Charcoal basket in large offset smoker
- Thread starter Billsharp34
- Start date
Initially yes like any other start up but once you establish a substantial heat it burns very clean. Like Jacks said, next time I use the basket I'm going to ditch the dividers because I have a feeling the heat they absorb will catch the briqs on the opposite side.
Sweet! Post up some pics if you can and let me know how you like it at the end. I've got a cyberq and ports on mine as well and curious.
Are you using it with or w/out the basket?
I've got an LSG vertical offset and also bought the charcoal basket. It took me a year and a half to use it and it did pretty good. Used to 18.6 bags of K-Comp and I got an 8 hour burn out of it at 275 average temp. A bag and a half with chunks to begin with. 5 hours into the cook with a 1/4 of the fuel left from the original load, I added the remaining 1/2 bag.
At the end of the day it's a stick burner like the old timers told me and if I had to do it again I'd skip the basket since I don't use it much. Only twice. :becky: I thought I would use it a lot more but no. Like Jacks said perhaps it'll be worth it with the oven option we have.
The initial bag and a half with wood chunk
Wow thats alot of fuel. What, at least $30 worth between wood and charcoal. My longhorn may use a milk crate or 2 of splits for a whole cook, granted it a smaller and thinner cooker. My rule of thumb is fuel for a cook should cost less than the food. I could add coals to make it more stable and longer times between splits but wood is cheap in Michigan.
tommykendall
Quintessential Chatty Farker
It is intuitive that charcoal baskets work but so does minion. It's really a matter of the size and shape and geography (roadmap) of your basket, how much lit charcoal you start with, the volume of your cooking chamber which in part should drive how much lit charcoal you should use, AND how much airflow you allow to hit this coals. It's not really a science, well it is sort of. Each person's cooker is a tool and with practice on the things I mention, you will master your tool
I hear you but then I paid $15 (on sale) for the twin pack of Kingsford Comp and it gave me about 8 hrs. Wood is definitely more expensive out here so an 8 hours oak split cook would've cost about $10 based on what I paid for a 1/4 cord and the usual consumption habits of my smoker. Plus it was more of an experiment and wasn't bad considering the fuel cost difference. We get mesquite lump stupid cheap here (40lb bag for $11-12) and that's probably more reasonable next time just to play around again but I've only used the basket twice.
This! When my fire jumped across the divider and the unlit briqs caught, it pretty turned into minion and I just controlled it with airflow using my intake. Worked like a charm and even better than with the dividers.
Billsharp34
Is lookin for wood to cook with.
I've got an LSG vertical offset and also bought the charcoal basket. It took me a year and a half to use it and it did pretty good. Used to 18.6 bags of K-Comp and I got an 8 hour burn out of it at 275 average temp. A bag and a half with chunks to begin with. 5 hours into the cook with a 1/4 of the fuel left from the original load, I added the remaining 1/2 bag.
At the end of the day it's a stick burner like the old timers told me and if I had to do it again I'd skip the basket since I don't use it much. Only twice. :becky: I thought I would use it a lot more but no. Like Jacks said perhaps it'll be worth it with the oven option we have.
The initial bag and a half with wood chunk
Can you give me your dominions on your charcoal basket please
16l x 16w x12h
JacksBBQ
Take a breath!
I forgot to take pictures but my initial test run using the warming oven, charcoal basket, and CyberQ went pretty well. I closed off the exhaust dampers on the main chamber altogether and took the divider plate out of the warming oven. I put a big foil pan on the top grilling rack as kind of a diverter. I did my test with an 18 pound bag of Kingsford. Just dumped the whole bag in without using the dividers. Dumped about half a lit chimney on top of that and set the CyberQ at 250. I think I should have started with a full chimney instead of a half chimney as it took a while to get up to temp but once it got up there, I got a little over 6 hours without having to do anything to it. To simulate a real cook, I went out and opened the door every hour or so to see how the CyberQ would compensate. After the initial startup, I have to say the smoke coming out was very clean.
BBQ_MAFIA
somebody shut me the fark up.
I have a Charcoal Basket that we use in my Lang 84. We bought it from
XXL Charcoal Baskets.
We usually start out with chimney to get the splits started and then burn splits until it
is time to wrap and or go to sleep for a bit. I'm happy with the basket. We don't use it to burn charcoal all the time but when we do, it allows us to keep the temp of the cooker exactly where I want it while giving us the time to get a few winks at a comp.
XXL Charcoal Baskets.
We usually start out with chimney to get the splits started and then burn splits until it
is time to wrap and or go to sleep for a bit. I'm happy with the basket. We don't use it to burn charcoal all the time but when we do, it allows us to keep the temp of the cooker exactly where I want it while giving us the time to get a few winks at a comp.
JohnH12
Full Fledged Farker
I have one for the Lang 60D but haven't used it yet. Ben threw it in at no cost when I ordered the cooker.
I plan to use it for my first attempt at cold smoking since I think it'll give me the smoke but keep the cook chamber temp reasonably low.
I plan to use it for my first attempt at cold smoking since I think it'll give me the smoke but keep the cook chamber temp reasonably low.
