I’m close to wrapping up my first-ever smoke, but I clearly didn’t do it properly and I’m perplexed. What you see in the picture is how I set everything up 11 hours ago. This sure looks to me like the charcoal basket in a video I watched beforehand. I lit it only in the center, and was able to reach 250 degrees and stay there for a really long time. At four hours, the temperature had dropped to 240 and I opened the top vent a little more. An hour and fifteen minutes after that, it was down to 220, so I checked the charcoal and discovered it was mostly gone. I added a few more chunks and got back up to 250, but now I’ve been cooking for 10 hours and have once again nearly run out of fuel. This time I just moved the charcoal into one pile instead of adding more. My pork butt is just under 190 degrees, so even in a worst-case scenario it will still be edible. (And it smells amazing.)
Anyway, what did I do wrong?
I was worried about overloading the charcoal basket because I thought it would get too hot. Now, after seeing how stable the temperature was for several hours, I’m thinking that maybe I could have filled the basket completely and it would have been merely a matter of managing the airflow. Is that right? Do I just dump huge quantities of charcoal in this thing no matter how hot I’m trying to get it?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
by Civil-Stomach-1387
8 Comments
Fill it up. Whatever you don’t use you can leave it and re light it later. More charcoal doesn’t mean hotter. The vents and airflow with dictate how hot it gets.
I overfilled mine once and the flames were coming out the top. How high do you fill it for grilling. Burgers and steaks, not ribs and brisket.
Fill ‘er up and when you’re done cooking shut it down, you can re-use it. One of the best things about the kamado, it’s probably paid for itself in charcoal.
For long cooks you are better off using briquettes than lump. My current favorite is B&B.
Did you use a deflector plate ? But the answer is fill it up either way.
Start with way more. And don’t be afraid to add more coal as the cook goes on. I’ve had the coals touch the deflectors without issue.
Fill the basket. All the way to the top. When you’re done with the cook, you shut down the kamado and you’ll have coals left over for the next cook. Always always always fill the basket and use your old coals as your starter for your next round.
Fill the basket all the way up. That’s where you went wrong. It feels like a lot but you can always reuse the unused stuff. You need like 3X more charcoal in that basket.