liked the minimal ash that was left in the bottom of the WSM. It never covered or interfered with the vents.
About a year ago I read a post that talked about "packing" the lump as tight as possible using all the different size chunks that you find in a lump bag. Whenever I did attain a good packing I did notice I usually had a better burn. But that packing was a painful and dirty process. By accident I tripped across a very simple way to pack the lump in. During a recent burn I had two bags of lump. one was 80% empty with all remaining was the bits and pieces less than one inch in diameter. These little pieces always fall to the bottom of the bag, and will fall through the chimeny if I try to use them. The other bag was unopened. I used the big and medium pieces from the unopened bag to start, then I remembered the other bag that had the bits and pieces. I used it and poured those little pieces on top. Because of their small size they filled the seams almost perfectly leaving the best "packed" lump ring I ever started a burn with. 14 hours later thermo was still reading 250. It started tapering off after that time and I lost track of how long it burned.
I was very pleased!
Since then I have repeated this process with similar results. I now save those bags that have the bits and pieces to "pack" the ring.
I also noticed one other observation. Minion method does not work too well. It often leads to very slow start up temps that need at least an hour to get to 250. I now throw a full chimney of lit lump on with only med/big pieces on top of the ring. Jumps right up to 250 and burns all night long.
- It won't burn as long as I would like
- It fills the WSM with ashes that cover the vents
- Is a pain to clean up
So off and on over the years I have played with lump. Sometimes the results were good, but the disasters were very memorable. My typical problems with lump would be either I could not control well the temperature, or it burned out even quicker that Kingsford, or both. Both of these two issues kept me from using it full time. When I did use it I really liked the minimal ash that was left in the bottom of the WSM. It never covered or interfered with the vents.
About a year ago I read a post that talked about "packing" the lump as tight as possible using all the different size chunks that you find in a lump bag. Whenever I did attain a good packing I did notice I usually had a better burn. But that packing was a painful and dirty process. By accident I tripped across a very simple way to pack the lump in. During a recent burn I had two bags of lump. one was 80% empty with all remaining was the bits and pieces less than one inch in diameter. These little pieces always fall to the bottom of the bag, and will fall through the chimeny if I try to use them. The other bag was unopened. I used the big and medium pieces from the unopened bag to start, then I remembered the other bag that had the bits and pieces. I used it and poured those little pieces on top. Because of their small size they filled the seams almost perfectly leaving the best "packed" lump ring I ever started a burn with. 14 hours later thermo was still reading 250. It started tapering off after that time and I lost track of how long it burned.
I was very pleased!
Since then I have repeated this process with similar results. I now save those bags that have the bits and pieces to "pack" the ring.
I also noticed one other observation. Minion method does not work too well. It often leads to very slow start up temps that need at least an hour to get to 250. I now throw a full chimney of lit lump on with only med/big pieces on top of the ring. Jumps right up to 250 and burns all night long.
