JimBob67

Wow! I've re-read your reply several times, and each time I come up with another valuable "nugget"! Thanks very much for your time that you put into this. I am now scheming on how to keep my wife from discovering how much I am prepared to pay for charcoal. (The price of the KK was bad enough!) I have a couple thoughts---at BBQ University, using Royal Oak lump, Steven always had a few chimney starters with burning charcoal going, to be added as needed to the cookers. Now I understand why. So, next cook I'm going to try maybe half a basket's worth of fully-burning charcoal, and will add more only if it is burning completely. Only problem I can see, by throttling back on the air flow to keep the temperature of the unit down to 250 or so, one will create a condition encouraging incomplete combustion. Same ultimate result of "bad smoke"? Dennis was nice enough to include two boxes of the extruded and two boxes of the coffee charcoal, so i will give them a try. If they work as well as I think they will, I may have to order some! Can always tell the wife I won a contest. Again, many thanks for your thorough and patient response! Jim

This is my second post here---people have been so helpful with my first one (venting problems) I decided to post another question. This is a very good forum! Yesterday I did my first cook, using Steven Raichlen's recipe for reverse-sear tri-tip. Basically, with a cooker temperature of 225, you bring the meat to an internal temp of 110, then take it off to rest, putting it back over direct heat to finish it. I was really excited to use my new DigiQ unit, but I have to admit that the temperature control done "by hand" is pretty easy. I filled the basket with lump, and lit a small area in the center with my Looftlighter (yeah, I DO like gadgets!). I started with the bottom opening about halfway open, and the top vent open a couple of turns. When the temp hit about 180, I closed the bottom vent, opened the top maybe a quarter turn from the closed position, and plugged in the fan connected to the DigiQ. I let it sit, DigiQ set to a target temp of 225, and added the meat, probe inserted. A couple of things----the fan ran for a while, got it to 225, then shut off. I had some temperature over-run to about 250, not too bad. Reading some of the posts here, I will close the vent on the fan a little next time, since I guess even with the fan off, air can get sucked through it. The second issue is more concerning. The charcoal slowly lit itself, of course, but the smell of the smoke was not that pleasant. Kind of a "suffocating fire" odor if you know what I mean (i had two lumps of oak on top, forgot to mention that). Really not the kind of smell I associate with using my pellet smoker (Cookshack Fast Eddy, used for over 10 years). I was wondering---is the incomplete combustion that comes from starting just a small part of the charcoal pile contributing to that? A couple of posts here mention setting the whole pile on fire (I assume with a chimney starter) and dumping that into the unit. The downside of this I could see would be trying to hold the temp down to 225!) but at least the whole pile would be actively burning. Or, perhaps I should have let the unit have more time to heat up thoroughly (a couple hours? One guy here starts his at bedtime for starting a smoke in the AM!) ? As I read what I just typed, I'm not sure how clear I was. The main concern I had was the odor, almost like a pile of leaves that was smoldering. Acrid might be the right term? By the way, I was using Big Green Egg lump. Dennis sent me some of his cool coconut charcoal, but I'm jealously guarding that for now. Thanks again ! Jim

Thanks! I appreciate hearing from someone who's "Been There"! The patches seem to be doing OK, almost easier to patch a hole rather than a slit. Jim

Here's where I get confused. In the manual, they say "you can do as many under-400 cooks as you like" before doing the curing burn, implying that below 400 doesn't do much. Also, it says "Because the insulation performs so well the grill needs to be heated a couple of hours at 500-525ºf before the outside gets hot enough turn the solvent to vapor.". It took two hours at 500-525 for me to notice any vapor at all, although things then progressed faster than I would have liked. I am patching the grout in over a dozen places today!