Ideal time to add Boston Butt


 
This is a great idea and I will try this next time. Prewarming the smoking wood. It's also why I bury my smoking wood under the unlit coals versus tossing on top.

That's my thinking too.

I bury the wood so that it gets warmed up and lights up gradually and later in the cook without the plumes.

And the wood chunks in the chimney are already going and past the start-up smoke stage from the jump.
 
Here is a picture of a lit chimney of lump for a recent cook. This picture seems to support the idea that once the open flames are gone, there isn't thick white smoke from the charcoal, Note this is the case even though not all of the charcoal is lit yet, as I used a empty paper towel tube in the middle to speed up ignition. The middle is burning bright even though the charcoal at the edges haven't fully lit yet, but there isn't smoke.

20241005_153153A.jpg
 
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Yep, I've been doing it that way for several years. Put the meat on right away, close it up. Then let it come to temp. And I know other accomplished pitmasters who do this.

Then, this idea was reinforced when I saw Jirby do it in his vids. He actually puts the meat on first before lighting the fire. Then throws in the wood. Then lights the wood. He claims the early white smoke makes no difference. He also claims using lighter fluid makes no difference. Sounds extremely suspect, but then again, I have not won any awards from Texas Monthly.

Edit: Here's one - I've seen him do this on multiple vids

 
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Keith Jenkins said:
Here is a picture of a lit chimney of lump for a recent cook. This picture seems to support the idea that once the open flames are gone, there isn't thick white smoke from the charcoal, Note this is the case even though not all of the charcoal is lit yet, as I used a empty paper towel tube in the middle to speed up ignition. The middle is burning bright even though the charcoal at the edges haven't fully lit yet, but there isn't smoke.
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(y)
I've always said that Keith.
Fuel will only billow smoke when it's exposed to a naked flame. Your photo & the Minion Method proves that.
Dry wood chunks: "Dry wood is important. It creates less smoke and therefore fewer pollutants."
I've read of people who put their wood chunks in a 250˚F oven for an hour to help drive out moisture before smoking.
 
Mark_E said:
Yep, I've been doing it that way for several years. Put the meat on right away, close it up. Then let it come to temp. And I know other accomplished pitmasters who do this.

Then, this idea was reinforced when I saw Jirby do it in his vids. He actually puts the meat on first before lighting the fire. Then throws in the wood. Then lights the wood. He claims the early white smoke makes no difference. He also claims using lighter fluid makes no difference. Sounds extremely suspect, but then again, I have not won any awards from Texas Monthly.

Edit: Here's one - I've seen him do this on multiple vids

Click to expand...
I don't know that I would go along with lighter fluid not having an effect on the taste. I recall many saucer style grills and hibachis that reeked of lighter fluid when first lit back in the day. It was accepted back then (1960's - 1970's) that you didn't put food over the charcoal until that "aroma" was gone and the charcoal was ashed over.
 
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Keith Jenkins said:
I don't know that I would go along with lighter fluid not having an effect on the taste. I recall many saucer style grills and hibachis that reeked of lighter fluid when first lit back in the day. It was accepted back then (1960's - 1970's) that you didn't put food over the charcoal until that "aroma" was gone and the charcoal was ashed over.
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I know, right? I haven't done it yet, and I don't plan to!
 
Keith Jenkins said:
I used to use lighter fluid before I learned about chimney starters. I think the food I smoke and grill now tastes better without petroleum distillate flavoring, so I don't plan to go back to using it.
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I can't say I've ever tasted lighter fluid. But then again, if I was to use lighter fluid, I'd be sure it was burned out before cooking with it. Anyway, these days I'm more apt to use the chimney and newspaper. If I'm cooking on the offset, I would light the newspaper under the chimney, then put the meat on the offset, then when flames come out the top of the chimney, dump them in the fire box. Add some mesquite or some other hot wood to get the temp up as fast as possible. No lighter fluid in sight!

Here's a cheat for lighting chimneys. Put a used paper towel roll in the center vertical. Put the charcoal or lump around the paper towel roll. The charcoal/lump will be ready twice as fast. :-D
 
Mark_E said:
Here's a cheat for lighting chimneys. Put a used paper towel roll in the center vertical. Put the charcoal or lump around the paper towel roll. The charcoal/lump will be ready twice as fast. :-D
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That's exactly what I did when I lit the charcoal in the picture in one of my previous posts above. Here is a "before lighting" shot.

20241005_151600A.jpg

I got the idea from somewhere in these forums, and that posting pointed at this YouTube video: "Fastest Way to Light a Charcoal Chimney Starter | Paper Towel Roll Chimney Method" posted by The Barbecue Lab.
 
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I've also used empty and clean toilet paper tubes spliced together by cutting one of the tubes starting at the edge lengthwise about an inch or so, and then squeezing that end down to a slightly smaller diameter and slipping the cut tube inside of another tube. We always seem to have more toilet paper tubes than paper towel tubes. Also, two spliced toilet paper tubes are just about the right height for my small chimney that I use to light a small amount of charcoal.
 
Keith Jenkins said:
Here is a picture of a lit chimney of lump for a recent cook. This picture seems to support the idea that once the open flames are gone, there isn't thick white smoke from the charcoal, Note this is the case even though not all of the charcoal is lit yet, as I used a empty paper towel tube in the middle to speed up ignition. The middle is burning bright even though the charcoal at the edges haven't fully lit yet, but there isn't smoke.
Click to expand...

