BBQ/GRILLING - WHAT CHARCOAL DO YOU USE

She's a good drum.


Done plenty of solid Q in it. Nothing a good diffuser can't manage.

 

Love it.

 

Haha thanks. And because someone is bound to ask, yes, that was a coors heavy stack. My pipe went missing for a bit.

 

Oh, I noticed. Redneck engineering is part of the UDS appeal!

First one I ever made had a dryer vent for an exhaust stack. It was crammed in to a hole I bored out of an old Char-Broil domed lid. I'll have to see if I can scare up a picture of that bad boy.

 

Maple Leaf Charcoal.

 

fun fact:

Henry Ford used wood scraps from the production of Model Ts to create charcoal. Originally named Ford Charcoal, the name was changed to Kingsford Charcoal after Ford's brother-in-law E. G. Kingsford brokered the selection of the new charcoal plant site.

 

Kiawe wood and guava wood

 

Not all heroes wear a cape.

 

I use Kingsford Professional from Home Depot in a small 14" Weber Smoky Mountain. It produces less ash and with the small smoker that's what I need. I think there was a test somewhere on the internet in the weber smoky mountain at Virtual weber bullet dot com which measured burn times, ash, etc. It confirmed what I needed...Just FYI. Enjoy!

 

is that your emergency bug out bag

 

SHTF scenario...Scottalots wife goes to the safe room only to find that its filled with charcoal...

 

and unknown amount of Pitfaced rub

 

Paging @scottalot , i am moving towards stick burning and need pointers.

On topic I keep a gas grill on the deck that my wife uses sometimes. She let me upgrade to a weber kettle. I haven't bought any more briquets since before i was done with my first bag of hardwood lump.

I am on my second UDS. The first was a flat top, my current one has a lid from turner bio diesel, no up charge for a 2" nipple on the point. This second one has two cookibg grates above the diffuser.

I got a screaming deal on a chunk of white oak from a local cabinetry shop. It was a 2x12 about 18 inches long with a nasty split, they let me have it for 5 bucks. I cut a couple chunks off it to smolder in hard wood lump, those steaks were awesome. The very next day i cut the rest of the board up into chunks, lit the whole pile and did a couple or three more ribeyes reverse sear on oak coals only, no charcoal. I havent prepared better steaks than those since.

This weekend i gathered up a bunch of alder on a hiking trail away from the road. Tonight i pulled some vegetable skewers, 2 swordfish steaks and a salmon filet off a bed of alder only, no charcoal again, and i think i am hooked.

The salmon was one i caught in 2014, old enough to maybe be brined and smoked hard or maybe given away to someone with a dog team free, but it came off the grill in really good shape.

Would scottalot very kindly consider starting a thread for stick burner noobs?

 

@scottalot, I know @Poindexter from the GTO forum. Told him you burn down wood chunks for your fuel source on a lot of indirect (maybe direct, too?) cooks.

@Poindexter, you need to hop in the smoking thread, too, and share some pics of your equipment and some cook results!

 

I use the Rockwood brand lump charcoal. It's $25ish a bag as opposed to $15 for the other stuff. But it's 100% Missouri hardwood and made in the US. I find it lasts way longer, and doesn't make near as much ash as some of the others. So since it lasts longer, I feel like the value is there.

I used to love B+B expert's choice, but I think they switched where they make it since it now says Made in Mexico on the bag. I can also get it at Walmart now, which I never used to see it there before. I can second finding rocks in Royal Oak, and chunks of what looked like rubber in Cowboy. That stuff happens from time to time though, so I wouldn't hold it against them.

 

Same. got to the next time i grilled when i was cleaning out the box i said now what in the heck is a rock doin in here?

As for the question... Kingsford for the most part, with hickory chunks.

 

One of the last tasks my '07 Frontier did for me.......




Sumbitich was great for hauling charcoal & grills.


























This was how she looked the morning after Hurricane Irma came through....I'd smoked a pork shoulder butt in the Weber the day before.

 

Scottalot is drooling right now

 

Ya you have just made @scottalot all kinds of jealous.

 

LMAO, gents.

Funny story how I acquired that last load of Kingsford......Lowe's was running a special on it....they had a couple pallets by the front door with a sign that said you could buy 2 of the 2-bag packs for $9.99. There was another sign saying the limit was two of these per purchase.

So....I'm meandering through the store and wind up over at the lumber side of the store. Lo and behold yet another pallet of Kingsford with the same price sign, yet there is NO limit sign (evidently I caught them as they were just in the midst of setting it up).

I threw four 2-packs on my dolly and hit the cash register. Paid and loaded in my truck.....went back in and repeated.

Repeated again.


Repeated again.



Tried to keep it going but the sweet little old lady at the cash register said, "Good Lawd, son, you's gonna buy me out....I best call the managa and see whats I posed to do 'bout dis here". My immediate reply was to assure here this was my last trip. She gave me the elevator look and exhaled mightily......and rung me up one last time.


Stopped to top off my gas tank on the way home and a dude walked over and tried to buy some from me. Wanted to know how much I was selling each bag for. Told him I was buying not selling. He proceeded to get irate with me for not selling him charcoal. I told him....in a nice voice, that Lowe's was less than two miles away and he could take his truck over there and buy all he wanted. He kept at it saying he just needed 4-5 bags from me.....wanted to know why I needed all that charcoal anyway. I was done filling up my truck (small tank....quick fill....gotta love that). I quit being polite and told him the best thing for him to do was to take his ass on away from me and that I grill year round for my family and friends. Nosy sumbitch was getting on my last nerve. Had he been somebody hard on their luck I'd have bought him a meal or helped him in some way. This guy was driving a late model F150 aluminum can and buying beer at the store (they have the cheapest beer prices around....but half the time it doesn't even make it to their cooler rooms....floor display hot & cheap...works for me.....that's why I normally have my cooler in the backseat ready to ice'em down).

He figured out that the friendly conversation had ended and went back to pumping gas and being silent.

I'm going through the charcoal at a fairly quick rate. It's not gonna make it through the winter. I'm about to fire up the smokewagon in a few minutes and it'll likely finish off a bag of Kingsford for starting the cook....and I'll load hickory splits every 30 mins or so throughout.