On my 22 inch kettle I cooked five chicken pieces, four half onions and five corn on the cobs. The fuel was two char baskets filled with Kingsford. Cook time for the chicken was almost an hour at 325F (Weber lid thermometer) and both vents more than half closed. It appears that at least half of the charcoal remains. Awesome. I'm really liking this unit more and more. 8))
An update on Char Baskets
- Thread starter tjkoko
- Start date
John K BBQ
TVWBB All-Star
Nice - glad you're enjoying the kettle. I always re-use unspent charcoal. I love Weber's "One Touch" ash removal system. It's genius.
Ron De Hoogh
TVWBB Pro
Outstanding! Keep on grilling!
Definitely but I hear that spent charcoal doesn't burn as hot and the smaller pieces my obstruct air flow.
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
When you re use the coals, put about 1/3 fresh on the bottom of the chimney and top off with the used goods, you shouldn’t have any issues with poor ignition, I never have. As for less heat, just because the pieces are smaller has no bearing on burn temperature that I’ve ever noticed. Why would they not burn as hot?
Imagine if the sun were reduced to 1/2 its size. It would burn just as hot but there's less heat overall. The source has reduced in size but I'm not going to worry about it. 8))
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
I see your point but we are talking about using the same VOLUME of coals so the individual nuggets may be smaller but the additional fresh coal makes up that volume, I’ve been doing this method for forty years and I’ve not seen any kind of significant loss of heat.
Sheesh! It ain’t astrophysics, it’s cooking.
But cooking is infinite!!! 8DDDD
Timothy F. Lewis
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
No, cooking is FINE
Joe T Gomez
TVWBB Pro
Your so right Timothy
TimA
TVWBB All-Star
Yep, no sense in wasting it.
Although there was a time early in my charcoal days where I had no clue how it worked, and I would douse the coals with water when done cooking.....those didn’t get reused
Chris in Louisiana
TVWBB All-Star
Just let it rip, and adjust as needed.
I once worried about every half inch of vent, but now I just eyeball the vents on my kettle or WSM--looks about right--and let them go. Check every now and then and adjust if the heat is too far out of wack. Most meat is very tolerant of variations in temp.
The simpler I make my cooks, with fewer probes, wires, gauges, etc., the more enjoyable they are, which means I am more prone to do them.
Richard Garcia
TVWBB All-Star
If my Weber lid thermometer on my Weber Performer Deluxe reads 325F I reduce the temperature by 50F. In the photo below it reads 400F but I calculate that it is around 350F at grate level where lies the meat/chicken.
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