Lump Management

schellter · Feb 1, 2010

I have had my large BGE for 4 months and I am enjoying cooking on it except for the loading it with lump. I guess in a prefect world a bag of lump would contain pieces sized somewhere between the size of a cherry tomato and a small tree limb and I could just dump charcoal from the bag into the BGE.

But in actuality I have to separate the big from the small and too small pieces and the dust. That entails digging around in the bag with my hand to pick out the acceptably sized pieces and loading the egg handful by handful. That is a slow and messy job I would like to find a way to avoid.

My idea for making this easier is to mount a plastic milk crate (the kind you see sitting under wheel-less chevys) over my trash can, fill it with lump and shake it until the dust and too small pieces fall through the bottom.

Has anyone come up with a better idea for making lump management easier?

Thanks

MilitantSquatter · Feb 1, 2010

I just carefully shake in with a new bag.. When I get toward the bottom half of a bag, I usually just grab the lump with two hands out of the bag, to limit the charcoal dust, but I don't get too crazy about size of the pieces and where they are positioned.

I light the coals and then try to keep the air holes free of ashes with the wiggle rod (bent coat hanger for me)

cbagby64 · Feb 1, 2010

I just dump the bag of royal oak in and let the xl egg do it's thing. I've never had an issue with the small pieces getting stuck in the fire grate.

I also have a pair of insulated gloves that I use only for charcoal. They make clean up easy and are insulated in case you need to move any of the hot charcoal around.

swamprb · Feb 1, 2010

Jenga

Ahhh yes! Lump Management! You obviously have never bought the restaurant sized 40lb bags of Lazarri Mesquite lump? Well now let me tell ya about Lump Management!!.....

I thought I was getting a sweet deal-40lbs of lump for $12.99, so I scooped up three bags and stuck them in the shed. I was down to my last bit of a bag of BGE lump and went to fill up my Egg on a miserable rainy Sunday, and I'm behind the 8-ball, meat prep took longer than expected and the OL wants dinner earlier than I planned, so I open a bag of Lazarri and its almost all friggin' logs! Cordwood! Open another and same thing! Football sized hunks! By now its pouring down rain, I put a tarp down on my garage floor and start bustin' these bags open, chunks and dust covering everything in the garage, and I looked like a coal miner by the time I get an Eggfull! So I run out to the deck and fire the Egg up and my OL is yellin' out the window at me because the kids waltzed through the garage and tracked it into the family room with their wet feet! So I pack it all in the bags and have a brain fart and decided to use the leaf blower to blow the farkin' dust and small pieces of lump into the driveway, when all of a sudden the wind blows directly into the garage spreading more havoc! Couple days later it cleared up and I busted up the remaining bags....and as anal retentive as it seems, I did seperate into 3 sizes! Fist sized, briquette sized, the duff and then the dust went into the compost pile!

Needless to say, I haven't felt the urge to splurge on Lazarri lately, but have been using the 20lb bags of Royal Oak lump and picked up a welders hammer at China Freight for a few bucks and now I just dump a buckets worth from the bag and bust up the big chunks and layer them and put the smaller pieces on top.

Almost every time I've dumped a bag in the Egg and there was a lot of dust, I always had flashbacks when opening the dome. Even burping the Egg would be scary! Rick pointed this out to me and stopped filling the firebox that way. It just works for me.

schellter · Feb 1, 2010

swamprb said:
Ahhh yes! Lump Management! You obviously have never bought the restaurant sized 40lb bags of Lazarri Mesquite lump? Well now let me tell ya about Lump Management!!.....

I thought I was getting a sweet deal-40lbs of lump for $12.99, so I scooped up three bags and stuck them in the shed. I was down to my last bit of a bag of BGE lump and went to fill up my Egg on a miserable rainy Sunday, and I'm behind the 8-ball, meat prep took longer than expected and the OL wants dinner earlier than I planned, so I open a bag of Lazarri and its almost all friggin' logs! Cordwood! Open another and same thing! Football sized hunks! By now its pouring down rain, I put a tarp down on my garage floor and start bustin' these bags open, chunks and dust covering everything in the garage, and I looked like a coal miner by the time I get an Eggfull! So I run out to the deck and fire the Egg up and my OL is yellin' out the window at me because the kids waltzed through the garage and tracked it into the family room with their wet feet! So I pack it all in the bags and have a brain fart and decided to use the leaf blower to blow the farkin' dust and small pieces of lump into the driveway, when all of a sudden the wind blows directly into the garage spreading more havoc! Couple days later it cleared up and I busted up the remaining bags....and as anal retentive as it seems, I did seperate into 3 sizes! Fist sized, briquette sized, the duff and then the dust went into the compost pile!

Needless to say, I haven't felt the urge to splurge on Lazarri lately, but have been using the 20lb bags of Royal Oak lump and picked up a welders hammer at China Freight for a few bucks and now I just dump a buckets worth from the bag and bust up the big chunks and layer them and put the smaller pieces on top.

Almost every time I've dumped a bag in the Egg and there was a lot of dust, I always had flashbacks when opening the dome. Even burping the Egg would be scary! Rick pointed this out to me and stopped filling the firebox that way. It just works for me.

That is a funny story to read, I know it wasn't fun for you at the time. I just finished a 20# bag of Lazzari and it did have some seriously big pieces of wood. I put the big ones in the bottom of the BGE and stacked the smaller pieces around and on top of them. Except for some serious sparks it worked just fine. I just got a couple of bags of RO (red bag made in USA) at RD and I have yet to find any truly large pieces of lump.

Lump Management

schellter

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MilitantSquatter

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cbagby64

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swamprb

somebody shut me the fark up.

schellter

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