sudsandswine
Quintessential Chatty Farker
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2012
- Location
- Kansas City
I was completely out of briquettes and wanted to spin some yard bird on my Weber kettle rotisserie tonight. I stopped by the local Ace Hardware and they were out of all briquettes except for KBB @ $14/15.4lb or Jealous Devil briquettes for $12/10lb. The price for KBB was probably 50% more per pound than I was used to paying so I decided to try out the Jealous Devil briqs. I’ve been very happy with their lump, and while it does have a somewhat premium price ($25/20lb) I find very little in the bag that’s unusable, the pieces are consistently sized, and it burns clean.
The JD briquettes are probably 25-30% larger than what I’m used to from Kingsford or Weber. If you consider the size and how much of each briquette you can pack into a fixed amount of volume, the smaller briqs would give you higher density in volume.
Although it’s hard to tell from this angle, the crumpled paper I use to start a chimney had fully burned off and this is the point that KBB would typically be billowing white smoke as it progressively lit.
This is the point I’d normally dump the coals - the bottom ones mostly gray with the top coals partially gray. I find at this point I get a clean burn from the coals while still having max longevity.
Ready for the spit rod
This is the first roti basket of chicken nearing completion - Alburkirky green Chile seasoning on these. Normally I’d get 45-60 minutes of proper temps on the other charcoal at this charcoal basket volume before it’d start trailing off. This seemed to have plenty of life left so I thought I’d try another run.
Second basket load - Bob’s Smokin’ Southern seasoned
I highly recommend both of these seasonings on chicken. A couple of my favs I discovered via Brethren trade round.
This is the coals after about an hour and 45 minutes of run time. I’d guess I could get another 45 minute rotation before temps started dropping off. This kettle does not have a dome thermometer but I’d guess I was running 450* based on the cook time.
I weighed the bag and I used 3.5 lbs of coals for this cook. I didn’t fully fill the chimney, and it probably had less “filled” volume due to the larger briquette size. I seem to have gotten longer runtime on less charcoal than other briquettes I used. The startup was clean without much smoke or off smells. Jealous Devil does have a slightly different smell than lot of the other domestically produced charcoal has and if you’ve used the lump, the briqs smell the same at first. It burned hot, clean, and without any off flavors detected on the food. I would definitely buy again, and even consider using it in my Clonesaker drum that I normally only use lump in.
The JD briquettes are probably 25-30% larger than what I’m used to from Kingsford or Weber. If you consider the size and how much of each briquette you can pack into a fixed amount of volume, the smaller briqs would give you higher density in volume.
Although it’s hard to tell from this angle, the crumpled paper I use to start a chimney had fully burned off and this is the point that KBB would typically be billowing white smoke as it progressively lit.
This is the point I’d normally dump the coals - the bottom ones mostly gray with the top coals partially gray. I find at this point I get a clean burn from the coals while still having max longevity.
Ready for the spit rod
This is the first roti basket of chicken nearing completion - Alburkirky green Chile seasoning on these. Normally I’d get 45-60 minutes of proper temps on the other charcoal at this charcoal basket volume before it’d start trailing off. This seemed to have plenty of life left so I thought I’d try another run.
Second basket load - Bob’s Smokin’ Southern seasoned
I highly recommend both of these seasonings on chicken. A couple of my favs I discovered via Brethren trade round.
This is the coals after about an hour and 45 minutes of run time. I’d guess I could get another 45 minute rotation before temps started dropping off. This kettle does not have a dome thermometer but I’d guess I was running 450* based on the cook time.
I weighed the bag and I used 3.5 lbs of coals for this cook. I didn’t fully fill the chimney, and it probably had less “filled” volume due to the larger briquette size. I seem to have gotten longer runtime on less charcoal than other briquettes I used. The startup was clean without much smoke or off smells. Jealous Devil does have a slightly different smell than lot of the other domestically produced charcoal has and if you’ve used the lump, the briqs smell the same at first. It burned hot, clean, and without any off flavors detected on the food. I would definitely buy again, and even consider using it in my Clonesaker drum that I normally only use lump in.
