Using partially burned fuel

[Steve M.]

I've picked up some comments from several threads that begs a question.

I have found that the WSM is such a fuel efficent cooker, that I consistently have quite a bit of partially burned briquetts left over. I have been picking up the charcoal grate and ring. I then shake and tap all of the loose ash into the grass.

I then refill the top portion of the ring with fresh charcoal and add my unlit coals on top for a Minion cook. I haven't noticed any issues.

I know charcoal is realtively cheap. Are there any pitfalls to using these partially burned briquetts?

 

[Bruce Bissonnette]

Steve,

The way you describe your use of them, I don't see any issues unless they made up more than 25% of your total charcoal in the chamber. If there are just a couple handfuls and you have those on the bottom I don't see a problem.

You might want to read the low temp issues thread below, if you haven't already.

 

[Paul G.]

I don't believe you'll have a problem. I agree, however, if you use substantial, more than 25%, left-over charcoal, you might have a problem with burn rate. Partially burned charcoal has been described as buring more like lump - hotter and faster. I think you're wise to put it on top so it burns quicker with the lit coals and doesn't cause an eractic burn rate later in the cook. Some people put it in the chimney and use it as part of the lit charcoal. I've never been entirely comfortable using it because I never know how much used should be substituted for the new. For that reason, I generally save it and use it when I cook direct on the kettle.

Paul

 

[Guest]

I have been doing this with both my weber kettle and WSM and have never encountered a problem. I do agree with the "faster burn" observation though.

 

[Guest]

Never been a problem here either. I'm getting ready to use some now /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

 

[Doug D]

Jim Warren's post about using a chimney upside-down to light a small amount of briquets to start a Minion cook reminded me of the extra time it took to get those few coals lit on my last pork butt cook. It also reminded me, however, of something I observed on that cook, and why it is appropriate in this thread.

I used leftover charcoal as my starter fuel, and will be doing it again on future MM cooks. As has been observed and discussed before, leftover briquets behave essentially like lump-- faster and hotter-burning. (Of course, you have to have kept them dry.)

What I did was fill the charcoal ring to the top with fresh Kingsford, making a 6" diameter by 2" deep depression in the center-- big enough for what I had lit. I deposited my burning pseudo-lump there and assembled the cooker. Leaving the water pan dry-- for the moment-- I immediately placed the 7+ lb. butt-- which had been out of the refrigerator less than an hour-- on the top grate. The temp very quickly ramped to 250*, at which point I added a gallon of very hot tap water to the pan, and set the vents all to about 1/4-open each. The next 13 hours, the thermometer never moved more than 5*.

What I took from this was the impression that the hotter-burning fuel at the beginning of the Minion cook served a dual purpose-- it served as starter for my unlit fuel, plus-- as a bonus-- got me where I wanted to be temperature-wise much faster. In the past, my observation was the cooker temp really took a big hit from the cold hunk of meat, and it took quite some time to get back up to target, even with vents wide open.

Try it sometime if you have some dry leftovers.

 

[Paul G.]

Doug D

Thanks for the informative description of the cook and some new thoughts it presents. It's interesting that you used an empty pan till the temp got to 250 which didn't take long. You then added water and used hot rather than cool which is the usual MM method. This certainly helped maintained the temp. My guess would be this had more effect than using the "used" charcaol as the lit fuel; although I'm sure it would have burned hotter than regular lit charcoal.

I would imagine you had to carefully pour the hot water in if the pit temp was already at 250. Just a note of caution to other, such as me, who may try this.

I'll put this on my list of things to try,

Paul

 

[Doug D]

Actually, the original MM calls for hot water in the pan. It was later revised to specify hot water on cold days and cool water on hot days. Remember, too, that there was 7+ lbs. of cold butt also in there.