Why Did My RO Briquettes Perform Miserably in My 22.5 WSM Today?

Fired my WSM up for the first time today. I prefer RO briquettes to Kingsford for grilling, so I used them for this too.

Question for more experienced WSM users: why did my 22.5 use an entire 15.4 LB bag of Royal Oak Briquettes in 8 hours today running at 270? This is stunning to me. Many guys are getting 16+ hours out of the same size bag of Kingsford Blue. I cannot believe RO is this much worse. As a matter of fact, one test another guy ran on his website (that another Brethren linked to a while back) showed it to be superior to Kingsford Blue in how long it lasted. Was this just one weird / bad bag of charcoal or something else? It was this exact bag:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Royal-Oak-...BgDqeGEMbNgULtLQuAG0BjaHqAPFqHHhoCvGoQAvD_BwE

Kevin89 said:

Weather is a big factor. They could also be using an ATC. For me, I've never had a bag of kbb go 16+ hours in my 22 and that's all I used.

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What sort of timeframe would you expect to get out of a bag?

Kevin89 said:

I can usually get about 10-12hrs in the 250 range since adding my second grate, not losing as many smaller pieces thru the gaps.

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That is a good point.

Czarbecue said:

A 16 pound bag of KBB would get me at most 12 hours running at 250-265 with no ATC or water pan and the stock charcoal grate and basket. This is assuming there was no wind or fluctuations with your heat. I didn't get 16 hour burns until I switched to a Hunskaer Vortex basket in my WSM.

Also, if this is your first time firing it up, you may get less burn time since you don't have any crud in the interior and it is making things too efficient.

Biggest factor that would attribute to a shorter burn time is the usage of the water pan and what meat you were smoking. Huge chunks of meat will take up more heat than say baby back or STL ribs.

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Very helpful, thank you. Was running dry - no water pan or meat. Just a test run. I would have thought without either meat or water it would have run for at least 12 hours on a bag, but obviously not. Will get 'er figured out!