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Heat beads


Icefever

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They are good on the P&P...free after £30....so 20kgs cost £32. @ £1.60 per kg

T'other mob are free P&P after £50...so 40kgs cost £59.80 @ £1.47 per kg.  Nothing to choose from really,  just down to laying out the spondoolies for the 4 bags??  

Ice.

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Hi New to both smoking and this forum so if this has been asked before I apologise. Are or would heat beads be ok to use in an offset or are they only for specific types of BBQ like ceramic? Having a nightmare at the moment with a batch of briquettes I bought from a high street store, they burn through within 20mins, so am using them just in a chimney to place on top of some lump wood which I wont be using again either, restaurant quality its not, well not unless they cook with semi dust lump wood!  

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Hi & welcome to the forum Brinkman.. The heat beads seem to have a following on here,  I'm going to try them later this year.  One supplier does free del when you buy 4 bags. 

I've just moved from basic bbqing up to the next rung of the ladder only this year....so I'm learning an awful lot.. :thumb1:

 

Ice

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We started off with a Brinkman  2016, in fact,  I'm going to use him later to smoke some cheddar. 

In the last 4 months,  we bought an offset,  pot belly, Webber,  we're eating our own bacon (right now)  we are going full steam ahead.

Take a look at The Northern Tailgate meeting in Sept,  maybe turn up and chew the fat.???

 

Ice.

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Been BBQing for ages but more a case of chicken, burgers and sausages and mainly on a gas unit! Decided to take a leap and try a proper offset smoker. Had a couple of good results with racks of ribs but seem to have picked up a really poor batch of charcoal and its making smoking harder than it needs to be so intend to try some Beads or Coconut briquettes PDQ but hey, its a learning curve just trying to sort the cuts of meat out in the UK let alone find the right gear to smoke it with! I'll take a look at the calendar and see if we cant sneak along for the September meet, it would be good to see what others are doing. The offset I bought is a European version of the Oklahoma Joe units and after a whole bunch of sealing and DIYing of a firebox grate and baffle plate system I've got it working fairly well with a good overall temp across the cooking chamber, maybe 5 degree's difference or so, all I've got to do now is sort those briquettes so I can get consistent heat long enough to do a medium sized brisket or pork butt!

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4 minutes ago, Brinkman said:

Been BBQing for ages but more a case of chicken, burgers and sausages and mainly on a gas unit! Decided to take a leap and try a proper offset smoker.

Matey I could have written that line myself  ?  a BBQ for us was as you said,  burgers, sausages chicken,  we even got to cooking a beer can chicken half a doz times. ?  cool or what??

Since joining this forum it's been a real eye opener, these guys are good at what they do,  I've seen it at Woorsmoke18 at Northampton earlier this year...What a great weekend camping cooking great food with like-minded folks, and then getting to eat it.

I've learned in my short time on here that there's a big big difference in charcoal, briquettes, & wood, I've read a lot where folks do complain about the crap fuel out there. I think it's you get what you pay for.

I bought 2 bags of kiln dried last week,  but I found you only need a small amount....anyway I have an old shed to knock down and a new one to erect...back on later.

Ice

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For sure its a steep learning curve and the disasters do tend to knock you back a little, but man alive, when you get a perfect smoke with a good bark and a nice smoke ring then suddenly its all worth it! Including the outrageous cost of the equipment and the meat? The first full rack of St Louis Ribs I did on this offset went better than I ever imagined and I thought ' hey this aint so hard' what are those Yanks going on about? The next cook I thought, lets do what is called a 'bottom rump' in the States and here? Well the closest I could get was a big slab of Silverside! Not exactly right but the best I could do. Many many hours later it was way to smokey, my fault, should have not used all wood and wrapped it, and bordering on bitter but it looked fantastic when cutting into it! Needless to say it went into the mincer and worked great as a mix with some minced pork for a chilli! Even though it was over a 100f that day? Once I'd got my head around the concept of 'is it tender' instead of 'is it cooked yet' things have settled down and as I say I'll either go with the Beads first and the Coconut briquettes after and see how they work out? If there is one thing I have its patience! I may run out of money first, but I do have patience.? Oh and a Maverick dual temp probe, more money, that helps big time with getting temps right! have a good day my man..

