Minion method - How many briquettes for a short cook on an 18.5" WSM?


 

Alfred Y

TVWBB Member
How many briquettes (lit and unlit) for a short cook do you usually use, say for ribs or chicken?

.. given stable parameters such as a mild day with little wind, and the latest briquette formula (18 lb bag).

I read somewhere someone suggested X number of briquettes he used for ribs, but I can't seem to find it anymnore.
 
For a short cook I'll use more of a standard method. If i have previously used coals , about a 1/4 ring or so, I'll fire up a full chimney of lit and pour that on top. It gives me a super clean burn and I just throw 1 or 2 fist size chunks of wood on and i typically get nice thin blue smoke from it.
 
I agree with Six. On short cooks (from 1-3 hours), I use the standard method. These are usually HH cooks like chicken. I save and reuse unspent charcoal from the previous cook for my HH cooks. I'll put the saved coals into th chamber with a full chimnet of lit on top of those. With all vents open this will get me around 325-350.
 
for a rib cook and or chicken cook, I cover the bottom of my ring in my 18 one layer deep and I put on about a half dozen fully lit coals spread out all over. That usually gives me about 3 good hours of cook time, (bottom vents close to about an 1/8" after 5 minutes of lit coals) I often sit out the first 15 minutes or so out before putting the food, just to avoid the white smoke as much as possible
 
for short cooks:

low and slow (ribs, salmon, etc): minion 10 lit, and probably 2/3rds full unlit in the ring
high heat (chicken): full lit chimney
 

 

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