Question - Lit charcoal and unlit charcoal


 
If you had one full chimney of lit charcoal and one full chimney of unlit charcoal and you wished to place all the charcoal at the beginning, would you place the unlit charcoal first covered by the lit charcoal? Or would you place the lit charcoal at the bottom and the unlit on top? Thanks for any and all opinions.
 
I always put lit on the top but don't have any experience trying it the other way.
 
Ditto, but I have done it both ways. I don't believe it makes a difference in the end.

Tim
 
I think it depends on your objective. There are some people who believe, for whatever reason, that they want all of the charcoal to be gray and ashed over before cooking. If that's your objective, then placing a chimney of lit charcoal on the bottom followed by unlit charcoal on top is the way to go. The charcoal on the bottom is pretty much fully lit to begin with, so you just watch the unlit on top and when it's all gray and ashed over you know the entire pile it fully lit. This approach also benefits from the fact that heat rises...the heat from the bottom charcoal rises to ignite the top charcoal.

If you lay down a bed of unlit charcoal and place a chimney of lit charcoal on top, you have a harder time telling when everything underneath is fully lit, if that's your objective. And you don't benefit from the "heat rises" thing.

When I do it, I spread out the lit charcoal first, then spread more unlit on top, as documented in this link. When it's all ashed over, I'm ready to go.

https://www.virtualweberbullet.com/firing-up-weber-bullet-1/#standard

But lately, I've been using two Weber chimneys and I get started way faster!

bP26OOE.jpg
 
For my wsm, i spread lit coals on top.
Temp controller handles burn rate.

Im in camp that believes this gets rid of dirty white smoke sooner, by preheating everything before it burns.

No technical evidence, but i get up to temp fast, (i generally use half+ chimney of coals, and have thin smoke in 45 min before put meat on. For high temp poultry...whole chimney..
 
Thanks for your help. That's exactly what I was thinking. Heat and flames rise. Also, I would think that the ash from the top coals may tend to choke out the bottom coals by filling in the
cracks and crevices. Great idea for the two chimneys when you want all lit coals for a quick cook. The extra $15 is well worth it.
 
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