Shawn White
Sous Chef
It lights charcoal just finebigwheel said:Hey..try digging out the Owners Manuel and follow the directions. That should work.
bigwheel
It lights charcoal just finebigwheel said:Hey..try digging out the Owners Manuel and follow the directions. That should work.
bigwheel
Nice Jeff. :roll:bigwheel said:Good Lawdy Miz Claudie..I cant believe anybody give somebody out a dumb owners manuel like that. Guessing either the boy has sold out to yankmes or the dumbasses really are located on the E. side of the Sabine. Uncle bigwheel will guide you through this deal. Now you got a prickley pear burner? This is have to know type stuff. Kindly do not listen to any retards who talk about lighting newspapers under a Weber Charcoal Chimney. Only folks who do that kinda nonsense is from up North. I mean who would even buy one of them liberal rags let alone have some sheets of it laying around in the Crib? We can proceed as soon as it becomes evident if you got a flame thrower or not. My Uncle Jim used to make the Japs come outta the hidey holes on Guadacanal ya know using a gizmo not too far removed. If you aint got one snag it at Harbor Freight and kindly repoat back. Thanks.
bigwheel
ronbeaux50 said:You be right BW. Torch is the only way to go. Been doing it for years. If you got some lit coals and some vents to open and close, who needs a manual anyways.
Shawn White said:if you're having trouble gettin/keepin temp up ditch the water, ya don't need the heat sink.
use foil balls covered with foil, air gap helps keep the drippins from burnin
could use sand covered with foil ... or a clay pot saucer stuck in the pan covered with foil
ditchin water was the best thing I've done .. .I shoulda listened to Rempe years ago
Taken From HereAll combustible materials have a BTU rating. For instance, propane has about 15,000 BTUs per pound. Charcoal has about 9,000 BTUs per pound and wood (dry) has about 7,000 BTUs per pound. This gives you an idea of how much fuel you'd need to, say, cook something.
Shawn White said:yeah, wind can be a real bitch, I got the bullet smoking jacket for when I need it ... guys spend $$ and time and build all sorts of fancy enclosures ... I dunno, not really my thing ... I'd be more into getting a buddy to torch cut a steel drum for it.
If you don't like science stuff and math hurts your head don't read any more of this post!!!
Another reason to quit using water is to save money on charcoal ... I did something like this for that other board, I wondered why everyone kept saying water was a heat sink:
When you put charcoal in the WSM you have a set amount of energy to cook with, but keeping water hot costs energy, that's why it's called a heat sink. Some googling came up with this:
Water cannot exceed the temp of it's boiling point (in liquid form) unless pressure is applied (superheating) but it's behaviour is to absorb heat until it reaches boiling. My crude estimate for easy figuring is it takes 1500BTUs to heat the water in the standard water pan to boiling point (10lbs of water * 150ºF) (1 US gallon of water is 8.3lbs).
Once at the boiling point, more energy is used when water transforms to steam. This is called the Latent Heat of Vaporization and in the case of water it is 970 BTU's per pound. So, chalk up another another 9700 BTUs per every 5 hours (for 10lbs of water to completely evaporate).
Taken From HereAll combustible materials have a BTU rating. For instance, propane has about 15,000 BTUs per pound. Charcoal has about 9,000 BTUs per pound and wood (dry) has about 7,000 BTUs per pound. This gives you an idea of how much fuel you'd need to, say, cook something.
If you put 10# of charcoal in the WSM, it only has 90,000 BTUs of fuel to use during the cook. How much of that energy did we use lighting up the charcoal? This is one of the reasons why MM or torch light gives such a long burn from a ring ... we didn't blow 1/4+ of it in the chimney.
We loose heat out of the top, radiated heat from the exterior surface, heat when we 'take a peek' ... in the case of wind, we are fighting to keep temp up we don't don't need to spend that energy turning water to steam.
Just say your cook was 10 hours, you emptied the water pan twice then rough guess based on those numbers says over 25% of the charcoal you put in was spent keeping the water boiling and turning it into steam. That pisses me off when I'm using $20/bag lump (not so much when using cheap briqs which is most of the time).
I put a warning up there but I'm still 'specting to take some flack for this post
You don't have to use water with lump either ... the point is you can either run a bit smaller fire because it isn't being wasted keeping water hot and turning it to steam, which saves you charcoal in the end, or you added a turbo ... you can turn up the heat a bit more if needed due to wind/cold.I can either use sand and regular briqs or use water in my pan and have to use lump (lump provides more heat than regular, right?)
Shawn White said:You don't have to use water with lump either ... the point is you can either run a bit smaller fire because it isn't being wasted keeping water hot and turning it to steam, which saves you charcoal in the end, or you added a turbo ... you can turn up the heat a bit more if needed due to wind/cold.I can either use sand and regular briqs or use water in my pan and have to use lump (lump provides more heat than regular, right?)
No idea how much energy sand takes, the ones I mentioned take less to be sure. A typical cook for me was both grates loaded, a brinkmann pan full, vents 100% averaging about 215ºF grate. Now I can run 250ºF grate on say 33% vents with no water. Ya temps fluctuate a bit, not like 100º or anything. I can't tell a difference with no steam.