Small lump in Mini

Mickey

Getting very near bottem of bag BGE Lump. All was very large or very small (size of quarters).
Started with clean mini and fresh lump and loaded the small lump to fire ring.
Doing spatchcock chicken direct on woo at 400 (trying).
Have done this many times and worked perfect.
Could not control temp from start and ended up burning bottom of chicken. The chicken was still fine pulling away from burnt bottom.I do not flip spatchcocked.
Yes I should have opened another bag and mixed (that would involve walking to garage,a walk of 70 feet in a temp of 64 and sunny).
Do you think my problems is using all small lump?

Car Wash Mike

When I fire up the mini I hand pick the lump. I wonder if some of those small pieces end up falling threw th grate and clogging up the bottom vent.
Not for sure if it was necessary for a weather report like that. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Mike

Mickey

Mike sorry about the weather (damn its nice today).
Are you saying the mini is less forgiving on loading lump than small or large? this is just the first time having so much small lump in a burn.

Grandpas Grub

 
I don't think (thinking out loud) it was the size of the lump, possible the height of the lump in the egg.

There isn't much room in the firebox of the mini. If you used larger pieces, almost fist size pieces, possibly those size's broke down in the prior burn and you ended up with a lower overall lump level with regard to food level.

I used the TurboGrate yesterday and there are, to me, some interesting things I noticed. I have some ideas of why you ran out of lump and was wondering if you felt you burned more lump when using the TG? I don't want to hijack this thread and will put up another post later on. Got to get in the shower and head out to two basket ball games. 6 year old and 12 year old league.

Sorry to hear about all that cold weather you are having & thanks for the TG.

Kent

Mickey

Kent I did burn much more lump with the TG, that is the reason you have mine Well that and the fire going out on me twice with lump in the box.

Car Wash Mike

Not that sorry though. I think so because of less air flow. Just an opinion, never really tested. But I did have trouble at times getting the temp I wanted until I started do this.

Mike

Mickey

Mike do you load the mini with larger on bottom and smaller top?

Car Wash Mike

I try to keep the pieces about the same size. I also clean out the ash every time to.

Mike

Grandpas Grub

 
Interesting...

I clean out the mini about every 4 to 5 cooks, but the cooks are usually pretty short. I use about 2 to 3 fills between cleaning.

Always remove any large peices of lump and don't worry too much about the smaller pieces. Upon adding lump on every egg I make sure I don't have the hole clogged in the fire grate or fire box.

If I have a good burn on a previous cook I usually just add more lump and don't worry about stirring out the ash on the large and medium. Small and mini I always stir down the ash and clear any blocked holes.

Kent

Grandpas Grub

 
I usually try to place larger pieces on the fire grate just so the holes won't get blocked with the smaller pieces. After the few larger pieces I just dump and don't bother with what falls where.

Kent