A Review Of Kingsford Charcoal

When it comes to grilling, if you’re not using gas, you’re probably using Kingsford.

I prefer natural lump, but I’ve used about 8 big bags of Kingsford over the past 3 months in both my Weber Smokey Mountain smoker (WSM) and my Weber Performer grill.

Kingsford changed their formula last year to make it easier to use. They added Sure Fire Grooves to speed up lighting and it works to the tune of about 20% faster.

However, Kingsford claims the new stuff burns slightly hotter, burns longer and weighs less. Research shows this isn’t necessarily true.

The new Kingsford burns much hotter than the old K. Under testing conditions the old briquettes reached 765* while the new batch reached 900*. That’s a huge difference that not all cooks will be able to control.

New K does not burn longer than the old K and they both weigh about the same.

Some people are concerned with K’s petroleum based binders. Don’t be. They aren’t there. The binder is starch. The same kind of starch found in corn and wheat.

The chemical that causes concern is Borax. Borax is a natural occurring mineral consisting of sodium, boron, oxygen, and water. Sodium is found in salt. Oxygen and water we need to live, but what is this boron thing? Boron is used for plant growth.

You can find borax in detergents, cosmetics, and oddly enough it is used as a fire retardant.

Kingsford is convenient to find, and it burns consistant from the top of the bag to the bottom.

Something I don’t like at all about K is the ash. K produces mounds of ash that must occasionally be dealt with even while you’re cooking. I’ve had ash from K build up in my WSM to the charcoal grate during one 15 hour cook causing airflow problems which then caused temperature control problems.

The second problem with K is the nasty smell when it’s lit, especially if you use lighter fluid. To combat this, use a chimney starter with no lighter fluid. Let the coals completely ash over before dumping them out to cook over.

As a side note, I found out the back of the old Kingsford bags were mostly dedicated tot he art of low and slow BBQ cooking, but the new bags talk about grilling. That seems appropriate given the new K’s properties.

With K you get convenience and consistency, but there are a few things to not like. I’ll use it if I have to, but I prefer all natural lump charcoal.

You can get more info on charcoal at Naked Whiz.

EDIT January 23:  If you’re looking for a link to the new Kingsford Competition Briquets, clike here:  LINK TO PRESS RELEASE

Food Network Has Too Much Penis

The Food Network has too much penis!

This is a great, short clip.

Grilling Oranges

Grilling oranges may sound weird to some of you, but you can have yourself quite an unexpected treat if you just give it a try.

The idea is that you’re caramelizing the sugars and I’m telling you, it’s great.

I’ve seen this done where the grill master cut the oranges in half, grills them and serves them. I don’t like this method because I think half and orange is too much to deal with while eating dinner.

The grill was set up screaming hot with a safety zone over Kingsford. ( I really need to get some lump!)

Just before grilling I coated the oranges in oil and put them on the grill with one cut side down. I didn’t pursue cross hatch marks since this was my first run at oranges.

I let them caramelize and then flipped them to the other cut side. It goes very fast. As soon as that side caramelized I moved the oranges to the safety zone to heat through.

Once done I pulled them and let them come to room temp before serving. I’m telling you, they were fantastic and a big surprise for our guests, something they weren’t expecting, yet something they were glad to have tried.

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How to Make Real BBQ

I love real BBQ and I hate going to a restaurant that has BBQ on the menu, but no smoke coming from the roof. I’ll pass on the Q, thank you very much.

So let’s get started. We’re going to do pulled pork so go get yourself a couple of pork butts. I’ll wait…. No I won’t…

BTW, pork butts aren’t pork ass. Pork butts come from the hog’s shoulder. I don’t know why they’re named butts, but they are. Maybe I’ll look it up sometime if I ever care.

Sorry, back to butts.

I get my butts at BJ’s because I know they aren’t “Enhanced”. In other words, they’re not injected with a bunch of garbage I don’t want.

About 12 hour before the cook I start prepping the meat by trimming some of the fat being sure not to remove the entire fat cap. I’ll explain why later.

Next I apply the rub. Sometimes I use my own, other times I use store bought. For this cook I used Lawry’s Perfect Pork Blend. I rubbed those two butts real well, let me tell you. When done, put them back in the fridge.

I had about 12lbs of butt to cook for an afternoon meal so I started prepping for the cook around 10:30pm the night before by giving the Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) a good cleaning, then starting the fire.

