Charcoal Usage

Unknown

Originally I bought two bags of Cowboy Charcoal 8.8 lbs. each because it got good reviews from Naked Whiz. The charcoal was made up of pretty small pieces. Then, for backup, I bought 20 lbs. of Big Green Egg charcoal. Good sized chunks. Here is my situation. I've cooked on the egg ten times. Two of the ten were 3-4 hours at 225 degrees. Two were at about 500 degrees. The other 6 were at about 350 degrees. The charcoal consumption seems high to me. I've gone through both bags of Cowboy charcoal (17.6 pounds) and about 5 lbs. of BGE charcoal. There it is 22.5 lbs. of charcoal for 10 cooking sessions. Is this in the "ball park" for Eggers?

Unknown

Dr. Jim,
cowboy burns up a lot faster

icemncmth

Dr. Jim,[p]I have found Cowboy to burn quick....I use it for burgers and stuff that is going to cook quickly...[p]I use Ozark Oak...and it seems to last longer than the rest...[p]I use it for long and slow because it will last a long time...
I can also get a 10lb bag for 4.39 [p]

mb168

Dr. Jim,[p]What size egg are you using? I'm a new egger too but my XL definitely burns more than my medium (more space/mass to heat, but I think both do quite well.) But for instance, I have filled up my firebox on the medium once, and I've cooked chicken in it twice, 400-500 for less than an hr each time, then yesterday I cooked a butt on the same coals and it ran for over 9 hrs and I never touched it. When it was finished and cooled down last night I raked everything out of the firebox through the grid to clean out the ash and there are still several decent sized lumps in there, I almost wish I had just let it burn and timed it. So I'm still on my original 20# bag of BGE lump they "gave" me when I bought the egg and have only used 1 firebox full and cooked on it for roughly 12 hours, two of them higher temp cooks.[p]I don't know how many hours I've cooked on the XL total but I made ribs on it 4 times I believe for 5 hrs each time, a ham, steaks, and burgers so well over 20 hours and still have some lump out of the other 20# bag they "gave" me when I bought it.[p]The eggs are misers, and I've also been trying to pay close attention to temp control and getting it stable so it's burning for a while before I pu tth emeat on. I haven't subscribed to the "ready to cook in 10 minutes" campaign and I still havent burned up the bag.

GirlyEgg

Dr. Jim,
I, too, bought 2 bags of Cowboy Lump. I filled the firebox on my medium and needed to add more charcoal about 3/4 way through for a 12 hour butt cook. It definitely burns quick! I had been using BGE previously and I usually had charcoal left over! Needless to say, I haven't opened the 2nd bag of Cowboy... I bought another bag of BGE (didn't have time to shop around.. my local ACE carries BGE).

Unknown

Dr. Jim, I too have found
cowboy to burn faster than most lump. I like Royal Oak or most any kind of lump that is primarily oak based is going to last through most any cook you do w/o refil if you fill the box at the outset. It takes a little longer to start but will ultimatly last for a long burn. Good grillin bro>

fishlessman

Dr. Jim,
first couple years with one large i was burning on average 400 pounds per year wicked good comp blend, since i added a small my lump consumption is down to about 250 pounds per year. the small uses way less per cook. some things i do differently now are doubling up cooks, like throwing on a pastrami while cooking ribs for tonights dinner, or always cooking more than one butt or adding a brisket to a butt cook regardless of what my needs are. i also find cooking inderect wastes more lump so i do alot of direct cooks were others are cooking inderect for the same foods, its mostly a matter of cooking direct about 25 degrees less than what you would normally cook the dinner inderect and maybe adding a raised grill instead of the platesetter or pizza stone etc. been cooking pizzas lately in the 900 degree range, this is going to eat up some lump, 10 pounds dissapears with only a couple of pizzas.

Carbonizer

fishlessman,
How are you pizza's turning out at 900 Deg.?
Still trying here and results are improving with each one.

Just Plain Mike

Dr. Jim,[p]Consider yourself lucky. I did a cook on my 20 X 40 offset this week and I used a ten pound bag of RO lump, 5 pounds of Kirkland lump, 20 pounds of Rancher charcoal, three nice oak logs, and about 4 pounds of hickory. It was fun but needless to say, if I ever do another picnic butt, it's going to be on my large egg, my large grill dome or my Cook-N-Kettle!

Sundown

Dr. Jim,[p]You're close to average. If you're looking for longer burning lump Wicked Good Weekend Warrior should keep you happy. And, of you ask nicely there's a couple of people out there that have large sized stashes of Wicked Good Competition Blend. You might be able to buy some from them. Well worth the investment in my opinion,

Unknown

Dr. Jim, That Cowboy stuff never lasted very long for me, never cared much for it. Ozark Oak works good for me. I also thought that Cowboys was rated as one of the lower picks on the Whiz.[p] Good Luck
Boat Drink[p]

Unknown

Dr. Jim,
Sounds about right to me. I'm OK with any of the royal oak brands, Costco's Kirkland was pretty good until my store dropped it. But, in any case, how many bags of kingsford briquettes do you think you would have used on a weber for the same amount of cooks?

FlaMike

FkaMike, I think I forgot how to spell my own name.

Unknown

Thanks everybody! What a big help. I am just new enough so that I need to get a sense of things and the burn time for charcoal is one of them. I couldn't have got better help than from you - all of you!

Pharmeggist

Dr. Jim,
I use Cowboy for cooks less than 6 hours. For cooks over 6 hours I use BGE lump. I don't won't to worry about the egg going out while I am asleep :=) I cooked two 7lb BOston BUtts for 20 hours 40minutes and still had lump left in the Bottom of my Large BGE. Hope this helps you!
~Pharmeggist

fishlessman

Carbonizer,
they are getting better, still am using store bought dough, but will be experimenting more once the fishing season closes mid october and the weekends open up. biggest thing seems to be getting the dough stretched uniformly from pie to pie, one day it tosses better than the next which varies the results from good to great and back again, need more practice. i also need to make some clips to hold the dome to the bands as the dome gets loose at those temps, especially when it gets even hotter, ive gone as high as a little over 1100 now for the 50 second pizza and the dome could easily fall out at those temps