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Well that confirms what I've seen and heard elsewhere so it'll be Heat Beads for me and no mistake. Could be just that I've been unlucky and got a bad batch of normal charcoal briquettes! As I say I'm using them only to ignite the lump wood now but will be ordering the Aussie stuff in time for doing a big brisket cook, overnight, how scary will that be? I did leave a message re meat suppliers on one of the other topics, hope the info is of some use. Have a good weekend.

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20 hours ago, Brinkman said:

Hi New to both smoking and this forum so if this has been asked before I apologise. Are or would heat beads be ok to use in an offset or are they only for specific types of BBQ like ceramic? Having a nightmare at the moment with a batch of briquettes I bought from a high street store, they burn through within 20mins, so am using them just in a chimney to place on top of some lump wood which I wont be using again either, restaurant quality its not, well not unless they cook with semi dust lump wood!  

Hi Brinkman and welcome to the forum :thumb1:. Do not be afraid to ask questions on here - If it has already been answered then we can point you in the right direction. If it hasn't then  others will benefit from any replies.

To set the general scene - almost any charcoal can be used in any smoker but there are some types that are more appropriate in a given situation than others.
If you are simply grilling a few sausages or burgers then you are not really worried how long the charcoal will last and plain supermarket charcoal or briquettes would be just fine. Just make sure it is NOT instant light and that you get the coals good and hot before cooking to burn off any unpleasant initial smells.
If you are smoking in an enclosed smoker (e.g, kettle or bullet smoker) you need to go for a better quality fuel that will not give off the unpleasant smells when it is first lit as this is likely to taint your food.
When hot roasting (e.g. smoking a beer can chicken or a beef joint) you are not looking for much more than a couple of hours of cooking heat and so any good quality briquette or good size lump charcoal can be used. 
When slow smoking (low-and-slow) you are looking to sustain a good steady temperature over a many hours and this is where the very dense briquettes (like Heat Beads or Weber briquettes) come into their own - and also the restaurant quality large lump charcoal in the larger smokers.

The advantage of using the high density briquettes (like Heat Beads) is that they can be used in any of the above cooking scenarios and so, rather than keeping lots of different charcoal types you can keep just one. As the briquettes burn clean they do not impart any significant flavour in the food and so they can be used in conjunction with flavouring woods or pellets (e.g. Hickory, Oak, Mesquite etc.) to impart the desired flavour into your meat. These briquettes initially appear to be more expensive than the supermarket brands but as they last a lot longer you use much less of them. You will often find that after you have finished cooking you have many that have not completely burned through. If this is the case simply shut all of the air vents of your smoker and they will go out. When cool, store them in a dry place and use them again as part of your next cook.

If you want to use fuel other than briquettes then the size of the smoker will often determine what you can use. A reasonable size offset smoker can burn larger chunks of fuel as the fire box is usually quite big. Briquettes and large lumpwood charcoal will burn well in them but so will split logs (in the larger ones). The briquettes and charcoal will both give you similar heat stability but in general the charcoal will burn through faster (as it is less dense) and so will need to be topped up more often. Burning split logs will impart more inherent smoke taste (without adding additional flavouring chunks) but they will burn relatively quickly and unevenly and will produce a less stable cooking temperature - especially as new logs are added.
Trying to burn split logs or the very large lump charcoal when cooking low-and-slow in a Weber Kettle is impractical and it would be difficult to maintain stable cooking temperatures over the long cooking times. In the smaller bullet smokers (up to 47cm) it is also usually more practical to burn briquettes than large lump charcoal until you get up to the 57cm or UDS smokers.