I filled the charcoal ring to the top with Kingsford and a few chunks of hickory. I would have like to have used some apple wood, but I didn’t have any. I then started about 15 coals over the Weber Performer’s starter. If you haven’t figured it out, I’m using the Minion Method for the cook.

Once the starter fuel was lit I poured it over the coals in the WSM and assembled the unit. When it hit 200* I started shutting down the vents to stabilize the temperature at 250* at the lid. That would give me about 235* at the top grate where I’ll place the butts.

I put the meat on, fat cap up to keep things moist, just before shutting everything down because I forgot an important step. The idiot writing this forgot to take the meat out of the fridge at 10pm to let it start warming up. The cook is now going to take longer than I planned.

I went to sleep around 2am and woke around 7:30am to find the WSM still holding at 250*. Then things went to hell and a hand basket. The wind picked up and it became difficult to maintain the temperature.

I took the unit apart, kicked the ash away and added new coals. This worked for awhile, but the temp started dropping again. I spent the rest of the cook fighting the temperature.

For a baste I went very simple and just used apple cider every 1/2 hour or so.

The temps from the pork settled in around 170* for a couple of hours while the goodness happened. That’s when the fat renders down and the connective tissues break down. Sometimes you’ll even see the internal temperature drop. It’s not unusual so don’t freak out if that happens.

Guests were to arrive soon and I still wasn’t at the 190* internal I needed so I tried cranking the heat some, but it just wouldn’t let me get it very hot. Fortunately, the butts finally reached their temp and I pulled them, wrapped them in foil and let them rest before pulling.

But they weren’t really done. You cook until the food is done, not a specific temp. In this case, while the temp was a good guideline to start checking, the bone wouldn’t pull out, so the meat wasn’t done to exact specs. It was cooked, just not where I wanted it. I also didn’t have time to let is go any longer. I was stuck.

After an hour I pulled the pork and all was fine. It was harder to pull than I would have liked, but it was till excellent.

So the mistakes made in this cook were, not getting the meat from the fridge ahead of time, not allowing enough time for the cook, (because) I didn’t have a wind break to protect the WSM from the wind.

I served the BBQ with sauce on the side. I never, ever put sauce on the pork. I let our guests decide if they want it or not. I’m proud to say my homemade sauce was a hit with everyone. How do I know? Simple, the bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s wasn’t touched, but mine was almost all gone. I’ll post the recipe in the near future.

All in all it was an OK cook, but it’s hard to totally screw up an 15hr cook.

How to Grill Zucchini and Squash

Here’s how to grill squash and zucchini the easy way.

Frankly, I’m not much of a fan of these two veggies, but my wife loves them grilled and we had some vegetarians at the house this past weekend, so I made them.

I said this would be easy and it is. I used my Weber Performer with Kingsford charcoal for this.

Start by getting your charcoal lit in a chimney starter. After the coal is completely lit dump it out in a three zone configuration with the hottest coals farthest from you and no coals closest to you. Why? So you don’t have to reach across the hottest charcoal.

Close the lid and open all the vents. You want this baby hot.

Now let’s head inside to work with the veg.

The first time I grilled these for my wife I cut the pieces too small and thin so I ended up with mush. You need to cut them large enough to take the heat, unless you like them all mushy and nasty, that is.

Since the squash were relatively small, I just cut them in half length-wise right through what you’d call the stem. The zucchini got cut in half across, then length-wise so each veg was cut into eight pieces.

Put the veg in a bowl or Ziplock and pour some oil on them, I used EVOO, and shake to coat thoroughly.

Seasoning for me was simple, just salt and pepper, but you can be creative if you want. It’s grilling, so go for it!

Time to hit the grill.

I didn’t oil the grates because the veg was oiled. Just put the veg cut side down on the grates at about a 45* angle to the grate bars. After a minute or so you should have grate marks on the veg so turn them to lay on the cross hatch marks.

Don’t leave your post because these can burn very quickly. After you get the crossing marks turn the veg, skin side down and move to some indirect heat.

Once the veg is heated through you’re done. Pull it, put it on a platter and let it come to room temperature before serving. We offered it with Kamato White Vegetable Sauce and it was a hit.

The BBQ Song

I found this funny barbecue song by way of The Virtual Weber Bullet.

This ragtag group is actually pretty good.  And the lyrics are hilarious as they take you on a tour of the BBQ Trail.