Lump Charcoal

[OneBadBadger]

Well, after seeing how much binder and general massive mess kingsford made over long cooks in the kettle (had to empty the kettle 4 times over the course of a ten hour cook on pork shoulder.) I decided I'm going to try some lump. Have two 17lb bags of royal oak to try. I know its going to burn hotter and drop temp more often and faster. But what are your experiences with smoking with lump on the kettle? I also need to invest in a hinged grate badly. I just have the stock one that has the small slits in the side. Works good for adding briquettes but chunks of lump are going to be another thing. First pork shoulder turned out great last weekend. (2nd time smoking) Just haven't felt like messing with setting up photobucket or anything like that. Next on the list is to tackle brisket or dial in ribs better.

[Johnpv]

I LOVE lump charcoal..........for grilling in a kettle.   For me it's more of a pain to use when going low and slow in a kettle.  I like to use Stubbs briquettes, it's just easy in a kettle to smoke with.  If I had a WSM I'd probably just use lump all the time.  Stubbs definitely produces way less ash than Kingsford, and is also only 5% natural binder, the rest (95%) is hardwood charcoal.   If you use the snake method, Stubbs works great in the kettle for smoking.

[1buckie]

You can use lump for slow cooks, but it's a good idea to break it into approx. briquette sized chunks.............and it's a bit harder to make sure there's good contact all down the line..............
This is how I go about things a lot of times:


briquettes, with chips of lump for 'burn insurance'....uses up the small lump pieces that would ordinarily fall thru the grate & helps keep things on an even keel......

Stubb's....BTW........

With the older daisy wheel kettles, I just don't touch anything while it's running & the ash seems to fall out the holes of the bottom vents just fine......not very often is there adjustments made & if there are, that will drop some ash anyway...............if you clear ash with a one touch, just go real slow & it won't stir up in the air & get on the food, then return to wherever you were set open to..........

[crazej36]

It didn't work out well for me. It doesn't seem to "fuse" or catch the next piece . It also burns quick and hot , not really slow and low. It does seem to be a tad lighter on taste in comparison to kingsford though. You might have better luck than I did.

I'm gonna try the mix method as 1buckie explained. I have an issue with the snake method that the bottom row starts to get way ahead of the top row of briquettes that I think this will help with.

[mike.stavlund]

I was pretty reluctant to try lump for a very long time, because I heard so much about how it burns hot and fast and unevenly.  So I was surprised when I used it and found it to burn pretty much like conventional briquette charcoal in every respect except for the amount of ash it produces.  I've used it in kettles, and for long cooks in the WSM and I basically use it equivalently to Kingsford and other briquettes.  Though as Buckie notes the really large pieces have a hard time burning evenly for long cooks and should prolly be broken up a bit.

I've had good experience with Frontier, and Cowboy.  Royal Oak worked well too.  I once indulged in a bag of the fancy Wicked Good, and found it to be uneven and smoky.   

[Aspiring Pitmaster]

Here's a site with reviews on a lot of different brands of lump: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm

I'm relatively new to lump and, so far, have stuck with briquettes in the wsm and lump on the grill.  So far, my favorite brand has been Ozark Oak, and my least favorite has been Best of the West (which was absolute junk - I was seriously tempted to use a saw or ax to break up the large limbs and branches in the bag). 

[Aspiring Pitmaster]

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the large branches and limbs in the bag of Best of the West mesquite lump that I got recently at Sam's. I guess I wasn't frustrated enough with them at the time. Anyway, in the same bag with the large limbs and branches, as I was preparing to grill yesterday, I reached down into the bag to get a feel for what sort of size variations to expect as I poured some into a chimney, and I could literally immerse my entire hand in all of the tiny, unusable particles in the bottom of the bag. After getting rid of the large limbs and branches, here is what was in the bottom. To make sure there is no misunderstanding, I poured the Best of the West bag out onto an empty Ozark Oak bag (just because that was what was around and handy). The stuff in the picture is NOT Ozark Oak. Ozark Oak is great, has wonderful size uniformity and does NOT have a bunch of tiny, unusable pieces like this Best of the West garbage:

[1buckie]

A Pitmaster.....that's funky.....
I've used Best of the West some before & it was about the same, giant chunks & little stuff........