This is only partially true. I found a local "Köhler". A group of people still produce lump charcoal. They explained charcoal to me. Very interesting. (Pictures will come probably in the spring, when they light up their next batch)

Wood has carbon, water, tar, and other byproducts in it. Most industrially produced lump charcoal has burned off the water, but still has parts of the byproducts in them. When you light it up, the white smoke which smells like tar is literally, tar. You need a high-temp combustion to cleanly burn that stuff. The top layer of lump charcoal may not yet be part of the combustion, but it is already very hot. When it combusts, it combusts cleanly. When you dump that into your WSM, it will take some time for the rest of your fuel to heat up and also combust cleanly.

A "Köhler" has a name for charcoal with byproducts: Bad.

They produce more "artisinal" charcoal. Ancient knowledge, and several tons of manual labour. Literally. This results in charcoal which has all its byproducts burned off.

The difference is stark. The "good" charcoal barely smokes when lighting, and never produces an off-flavour. I can sniff the smoke from the starter chimney directly and still get a good flavour.
 
From the man himself on here many years ago.

Apr 9, 2016

Hey Ken, I add my tennis sized chunks evenly spaced out at the bottom of my WSM before adding briquettes Minion style with the middle crater reserved for the lit briquettes.

For long cooks, I use 4 + 4 (usually apple and hickory) and 3 + 3 for short cooks like ribs. There is always a chunk in the middle which gets lit and smolders when I start the cook. The rest of the chunks will start smoldering as the briquettes burn outwards from the center to the edge of the WSM fire ring.

I add my meat right after I dump the lit briquettes into the center of the Minion pile. I don't wait. I've never had a problem with smokiness. For more tips, see http://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/tag/wsm/

Good luck and warm regards.
Harry

IIRC, Harry uses Jealous Devil lump in his WSM. But I do the same thing with K-Pro from Costco. Once the chimney coals are fully lit, I dump and start cooking.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
From the man himself on here many years ago.

Apr 9, 2016

Hey Ken, I add my tennis sized chunks evenly spaced out at the bottom of my WSM before adding briquettes Minion style with the middle crater reserved for the lit briquettes.

For long cooks, I use 4 + 4 (usually apple and hickory) and 3 + 3 for short cooks like ribs. There is always a chunk in the middle which gets lit and smolders when I start the cook. The rest of the chunks will start smoldering as the briquettes burn outwards from the center to the edge of the WSM fire ring.

I add my meat right after I dump the lit briquettes into the center of the Minion pile. I don't wait. I've never had a problem with smokiness. For more tips, see http://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/tag/wsm/

Good luck and warm regards.
Harry

IIRC, Harry uses Jealous Devil lump in his WSM. But I do the same thing with K-Pro from Costco. Once the chimney coals are fully lit, I dump and start cooking.
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Yep, YRC. He's got a vid showing exactly this.
 
Jonas-Switzerland said:
This is only partially true. I found a local "Köhler". A group of people still produce lump charcoal. They explained charcoal to me. Very interesting. (Pictures will come probably in the spring, when they light up their next batch)

Wood has carbon, water, tar, and other byproducts in it. Most industrially produced lump charcoal has burned off the water, but still has parts of the byproducts in them. When you light it up, the white smoke which smells like tar is literally, tar. You need a high-temp combustion to cleanly burn that stuff. The top layer of lump charcoal may not yet be part of the combustion, but it is already very hot. When it combusts, it combusts cleanly. When you dump that into your WSM, it will take some time for the rest of your fuel to heat up and also combust cleanly.

A "Köhler" has a name for charcoal with byproducts: Bad.

They produce more "artisinal" charcoal. Ancient knowledge, and several tons of manual labour. Literally. This results in charcoal which has all its byproducts burned off.

The difference is stark. The "good" charcoal barely smokes when lighting, and never produces an off-flavour. I can sniff the smoke from the starter chimney directly and still get a good flavour.
Click to expand...

An interesting bit of trivia. "Collier" was a term from Middle English for someone who makes charcoal, though nowadays it's often just a family name or surname. I take it that Köhler refers to a charcoal maker as well.
 
Jonas-Switzerland said:
This is only partially true. I found a local "Köhler". A group of people still produce lump charcoal. They explained charcoal to me. Very interesting. (Pictures will come probably in the spring, when they light up their next batch)

Wood has carbon, water, tar, and other byproducts in it. Most industrially produced lump charcoal has burned off the water, but still has parts of the byproducts in them. When you light it up, the white smoke which smells like tar is literally, tar. You need a high-temp combustion to cleanly burn that stuff. The top layer of lump charcoal may not yet be part of the combustion, but it is already very hot. When it combusts, it combusts cleanly. When you dump that into your WSM, it will take some time for the rest of your fuel to heat up and also combust cleanly.

A "Köhler" has a name for charcoal with byproducts: Bad.

They produce more "artisinal" charcoal. Ancient knowledge, and several tons of manual labour. Literally. This results in charcoal which has all its byproducts burned off.

The difference is stark. The "good" charcoal barely smokes when lighting, and never produces an off-flavour. I can sniff the smoke from the starter chimney directly and still get a good flavour.
Click to expand...
Jonas, you may well be right, much as a "smokeless" fire pit such as a Solo Stove or a Breeo smokes when it it is first lit but clears as it heats up, so charcoal seems to do the same thing.

I was inspired though, by your comments about charcoal production, and searched YouTube for some details on just how charcoal is commercially produced. I found two that were particularly interesting. The first showed in some detail the production of charcoal by various methods, posted by the "History of Simple Things" entitled "How Is Charcoal Made?". The second video was one by the television show "How It's Made", entitled "How It’s Made Charcoal Briquettes", showing how Kingsford Charcoal Briquettes were made at the time. I found both videos to be worthwhile viewing.


 
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The second video is really good, and quality is better. I had seen the Kingsford How it's Made many years ago on TV. And reuse of the dust and small pieces of the lump is used for briquettes, ie JD lump and now JD briquettes with the waste / small pieces of lump!
 
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