KevinInStL
TVWBB Member
So after a stressful last few cooks with these damn Royal Oak Ridge Briquettes, I've had enough of them. Unfortunately I bought 4 bags of them at Lowe's when thy were on sale at LDW. But fortunately they were only $4 a bag. I'll probably end up putting them out by the curb for some other poor sucker to suffer through.
They just suck, at least with the snake method. They burn up fast, incompletely, and not very hot. They also produce a ton of ash, and the food I cook with it seems to make our stomachs unhappy.
I would prefer to use lump for everything as I try to minimize the additives and unknown chemicals when cooking my food. I use Rockwood because I saw it was highly rated on that NakedWhiz site, plus it's made here in StL so I can get it relatively cheap.
Anyway, all the youtube and interweb bbq gurus seem to recommend lump for fast, high heat grilling and briquette for low & slow smoking. I'm fairly new to this and trying not to ruin too much food. I usually don't want to have to babysit my fire a whole lot, so I've stuck to those recommendations so far. So, right now I only use the lump for steaks, burgers, brats, or chicken pieces.
So my first question to you all is: have you had success smoking low & slow on a 22" Weber kettle with lump? Without requiring a lot of babysitting the vents and the fire? And if so, how do you do it? Slow n Sear, firebricks, Weber charcoal baskets, a banked 2-zone fire, something else? I only have the 22" Weber kettle for now. There may a WSM in my future, but not until the spring at least. Btw, I say low & slow in a relative sense. I usually seem to end up in a time crunch and cooking my "low & slow" stuff more in the neighborhood of 275-325, though I have smoked one or two things down around 225. I do have a 2 channel wireless thermometer so I always monitor the grill and meat temp throughout longer cooks.
And if you haven't had good results BBQing with lump on a Weber kettle, what seems to be the longest, cleanest burning briquette that produces the least ash, and seems to have the least additives and most neutral flavor? Weber? B&B? Something else? No offense to you Kingsford lovers, but I'll probably never cook with any Kingsford product. I just don't trust a giant bleach company (Clorox, the owner of Kingsford) to make charcoal that doesn't contain additives or other unnecessary chemicals that I'd rather not have in my food.
Thanks in advance
They just suck, at least with the snake method. They burn up fast, incompletely, and not very hot. They also produce a ton of ash, and the food I cook with it seems to make our stomachs unhappy.
I would prefer to use lump for everything as I try to minimize the additives and unknown chemicals when cooking my food. I use Rockwood because I saw it was highly rated on that NakedWhiz site, plus it's made here in StL so I can get it relatively cheap.
Anyway, all the youtube and interweb bbq gurus seem to recommend lump for fast, high heat grilling and briquette for low & slow smoking. I'm fairly new to this and trying not to ruin too much food. I usually don't want to have to babysit my fire a whole lot, so I've stuck to those recommendations so far. So, right now I only use the lump for steaks, burgers, brats, or chicken pieces.
So my first question to you all is: have you had success smoking low & slow on a 22" Weber kettle with lump? Without requiring a lot of babysitting the vents and the fire? And if so, how do you do it? Slow n Sear, firebricks, Weber charcoal baskets, a banked 2-zone fire, something else? I only have the 22" Weber kettle for now. There may a WSM in my future, but not until the spring at least. Btw, I say low & slow in a relative sense. I usually seem to end up in a time crunch and cooking my "low & slow" stuff more in the neighborhood of 275-325, though I have smoked one or two things down around 225. I do have a 2 channel wireless thermometer so I always monitor the grill and meat temp throughout longer cooks.
And if you haven't had good results BBQing with lump on a Weber kettle, what seems to be the longest, cleanest burning briquette that produces the least ash, and seems to have the least additives and most neutral flavor? Weber? B&B? Something else? No offense to you Kingsford lovers, but I'll probably never cook with any Kingsford product. I just don't trust a giant bleach company (Clorox, the owner of Kingsford) to make charcoal that doesn't contain additives or other unnecessary chemicals that I'd rather not have in my food.
Thanks in advance