I attribute it to "Gorillas on the Loading Dock"

You can use maybe the largest of those little chips like this:




Burn insurance along with larger pieces or briquettes, the dust.....don't know a good use for that yet..........
Maybe it would work in those smoke trays, like is used for pellets ?

[Duke]

I have used several bags of Best or the West and am a little tired of all of the sparking, huge limbs and tons of chips and fines. I got a good deal on it and would use it again for the good deal I got, but after using a bag of Royal Oak the two don't compare. For one Royal Oak doesn't have any mesquite, so no real popping. It also is well carbonized and the pieces were more uniform in size which made it really easy to work with and it lights easily with a torch. It also doesn't have as much resin as mesquite. Don't get me wrong, I love mesquite, this is just my experience with the Royal Oak recently.

[HankB]

I usually use briquettes in my bigger smokers but lump seems to provide longer and more consistent burns in my 14 WSM.

I got mesquite lump at Sam's a couple times but it seemed like it had a lot of fines and small pieces and a few big ones. I've been using Grove (from Woodman's) and Royal Oak. I think I tried a couple bags of Cowboy and it was good too. Had some big pieces but I can tolerate a few of those. I usually use lump for grilling in the kettles.

[AnakiMana]

Why does Weber warn against using lump in the WSM owner's manuals? I've never tried a lump charcoal before.

Sent via smoke signals from my Weber kettle

[HankB]

Why does Weber warn against using lump in the WSM owner's manuals? I've never tried a lump charcoal before.

I would guess that they are concerned that lump will not produce as consistent results as briquettes. Their instructions and recipes are geared toward making the cooks as bullet proof as possible so that users don't have a bad experience getting off the ground. This is one of those things that benefits from practice.

On some sites the more experienced guys recommend all kinds of deviations from the instructions forgetting that they have a lot of experience that factors into their success. I recommend sticking to Weber's suggestions (and recipes too) until you are comfortable working with your cooker.

[GOMRDS]

Here's a site with reviews on a lot of different brands of lump: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm

I'm relatively new to lump and, so far, have stuck with briquettes in the wsm and lump on the grill.  So far, my favorite brand has been Ozark Oak, and my least favorite has been Best of the West (which was absolute junk - I was seriously tempted to use a saw or ax to break up the large limbs and branches in the bag).

What would constitute a good price on a 10 lb bag of Ozark Oak? I found some bags for $10/each, but that sounds very steep.

[DirectDrive]

Here's a site with reviews on a lot of different brands of lump: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm

I'm relatively new to lump and, so far, have stuck with briquettes in the wsm and lump on the grill.  So far, my favorite brand has been Ozark Oak, and my least favorite has been Best of the West (which was absolute junk - I was seriously tempted to use a saw or ax to break up the large limbs and branches in the bag).

What would constitute a good price on a 10 lb bag of Ozark Oak? I found some bags for $10/each, but that sounds very steep.

I just looked on line at FireCraft  (seems to have fair prices) and they have the same size for 10.95 +ship.

[mike.stavlund]

Hank brings a wise word about experience, which makes me think I should amend my earlier post. 

One really important thing I've learned the hard way (again, and again, and again) is that you have to 'ease up' to temp, whether on a kettle or a WSM.  Pay a lot of attention at the beginning of the cook as you are coming up to temp, and be assertive and aggressive about clamping down your vents pretty tightly *before* you get close to the range you're aiming for.  Give yourself at least 25 degrees of space to ease up to temp, and even more if your temps are rising quickly. 

This is important when using briquettes, and it's essential when you're cooking with lump.  That stuff will start to burn like an inferno if you go inside to check the WKC for an inopportune few minutes.  And heaven help you as you try to get it to cool down.