Hardly No Heat?


 
J

JeffW

New member
Just got a SJ Silver for me to be able to cook steaks or hamburgers for just the wife and I . No sense firing up a WSM of Bandera for these small cooks.

Yesterday, fires it up with about a half a chimney and had full coverage on the bottom of the SJS. Vents all the way open top and bottom and with lid on, not near enough heat to cook steaks. Pulled the lid off and and it got a little hotter, but after 15 minutes on one side, the steaks were barely brown and no grill marks. There was a decent breeze going and I had the SJS sitting on a table. Finally gave up and threw the steaks on the gasser.

Any idea what is going on. Not enough coals, too many coals? This has got me perplexed.
 
I did an experiment with my SJS last summer and using about half a chimney of Kingsford, I was able to keep the temps over 500 degrees for about an hour.

I made sure that the coals were well lit and "fully involved" before I put the lid on and started measuring. If I remember, I used about a third of a chimney. It is possible that you had so much charcoal that it couldn't breathe through the single vent in the bottom.

I would try backing off on the charcoal to see if the better breathing and better draft might help the temps by providing more oxygen to the coals that are in the charcoal bowl.

Another trick that we use with the WSM's to get the heat up is to put the lid on but leave it slightly ajar, creating more draft.

I suspect, thinking about it, that the problem was lack of oxygen to the coals.

Play with it and please let us know what your experiments unveil!

Pat
 
I got mine working well using exactly 27 pieces of kingsford briquettes. Like the above said, "make sure the coals are fully lit."

Otherwise I usually use lump with my sjs anymore.
 
the sj's are just yer basic grills and are not ment to be super grills. that being said there are a few things that can be done to help. one is to go to lump charcoal. that will get it hot. or go to kingsford competition briq as that stuff also burns hot. but go with the lump. you will need another charcoal grate or some expanded metal so the lump doesn't fall through. also i would leave the lid off as much as you can while grilling and put the lid on for lower temp grilling or for flare ups.
 
I'm with the "make sure the coals are fully lit" crowd. I always use lump but I usually only leave it in the charcoal until it's basically going and then dump it in. And with the smokey joe that just wasn't ever reaching the temperature I wanted. But give it another few minutes in the chimney until everything's absolutely glowing red and it was a whole different situation.
 
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