Cowboy charcoal briquettes not getting hot enough? Any tricks to overcome this?


 
C

ChrisArgentino

TVWBB Fan
I decided to buy cowboy briquettes instead of kingsford and my first cook wasn’t fun. The cowboy didn’t get hot enough. It cooked the food and gave good marks but it didn’t get as hot as kingsford and died out quick. I used a full chimney and waited until there was no smoke (25 mins). At first it was hot enough but shortly after, it really declined in temperature. How can I overcome this? I don’t want to waste this charcoal because I have 40 pounds of it.
 

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Ive got 200 lbs of it left ...not had any such issue.

Maybe you can describe what you're doing more? Are you smoking or grilling?

I use it for both and don't have issues.

My smokers cruising at 270 right now with beef short ribs.
 
ChrisArgentino said:
Do you use a chimney? How much do you fill it? And how long do you wait? Also how open do you have the upper and lower vents?

Thank you
Click to expand...
I fill chimney about 2/3 for 275f for ribs,brisket, pork butt. I fill it all the way for chicken or turkey at 350.

When the coals at the top are just starting to get a little bit ashy on the corners, meaning they're lit I dump it and spread it out for smoker..... I let it get going a little better for grilling cuz grilling is a short 15 minute thing. For grilling if you wait till all coals are ashed over in the chimney the ones at the bottom are halfway gone.

In reality chimneys only work well about half full.... When you fill them up the coals on the bottom tend to be significantly consumed before the ones on the top get lit. There is a very wide shallow chimney out there I saw in a store one day that is designed to not do that. It's about a foot wide. It's also much faster. Supposedly

I use a temperature controller with the blower/damper so... Upper vent all the way open
 
ChrisArgentino said:
I decided to buy cowboy briquettes instead of kingsford and my first cook wasn’t fun. The cowboy didn’t get hot enough. It cooked the food and gave good marks but it didn’t get as hot as kingsford and died out quick. I used a full chimney and waited until there was no smoke (25 mins). At first it was hot enough but shortly after, it really declined in temperature. How can I overcome this? I don’t want to waste this charcoal because I have 40 pounds of it.
Click to expand...
what were you cooking?
 
Chris....
The number of Lit Charcoal, be it lump or briquette, determines the heat range.
While the number of Unlit Charcoal, be it lump or briquette, determines for how long you can maintain that heat range.
 
Make sure it's fully lit for one. Make sure your vents are completely open. You might try a hair dryer or an electric leaf blower to stoke it. I've had similar issues myself. Sometimes I wonder if it's moisture getting into the briquettes. My guess is since it's a "all-natural" type vs. Kingsford, is that you didn't get it lit enough. It's hard to to say. I had some Jealous Devil briguettes that didn't get hot enough for me and I've seen other people say it cooks hotter than Kingsford.
 
I'm not sure why I'm replying because everyone above already provided excellent feedback. I've never used Cowboy Briquets, so I have no history of comparing the two but sometimes other uncontrollable factors (including weather) can impact the maximum achievable temp and burn times.

From your thread title and write-up, I'm assuming your goal is to achieve the highest-possible temp. When temp and longevity are important factors to me--for the reason cited by @MartinB--I've sometimes filled two standard chimneys half full and dumped them in the cooker once I see the top layer begin to ash. And the intake and exhaust vents should be fully open for high heat.

How you spread the coals over your grate will have an impact, too (1/3'rd of the grate vs 1/2 grate vs spread evenly over the entire great).

Good luck!
 
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