Briquettes in a Kamado? Test in progress.

[m-fine]

So, I am a big fan of lump charcoal but I also think briquettes have their strengths as well. In general I know the Kamado makers recommend lump only, mostly because of the much lower levels of ash buildup, however, I figured I would try the Kingsford Competiton (KC) briquettes that produce about half the ash of KBB and that Kingsford advertises as Kamado compatible.

In my limited prior experience with them, I have found the KC to be halfway between lump and KBB, burning hotter than the KBB but more consistent and even than lump.

Today's test includes a boneless pork shoulder and a pork loin cut in half and stuffed with spinach, feta and sausage. Sorry about the limited photos, I keep forgetting to take pics.

Right away I was reminded of another issue with briquettes and a Kamado. While lump can be lit and burns with little smoke right away, briquettes often smoke a bit and you need to let them burn that off before you get to the clean TBS. The KC gave me a TON of smoke and burning it off got the Pit Boss pretty hot which is not always a good thing. The ceramic Kamado takes a long time to reduce temps so you have to be careful about it getting away from you and once too hot you need patience. Therefore dealing with the smokey startup is not ideal.

That said, once the smoke cleared, it really cleared and is now burning very clean with less TBS than I have been getting with Royal Oak or Wegmans (rebranded RO) lump.

I put the pork shoulder on at around 300* on the way down to 250. After about 2.5 hours I added the stuffed loin and brought the temp up to a target of 300-325. The temps have been steady and even and temp control has been super simple. No complaints there.

More to come as it cooks, but so far I think the KC can work, but it is not going to displace lump as my main fuel.

Also, last night I grilled up some salmon with a cilantro lime butter. Mmmmmm mmmmmm good! I used the CGS spider legs down to raise the grids and put the salmon on a porcelain grill topper on the upper grid, about 3.5" up into the dome. It cooked wonderfully up there, nice and even, and the flare ups from dripping butter were safely out of reach due to the height. Skin came out perfectly crispy and browned without a hint of burning. Can't do that on a plank or with an indirect cook. Sorry no skin pics. I was too busy eating!

 

[Histrix]

There's nothing wrong per se with using briquettes in a kamado as lots of folks have been doing that for decades.

If I were using briquettes in a kamado tho I would light them off in a chimney rather than inside the kamado. As you saw the first few minutes of lighting up briquettes can be very smokey/stinky.

If you're doing a low and slow you don't need to light off a full chimney just get a dozen or so briqs going well and dump those onto the center of your pile in the kamado.

If you're grilling light up a full chimney and then dumped them in when ready.

 

[m-fine]

Yeah, I F'ed up. I lit some and then dumped more in on top and then got smoked off the deck. I should have used the chimney and put the lit ones on the top rather than the bottom. Still early on the Kamado learning curve.

 

[m-fine]

Updated photo. Looking good, temp at the top grid was 318, right where I want it.

 

[m-fine]

More pictures in a bit, but the cooking is done for the day. The pork loin came out pretty good. the pulled pork was just so so. It did not have the smoke flavor I am looking for and there was very little smoke ring (yes I know it is just an appearance thing, but presentation matters). Texture was fine, but it tasted like it came off a charcoal fire rather than a hickory wood smoking.

Next time I will use much more wood mixed in, but I do not think I will ever get stick burner flavor out of this grill. It it still a big step up from using an oven or crockpot in the winter months, and it does other things so well, so I am not all that concerned.

 

[m-fine]

Here are a couple of lame finished product pictures. I was trying to do too much while also cooking so the photography is worse than my normal low standards.

 

[JoeMap]

The food looks great! I need to work on pork loins as mine tend to get too dry.

As mentioned earlier, people have been using briquettes in kamados with no major issues other than ash buildup but even that is usually overstated (in terms of whether it will build up enough to block the airflow and kill the fire. Certainly more of a pain to clean, though.

As an example Brethren John Setzler filled a kamado (I think it was a Chargriller Akorn but not sure) with KBB and started timing it when it got to his target temp. He was expecting expecting a decent time but finally shut it off after 20+ hours because he had stuff to do and couldn't wait around forever.

Joe

 

[jwtseng]

I'm sure all the food was good. Sure looks good from here. I'm surprised that you didn't get more of a smoke ring from the charcoal...it's supposed to release more carbon monoxide and "stuff" than burning wood does (more concentrated production from briquettes). Maybe it had to do with your forced burn off at the beginning rather than a slow burn from a straight minion method.

With a little more wood next time, I'm sure you'll find the right mix and balance out the chargrill vs. wood smoke flavor. I get a lot more absolute smoke flavor from my Primo than from my stickburner...but there is that particular flavor quality that you can only get from a stickburner.

 

[m-fine]

The food looks great! I need to work on pork loins as mine tend to get too dry.

They can be a tad challenging. About half of mine come out good according to my standards and my wife's which don't fully over lap, adding to the challenge.

 

[m-fine]

I'm sure all the food was good. Sure looks good from here. I'm surprised that you didn't get more of a smoke ring from the charcoal...it's supposed to release more carbon monoxide and "stuff" than burning wood does (more concentrated production from briquettes). Maybe it had to do with your forced burn off at the beginning rather than a slow burn from a straight minion method.

With a little more wood next time, I'm sure you'll find the right mix and balance out the chargrill vs. wood smoke flavor. I get a lot more absolute smoke flavor from my Primo than from my stickburner...but there is that particular flavor quality that you can only get from a stickburner.

The smoke ring thing was a bit of a surprise to me too. I thought a charcoal fire choked back with restricted airflow would create more NOx and therefore a very pronounced smoke ring, but maybe the lower flame temp and lack of oxygen means less NOx? In my stick burner, I usually have a (small) hot flame with excess oxygen and I can get very deep rings if cooking slow enough so maybe I need to study combustion chemistry to learn what conditions are needed for nitrogen oxide formation. I have a diesel VW Touareg that is supposed to put out excessive NOx emissions so for the next test perhaps I should pipe the exhaust into my grill?