Brinkman Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 Absolutely have the fire basket on a grate, grate is turned around so its a little higher than normal to allow for ash to drop down into the ash pan. Have learnt to use much less wood and many more briquettes over the great weather we have been enjoying and I recently decided to try soaking the chosen wood for a couple of hours prior to use so that on the longer cooks they take way longer to burn and thus give off smoke over a longer period. The wife thought I was completely mad the other week when she walked out to find a mini fan sitting blowing air into the firebox to try and combat a very strong blow back due to cross winds? I truly believe she would prefer to see me down the pub instead of staring at a fire!? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icefever Posted August 19, 2018 Author Share Posted August 19, 2018 1 minute ago, Brinkman said: I truly believe she would prefer to see me down the pub instead of staring at a fire! That wife of your deserves a medal mate...she's a keeper.. ? Ice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brinkman Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 Not too loud please, she may hear you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icefever Posted August 19, 2018 Author Share Posted August 19, 2018 Heaven forbid mate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brinkman Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 (edited) You know she is not a massive fan of Pork or ribs, no matter how well cooked, and they tend to illicit, at best, 'yeah their ok'. Beef! Well I've only done one joint and that ended up in the mincer to be added to, what turned out to be, a very nice chilli! Now if I do a butterflied leg of Lamb on the other hand! Then I'm a bit of a hero and any fish grilled and to a lesser degree smoked, is always a winner. The other week I happened to be in Tesco when their chiller went down due to the hot weather and they had to get rid of all their chickens! They were selling three large fresh chickens for a fiver!! How can you say no to that? So I bought twelve and she came in to find me smoking the lot! Well why not I said? She decided I had gone too far and stormed off, but when they all then got broken down and vacuum packed so she could have em in salads and sarnies! Then my friend, I was not viewed as so daft!! But hey, its my hobby not hers, she just suffers, sometimes in silence but mainly she just tolerates my madness.? Edited August 19, 2018 by Brinkman auto spelling rubbish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 Are you using the minion method in the fire basket as this will really help you to control the temperature? There are a couple of ways to do this. Fill the basket with unlit briquettes (with some embedded flavour wood chunks) and then pull out a wedge of coals from the end nearest the air vent and light these in the chimney smoker. Once they are fully lit pour them back into the space in the fire basket. This will then provide low continuous heat for many hours as it slowly burns through the unlit coals in the basket. The more air you let in the faster it will burn and the hotter the smoker will get. Another similar method uses snake like partitions within the fire box but I am not sure if your fire basket would be big enough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8inmZMhRQg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brinkman Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 Had no idea what I had been doing was called the minion method! See, I learn something every single hour never mind each day. Would this work with heatbeads? I've read that they can be difficult to light? Is that the case? If it is, then how would that work in relation to keeping a constant temperature over a long cook? Would I need to place wood chunks every now and then within the line and would the heat created from the chunk be sufficient to ignite the next heatbead in the line? Or would you stack them say two or three deep to ensure enough heat to ensure constant combustion? Or am I over complicating things? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted August 19, 2018 Share Posted August 19, 2018 The method is named after Jim Minion who was the first person attributed to using this method on a new WSM. Yes this works very well with Heat Beads and because they burn hot and slow you can maintain the required cooking temperatures for longer by burning the briquettes at a slower rate. No Heat Beads are not difficult to light - but they can take slightly longer to initially light than the less dense briquettes. Mostly the people who claim that they are hard to light are just impatient and are expecting the lighting speeds of cheaper briquettes. An example of this would be a full chimney of supermarket briquettes will take about 20 minutes to fully light - but the same size chimney of Heat Beads will take 30-35 minutes. If you are rushing and therefore don't leave sufficient time then they would appear to be "difficult to light". If you were only to light 15-20 briquettes for the start of a Minion then they will only take slightly longer to get fully white than lower density briquettes. Once alight they act like any other briquette and you will get a reliable burn throughout the entire Minion. It is not usual though to place wood chunks so that they completely break up the line of charcoal. The chunks are normally either fully embedded in the unlit coals or they are rested on the top. When fully embedded the burn will quite happily burn around them - catching the wood alight on its way past. For the Minion you will need to pack the briquettes several deep across the whole bottom of the basket and you will probably find it easier to place the wood randomly on top of the unlit coals. As different smokers require different amounts of heat to maintain the cooking temperature it is not possible to tell you exactly how much you should use. For the first smoke I would use the same amount of briquettes as you would normally use and then see how many you have left over at the end. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brinkman Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 Fantastic. Well the beads are on order, the meat is in the freezer and I have nothing but time and patience so 15 minutes extra to prepare the briquettes is not going to be an issue, hell, the ones I've been using have been burning away within that time frame! Thanks for all the info, much appreciated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brinkman Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 Heat Beads were a big success in the offset, cooked some large slabs of pork belly this week using the Minion method, got around 6 and a bit hours out of just over half the amount of coals I would have used, so thanks again to Wade for the help and information. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank my butcher, my wife, my dog and my Oklahoma Joe Highland for performing well in difficult conditions.? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icefever Posted August 25, 2018 Author Share Posted August 25, 2018 I'm ordering some as soon as we return from holls, by then there may be some good deals around??? ? Ice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor72 Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 I’m going with heat beads what happened to brinkman ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icefever Posted December 29, 2018 Author Share Posted December 29, 2018 7 hours ago, Raptor72 said: what happened to brinkman ? Not sure ?? I have an idea, it's sad we got on well. Ice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor72 Posted December 29, 2018 Share Posted December 29, 2018 Yeah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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