charcoal question

Unknown

is there a certain way to place the charcoal in the large bge? i just put the big chunks right in the middle and the smaller ones all the way around it. is this the best way?

Unknown

Luis,[p]Someone had a good article with pictures. I had printed it out but can't find the link. Naked Whiz has a good article for pulled pork.[p]http://www.nakedwhiz.com/pullpork.htm[p]Basically, fire building technique can be sloppy for your average grilling, but you need to give it more thought for very high temperature (~700 and above) or very low and slow temperatures (200-250 for many hours).

SirKeats

Luis,[p]Ditto to what Rob said... except I have to disagree with the high-temp part. My experiance is that for short cooks, regardless of how hot I'm cooking (TRex or otherwise), a dump and light works fine. It's the long cooks that can use some more attention with respect to lump placement.[p]jmho though.

Unknown

SirKeats,[p]I don't have actual experience with very high temperatures, but I was reading Naked Whiz's faq's and he mentioned that if you have problem achieving high temperature, then one of three things are occuring.
- You are reusing charcoal. Old charcoal that's already been lit will not achieve the same high temperatures that it previously attained.
- There's not much charcoal in the fire box. The air coming up through the charcoal does not get the chance to heat the same as air passing through a larger pile of charcoal.
- The air flow is blocked. Either charcoal pieces or ash blocking the air flow.

SirKeats

Rob,[p]all good points. can't recall if i trexed last time on old charcoal or new. probably was a mix actually. nw is the expert though so i defer to him.

Big Hoser

Luis,[p]As Rob and SirKeats alluded to, I think it depends on the cook. For high temps to nuke a steak, you want mostly newer lump. For low-n-slow like a pork butt, I've found using new lump poured into the middle of old lump (old lump formed into a bowl) works fine. One of the big reasons I bought the Egg is it's very forgiving and you really don't need to worry about charcoal feeding or stacking like you do in those steel smokers. Just make sure your airholes aren't blocked and the bottom isn't too full of ash and I think you'll be fine (based on my limited eggsperience).