New Kingsford Sucks!


 
Haven't tried the new Kingsford yet but looking forward to see how it performs. As an employee of a consumer product company, I am amazed at the amount of access and information the Clorox company gave to Chris. Can't imagine my company giving that level of information to anyone but the FDA. I think it goes to show the amount of respect manufacturers have for this website and for Chris. Thanks for the great job Chris.
 
Sorry if I'm dragging up an old (or dead) thread, but I've just finished a long cook with the new Kingsford. My observations are:

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<LI> It takes a very few briquettes to get the fire started. (Thanks Chris A., BTW, for that tip from your Clorox trip report.) I threw 10-12 lit briquettes into a full charcoal ring; it started like a wildfire.
<LI> The new Kingsford brings the cooker to temp pretty fast. Granted, I wasn't cooking a huge amount of food, but with a 7.5 lb butt on the top grate, an 11.5 lb brisket on the bottom - both straight from the fridge - and 4.75 qts HOT water in a Brinkman pan, the lid temp was 230F in 30 minutes.
<LI> The new Kingsford does seem to burn faster. Using the lid temp and inspecting the fire grate as my gauges, I added (18) UNLIT coals at 7.5 hrs of cooking time. The fuel was almost totally consumed at the 13.5 hr mark, so I added (20) unlit briquetts at this point and left the access door open to help light them, then added (40) more, again unlit, and shut the access door.
<LI> Every time I replaced the lid after checking the meat temp or mopping, the lid temperature would zoom upward because of the big gulp of extra air. Closing the vents a bit to bring the temp down helped with this.
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In conclusion, I really like the fact that it's ready to go faster and takes fewer lit coals to start things off, while I'm not so pleased about the fuel consumption. I haven't counted the remainder yet, but I went through most of a 20 lb bag during the cook.

As for the temperature swings, the hysteresis in the temperature curve (how long it takes to go up vs. how long it takes to come back down) is more pronounced by the fact that the coals burn hotter and at a faster rate. So one will need to anticipate this by shutting off more airflow, sooner.

If you want to maintain a tight tolerance on cooker tempeature, I think the new Kingsford will be more challenging. Personally, if I can keep the lid temperature between 235F and 250F that's fantastic. But realistically, anything between 220F and 260F is acceptable. And I was able to maintain this, with the exception of a few excursions beyond 260F.

So for me, it comes down to money. All of the other factors can be accounted for pretty easily, but how much will the increased fuel consumption cost? Time will tell. But, given Kingsford's general quality and consistency, and that it's universally available, I for one am willing to modify my techniques to use it...at least for now.

Oh, and as Brad H. observed in a similar post, this new fuel will aggravate any leakiness in your cooker, even if yours seemed perfectly sealed with the old Kingsford.
 
Jesse, I agree with your account, 100%. I used the new last night for a pork butt cook. I started around 9 PM with 10 lit coals, spread them out evenly over the unburned and started the cook.

The difference I noticed was a much faster rise in temperatures and, even though I started closing vents early, the temperature still got a little higher than I wanted. Once things settled out it ran along rock solid at 250 to 260 all night with all three bottom vents completely closed. Next cook I will start with fewer hot coals and close the vents even quicker.

Jerry

PS, What's that funny looking purple thing under your name?
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Rock Chalk
 
I used the new Kingsford for an overnighter this past weekend. It seemed to work fine for me. I filled the ring 3/4 full and then put 1/2 a lit starter on top. It went for about 13-14 hours. It is different from the old stuff. I had the vents either closed or cracked for most of the cook until the end. It ran a little hotter than normal but overall it was a good easy cook. I will confirm that the charcoal does catch like wildfire.

thewood
 
I used the new Kingsford last Saturday and was pretty happy with the turn out. I did use almost a whole bag. I used the Minion method lighting about 17 coals and then scattered them evenly over a heaping full charcoal ring.

They did light faster but I followed the recommendations Kingsford gave on the article and everything went pretty good. I did have to add about 20 more coals about 13 hours into the smoke and got a litter temperature spike but nothing really bad. So I guess I can say I was pretty happy with the new product, at least for this cook
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I did 1 10 lb butt and 2 butts about 8 1/2 lbs.
 
I've been using the new stuff for about a month
now. Mostly for grilling on my Webber Gold. I find it lights faster in the chimney and seems to burn a little hotter. I cooked three racks of ribs last weekend using the minion method in the WSM and they turned out pretty good. (no complaints, just a heap o' bones). Although at one point temp's went to a little above 250 and I had to close the bottom vents for about half an hour to drop it down to 230. Seems to be less ash than the old stuff. All in all, I like it. Thats my two cents.
 
Just finished my first smoke with the new stuff. I did 10lbs of spares with a full Weber water pan. I started with just over a half bowl of unlit topped with 20 lit coals and three chunks of cherry wood. All vents open. I walked away for about 20 minutes to prep the pork and the temp spiked up to 350. However, I threw the meat on and shut down the vets to 20% and it held a steady 250 for the entire seven hours! It was a warm day in So. Cal. It was in the mid 70's the whole time.

Perhaps the secret was in the reduced amount of coals to start with. Of course, I'm not sure how I'll work around that with longer cooks. The coals were still burning fairly good when I checked on it at the eight hour mark. I have no doubt I could have gotten nine hours of 250 with only the 1/2 bowl of coals. Longer cooks will probably require some additional fuel.
 
Yeah, as I've said in the past...I'm not nuts about the amount of new K that needs to be used on some long cooks but at least it's do-able...not the doomsday everyone was talking about when the new stuff came out...

From experience, ya gotta use less coals to start than in the past using Minion...10 to 15 will do just fine...easy does it with this stuff...it's more volatile with regard to air flow as well...use a windscreen on days with breeze if you can...

If you do all that...the new stuff will work just fine...
 
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