For years I've used lump charcoal almost exclusively for direct grilling. But recently I've been wanting to get into low and slow cooking. This came about after a miserably failed attempt at doing a brisket on the Weber kettle. I love Steve Raichlen's books (I have most of them) but anything that requires more than about 2 hours cooking just aint gonna work out too well on a kettle no matter what claims he may make in his books to the contrary. That's been my experience anyway.
For my smoker I quickly narrowed down to the WSM. I really liked it when I read you could get about a 14 hour burn from about 10 LBs of Kingsford. That sounded great since Kingsford is also cheaper than lump charcoal. But then I was surprised to learn here at the Virtual Bullet site that Kingsford had changed the formula of their briquettes in 2006.
Question: Has everyone come to a consensus on the New Kingsford by now? I was reading through threads in the archive and I wasn't able to determine one way or the other. The impression I get is the new stuff burns hotter, burns out quicker and requires more charcoal throughout process. That doesn't sound so good for smoking.
I remember back in the early 80s when Coca Cola changed their formula and the uproar that caused. It was only a short time before they brought the old formula back as "Coke Classic" and kept the new formula as well. Direct grilling and smoking are two COMPLETELY different things. It seems to me the people at Kingsford would be wise to package two different formulas for each of those applications. It doesn't look like that's gonna happen though.
I still have one brand new unopened 24 LB bag of the old formula in my shed. It's been there for years since lump charcoal has worked so well for me on the kettle. I hate that that's all I have left! Maybe I should list it on ebay as a rare collector's item.
So what is everybody using now? What has the longest burn time? Is Kingsford still the best recommendation? Doesn't seem like it should be...
For my smoker I quickly narrowed down to the WSM. I really liked it when I read you could get about a 14 hour burn from about 10 LBs of Kingsford. That sounded great since Kingsford is also cheaper than lump charcoal. But then I was surprised to learn here at the Virtual Bullet site that Kingsford had changed the formula of their briquettes in 2006.
Question: Has everyone come to a consensus on the New Kingsford by now? I was reading through threads in the archive and I wasn't able to determine one way or the other. The impression I get is the new stuff burns hotter, burns out quicker and requires more charcoal throughout process. That doesn't sound so good for smoking.
I remember back in the early 80s when Coca Cola changed their formula and the uproar that caused. It was only a short time before they brought the old formula back as "Coke Classic" and kept the new formula as well. Direct grilling and smoking are two COMPLETELY different things. It seems to me the people at Kingsford would be wise to package two different formulas for each of those applications. It doesn't look like that's gonna happen though.
I still have one brand new unopened 24 LB bag of the old formula in my shed. It's been there for years since lump charcoal has worked so well for me on the kettle. I hate that that's all I have left! Maybe I should list it on ebay as a rare collector's item.
So what is everybody using now? What has the longest burn time? Is Kingsford still the best recommendation? Doesn't seem like it should be...