Got to finally use the Comp K this past weekend and I'll post my results. First let me say that I've only been bbqing/smoking for less than a year so I'm a novice at this. I've only used regular K in my WSM so that's all I have to go on. I've used RO a few times in my grill.
The first thing I did was grill a steak on Saturday night. When firing up the Comp K in the chimney I did notice that it smelled more like real wood burning than regular K did. So, the smell was pretty good and it did light pretty quickly. As far as grilling, I didn't really notice much difference. But, I was only grilling one steak and a few veggies, so it was a short cook. Not sure if it effected the taste of the food at all. I could probably use regular K or lump for grilling and not even notice a difference.
The next day I smoked a pork butt. I filled the ring with Comp K and then lit four briquettes in the chimney. Put the four lit ones on top of the pile, assembled my WSM and let the heat rise. When the heat got up to about 175, I dialed the vents back to barely open. When the temp got to about 220, I put the butt on and then opened up the side and put some wood in. One thing I did notice was that just looking in from the side door it looked like the top of the pile wasn't lit, but there was a deep glow from the middle of the pile. It was almost like the middle lit first. When I placed the lit ones on initially, I didn't bury them or anything, just laid them on top. I'm not sure if it normally does this, but I did notice it this time.
The temp seemed pretty easy to keep steady. In fact, it seemed easier than with regular K. I knew this stuff burns hotter, so I kept the vents barely open on the bottom because I didn't want it to get out of control. I was able to keep the temp around 230-235 pretty easily.
A little while later I had to go somewhere, so I left my wife in charge. I set the high smoker temp on my digital thermometer to 275 so the alarm would go off if it got too hot. Well, a while later my wife calls me and tells me the alarm was going off. I told her to just close the bottom vents until it went down a bit. I came home about an hour later and the temp was still about 265. I left the bottom vents closed and it took several hours for it to finally start going back down to the 230s. So, it seems that when it gets hot it stays hot and doesn't want to budge for a while. Once I got it back down, it was very easy to maintain.
The smell coming from the cooker was sooo good. I don't know if that was just from the meat or if the fuel had anything to do with it. Also, the pulled pork tasted so good, better than usual. But, it's hard to tell if it really was better or if it's all in my head. You'd really need to do a blind comparison to see.
Anyway, my final conclusion is that it's not really necessary for grilling for me, but for bbqing, I'm really loving it. I've never used lump in the WSM so I'm not sure about that comparison, but I do prefer it to regular K. It had a better smell and the temp was easier to maintain. Now if they'd just drop the price down a little we'd be all good.