When cooking on the average back yard smoker, some people will only cook using lumpwood charcoal and others only using briquettes. Both cook well but in general the denser briquettes will usually burn more consistently, will last longer and will need the least amount of temperature control maintenance throughout the cook.

Personally, I have compared many brands of charcoal and briquette over the years and I have found the Heat Beads to be the best all-rounder. Because they are so dense they provide a lot of heat over a long period of time - but this also means that they can take a little longer to initially light.

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2 hours ago, Icefever said:

It is worth checking out both WOWBBQ and also BBQ World before you buy as they are both usually good on prices and each of them can be cheapest at different times. AS @Icefeverpoints out, today WOWBBQ are actually the cheapest - but next week it could be BBQ World. I use both of these companies regularly and the service is excellent from either.

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Thanks Wade great information. I've found, from my short amount of experience, that it can be hit and miss with supermarket charcoal and as for some of the suppliers I've used for 'restaurant grade' lump wood! Well least said soonest mended. At the moment I've got a medium brisket, 6lb, to cook so dependent on weather conditions and so on expect to be cooking that low & slow for a minimum of 7hrs at 225f ish. Heatbeads seem to be the way to go and I've found a company, HotSmoked.co.uk doing a 10kg bag at £17.75 with free PP on a £30 spend so going to go for two bags and give them a try. One other question, can I assume that you need to use a chimney to preheat new coal when the initial beads have burnt low? I've read they are difficult to light or will they catch just by adding them a couple at a time to the firebox? I appreciate that the temp will dip if I do it that way but its worth asking. Think that covers everything! Oh I'm cooking on a European Oklahoma Joe Highland. All the very best Chris

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3 hours ago, Icefever said:

Checked the above sites this morning and the best price at the mo seems to be here at £15.95 for 10kg...spend £49.99 and its free P&P.

3 x 10kg bags plus a packet of skewers @ £3.99....its free p&p. :thumb1:

https://www.wowbbq.co.uk/categories/fuel/briquettes-and-lumpwood/product/aussie-heat-beads-10kg/HB10KG~HB10KG

Just used HotSmoked.co.uk for two 10kg bags. Total costing of £32.00 inc P&P 

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Oklahoma Joe Highland. I made a box to hold the coal/logs out of 6mm expanded steel 24x24 inches. I found that unless I used a box, logs, coal and or ash fell in front of the air inlet damper and choked the fire! Bit of a design fault in my opinion! Or maybe I'm just overloading or loading it wrong! Anyway it now seems to work ok but I will try the heat beads, as and when they arrive, with and without the box to see what difference, if any, the box makes. If they produce way less ash residue then that would solve one issue and if the box is not needed it will make a nice log store!?

OHJH.jpg

Firebox.jpg

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It was a case of have to rather than wanted to I'm afraid! Never welded anything in my life before but having been quoted outrageous amounts to buy and ship from the States decided to borrow the welding gear from a relative who gave me a few lessons before attempting it. Made a few errors on the first attempt but who the hell is gonna climb into the fire to check for them! Angle grinders can hide a multitude of sins right! Anyway I've since worked out a way of doing the same thing without the need to weld at all and it works out at just a fraction of the price so if you are interested in a rough and ready version that does the same job it'll be perfect, just not as pretty.?  

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@Brinkman - what you have made is perfect for logs, charcoal AND briquettes. A lot of people with offset smokers make a fire basket just like yours :thumb1:. When you use the Heat Beads place these in the basket too and not directly on the bottom of the fire box. Do you have a wire grill on the bottom of the fire box on which you sit your basket? If not then you should use one (or put some short legs on your basket) to lift it up. This will give the ash somewhere to drop and allow the air to continue to access the coals. Some wood, charcoal and briquettes create a lot of ash - which is what I think you have been seeing. Heat Beads produce comparatively little ash and so you are unlikely to get the same amount of ash choking with them.

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