Lump Reducing Ring for XL?

I made one from some scrap expanded metal for my XL BGE.

Fire bricks & home made ring. Used about a 36" x 5" piece of expanded metal.

That is still a device that I do not understand the purpose of.  It's to "reduce lump usage", but you still need to heat the entire XL BGE.  It doesn't matter if it's on one side or the other, just in the middle, or around the outside.  It takes the same amount of lump to heat the XL to 350F no matter where or how it's stacked.

The only instance when I can see this working is if you're looking for direct grilling for an extended amount of time.  You keep the fire centered and direct.  But if you're just doing a couple of burgers or brats, just light the XL in the center or off to the side.  By the time your up to temp and have grilled for 10 minutes, the other side has probably not even began to catch up.

In the long run, I just don't see it saving much, so I would go the fire brick or cheapest route.  If you spend $30-40 on one, you could have just burned that extra few bags of charcoal over the next few years than the ring is going to last.

stlcharcoal said:

That is still a device that I do not understand the purpose of.  It's to "reduce lump usage", but you still need to heat the entire XL BGE.  It doesn't matter if it's on one side or the other, just in the middle, or around the outside.  It takes the same amount of lump to heat the XL to 350F no matter where or how it's stacked.

It's not just about reducing lump although that does happen.  It's more about managing the lump burn and temps over a specific area during small cooks in a big cooker.  For searing steaks,  the best chance of a constant temp across the grid is if the lump is burning at a constant height, depth and area.   If the grid is a couple inches over the lump, sitting atop the lump reducing ring, on the lower xl woo2/spider ring or atop the fire ring, I could care less about getting the xl to 350.  I do care about getting my searing zone to 650 or so. 

stlcharcoal said:

The only instance when I can see this working is if you're looking for direct grilling for an extended amount of time.  You keep the fire centered and direct.  But if you're just doing a couple of burgers or brats, just light the XL in the center or off to the side.  By the time your up to temp and have grilled for 10 minutes, the other side has probably not even began to catch up.

It's not always about being centered.  BGE sells half moon grids, being centered with them is not an advantage.  Some folks own a medium or large cooker along with an xl, being centered here has some advantages on sharing accessories between cookers. 

In the long run, I just don't see it saving much, so I would go the fire brick or cheapest route.  If you spend $30-40 on one, you could have just burned that extra few bags of charcoal over the next few years than the ring is going to last.

Our lump reducing rings and ang-L brackets are 304 stainless.  I'll let you know when mine quits working.  Buy more lump......really!

I really like the open bar Lump Reducing Ring, but have not tried the solid ring. Seams easy for people to not understand, dislike or give reviews on items they have never used. The ring works great to contol the lump and heat. Really great for direct searing and using a Wok as well.

I had about 3-4 inches of lump ( Rockwood) in my XL last night, left over from a couple of previous cooks. I just stirred and lit in one spot (at 1200) and brought the xl up to 250 in about 10-15 minutes for 30 minutes of indirect cooking, then I removed the PS, jumped up to 500 to seer, about 5 minutes total, then shutdown by closing the SW top.

 I use mine on every cook.  The main reason I use one of these is because I attached a grid to the bottom of the fire ring with 2 large washers and then you can shake the ash out after each cook.

stlcharcoal said:

@tjv @PhotoEgg

I've messed around with fire bricks off to one side or the other and found it useful.  I like what Primo did with the oval, or KJ did with the Big Joe and have the fire box divided.  Then you could grill on one side, bake/smoke on the other side.  I did not witness that much of a reduction in lump usage though.

I didn't mean to bad mouth the product as far are creating other cooking options......I just never believed it would reduce charcoal consumption enough to pay for itself.  Kind of like buying a medium because your XL uses too much charcoal.  If you want to tell the wife that to justify the purchase, cool.  But if you have other uses for it--different temps around the grid--then by all means get one (especially if it doubles as a wok holder......love my spider & wok.)

The only one I ever saw for sale was cheap 18-gauge "expando" stainless steel.  The one pictured above would definitely last forever.

Part of the confusion might be the perception taken by the product name. "Lump Reducer" to me means less lump in the cooker. Not that I'm going to burn less lump on my cook everytime. Because the lump grate is so large in the XL compared to the the other Eggs it can take 16-20 pounds of lump to fill the beast to the top of the fire ring. Using the ring reduces this amount but still keeps the lump level higher, closer to the cooking grate for higher temps and searing. By pushing the ring to the back or to one side still gives a fair amount of indirect cookin surface similar to using fire bricks or sone other divider. What I really like about the open heavy duty rings is the airflow. Open the bottom vent and open the dome and you have a concentrated searing station. Shut things down some and toss them around the edge and roast to finish. The ring also works great on top the plate setter as a riser/spacer for a pizza stone. Gets your pie up in the dome to bubble and brown the cheese

Canugghead said:

I'm in the lump reducing (LR) ring camp, although I think LR is a misnomer.  Like some of you said, it's more about lump management.  I made my own solid LR ring with a surplus stainless collar, also found some scrap metal bands for making LR dividers in the future.

Here are few examples where LR shines for me:

1) cramped indirect cook - no worries of charring meat that overhangs the PS

2) using Large's AR in the XL - it's like matching the pan to the stove element size

3) cooking kebabs - smaller grids can rest directly on the ring, over concentrated and level lump bed

4) high temp non-raised direct tandoori chicken cook - creates a perimeter buffer to avoid over charring

IMO Law of conservation of energy makes sense for long low and slow cooks, but how practical is it in the above scenarios?

I agree with all stated. 

Here's a tip... don't bother.  I have an XL and have never considered this.  I have fire up the grill using a 1/2 full Weber chimney to cook a single dog.  Just piled it up in the middle, cooked the dog and shut it down..  Next cook reused that little bit.  A steak or a couple of burgers, I may use a full chimney... When I have 4 20lb bags and 5 10lb bags, it is not something I worry about... 

I just had my first low and slow cook this weekend.  I did a 9lb butt and it took 15.5 hours.  After the egg cooled, I looked to see how much charcoal it used and I was blown away.  It MAYBE used a third of the lump.  I could not believe how efficient it was.

But, I do agree the lump reducer could be useful to control where the heat is.  The XL is a large surface of lump and you may have one or two isolated areas creating all the heat for the whole egg.

Learned a lot and got a lot of new ideas from this thread....thanks everyone for posting your comments.