Tim McCann
TVWBB Honor Circle
Found some Wicked Good Charcoal Weekend Warrior lump locally and I've good things about it so I thought I would give it a try. Cooked PSB and a rack BB's (posted yesterday) so I thought this wouldn't be a long smoke so why not give it a try. Poured a full ring in the 22.5 WSM and a few pieces of pecan nestled down inside. First thought s, there are allot of large pieces in the bag, not much dust and tiny pieces. In a half of bag I used I found no bad unburned bad piece and no FOD either which is a good thing with a high quality lump! Started it up with 9 pieces of KBB and 1 piece of lump. Started up like normal, when it was all gray poured lit over the unlit, assembled the WSM, opened up all 3 vent and let her rip. Came up to temp. pretty quick, about 25 minutes I was up to 275* so I closed 2 vents down and closed 1 to about 25% open. I opened up and put the food on. Temps. were right around 50* with light to no wind. About 10 minutes after putting the lid on we back to the 250's. We stayed very stable at around the 250's for the entire day. Food was taken off at the 4 hour mark and the 6 hour mark. After the food was done I wanted to see how long I could maintain the temps., so I let it keep going. At the 10 hour mark I noticed the temps slowly going down and at the 11 hour mark it dropped exactly 50*s , so I closed the vents and called it a night. This morning I went out to check out what was left.
As you can see there is about 20% left in there. I never shook the grate at all during the cook or add anything to the coals. I suppose if I would have raked the coals I could have got more time out of the rest of this but I didn't need it but on a long smoke I think a full ring can easily get 13 hours out of a full ring(22.5)! Also very little ash flying around in the smoker, clean real clean. Having only burned RO lump I couldn't really compare the smell with anything but that. But the smell is kind of strange, not in a bad way, but different almost like perfume smell? Kind of strong I thought, but my neighbor who is an avid smoker thought it smelled good! I was concerned that the food would take on this profile, but surprisingly not. Very mild good taste actually! Both the beef chuck and ribs had great flavor than just KBB, I think better. Good Pecan smoke and a heck of a smoke ring! I just 4 hours the chuck roast had a ring about a half inch deep!
PROS: Good longevity out of your ring. Easy to light, and up to temp very quick. Higher temp. cooks should be easy to attain. I shut my pit down at 275* but I think I could have easily got 300+ out of it if I left the vents open. Very low ash production, less flying around when opening up for viewing. I'm very happy with WGC and will be using it again! This is there base product, they do have a Competition Blend also, not sure how they can improve on this but they did.
CONS: The only downside I found would be the price, $22 for a 22lb. bag. $1 a pound, not really a reason for me not to buy. Also the availability, is another drawback. BBQ stores and speciality shops carry it. I found it at ACE in my area, but only because the owner is a big BBQ nut. I drive past 3 ACE's to get to this one. But It's worth it!
Almost forgot, all testing was done with foiled water pan and clay saucer.
Thanks for reading! Next review Ozark Oak Lump.
As you can see there is about 20% left in there. I never shook the grate at all during the cook or add anything to the coals. I suppose if I would have raked the coals I could have got more time out of the rest of this but I didn't need it but on a long smoke I think a full ring can easily get 13 hours out of a full ring(22.5)! Also very little ash flying around in the smoker, clean real clean. Having only burned RO lump I couldn't really compare the smell with anything but that. But the smell is kind of strange, not in a bad way, but different almost like perfume smell? Kind of strong I thought, but my neighbor who is an avid smoker thought it smelled good! I was concerned that the food would take on this profile, but surprisingly not. Very mild good taste actually! Both the beef chuck and ribs had great flavor than just KBB, I think better. Good Pecan smoke and a heck of a smoke ring! I just 4 hours the chuck roast had a ring about a half inch deep!
PROS: Good longevity out of your ring. Easy to light, and up to temp very quick. Higher temp. cooks should be easy to attain. I shut my pit down at 275* but I think I could have easily got 300+ out of it if I left the vents open. Very low ash production, less flying around when opening up for viewing. I'm very happy with WGC and will be using it again! This is there base product, they do have a Competition Blend also, not sure how they can improve on this but they did.
CONS: The only downside I found would be the price, $22 for a 22lb. bag. $1 a pound, not really a reason for me not to buy. Also the availability, is another drawback. BBQ stores and speciality shops carry it. I found it at ACE in my area, but only because the owner is a big BBQ nut. I drive past 3 ACE's to get to this one. But It's worth it!
Almost forgot, all testing was done with foiled water pan and clay saucer.
Thanks for reading! Next review Ozark Oak Lump.
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