Lump sorter?

[Andrew]

I had an idea for a tiered bin, separated by mesh to sort out lump

into large, medium and dust. Perhaps a 3" mesh between the top

bin and the middle one, and a 1" between the middle bin and a small

lower drawer for the dust. The two upper bins would fold out, so one

could load the cooker with desired sizes. The drawer could pull out

to discard the dust. All with weather gaskets to keep out humidity.

Has anyone built anything like this? Would it work?

I am thinking of building a small KK house (basically a gazebo with

a stone floor and some cabinetry to hold parts, tools, garbage and

lump). It would keep the creek the runs across my patio at bay,

and let me use the rotisserie and perhaps a temp control unit in

the rain. Thinking about it gave me the idea for the lump sorter/storer.

[JeffB]

Re: Lump sorter?

I had an idea for a tiered bin, separated by mesh to sort out lump

into large, medium and dust. Perhaps a 3" mesh between the top

bin and the middle one, and a 1" between the middle bin and a small

lower drawer for the dust. The two upper bins would fold out, so one

could load the cooker with desired sizes. The drawer could pull out

to discard the dust. All with weather gaskets to keep out humidity.

Has anyone built anything like this? Would it work?

I can't say I have heard of anyone building such a thing but it is a big world so who knows. The Naked Whiz separates things into three categories so you might want to go that way. Either way, assuming your mesh is the right size, you have enough room between the different tiers and you have the ability to shake the whole thing I don't see why it wouldn't work.

As for me, I will just stick to dumping the lump into the cooker from the bag. Haven't had any problems yet and building/using a sorter seems like more work than it would be worth. My two cents.

[bryan]

Re: Lump sorter?

As for me, I will just stick to dumping the lump into the cooker from the bag. Haven't had any problems yet and building/using a sorter seems like more work than it would be worth. My two cents.

Yea, what he said

[mguerra]

do it!

I love making stuff like that! It's not necessary, but cool and fun. Make one and show us the photos. I mean, if you are going to sort anyway, and lots of Q'ers do, why not have a cool contraption. They use screen sorters in lots of industrial applications.

[Syzygies]

I've been using charcoal screens for years. I made screens out of 1" and 1/2" mesh, because that's what I had. Later I added rails so they'd fit snugly on a wheel barrel. They're also handy for sieving garden soil or compost. Like the time we were overserved at a neighbor's crawfish boil, and agreed to take home all the waste for our compost. It never smelled, but we're still finding shells and such that never broke down.

Keep it simple. The above solution takes up very little extra space, and can be made in one short session.

[Andrew]

My idea is to sort and store at the same time. Sorting out the

dust is more important to me than the different lump sizes. The

dust gets all over everything, and also tends to choke the fire.

The different lump size came from a couple of threads here talking

about even fires and how long the charcoal will last.

[Syzygies]

My idea is to sort and store at the same time.

Making a prototype will still be helpful. For example, it takes some shaking to effect the sort. One might make a fixed structure by accident, and lose this ability.

[Andrew]

My idea is to sort and store at the same time.

Making a prototype will still be helpful. For example, it takes some shaking to effect the sort. One might make a fixed structure by accident, and lose this ability.

My idea is to have the top portion fold down on a hinge above the

dust drawer. That should allow a lot of shaking, and will jar out

the lumps stuck in the mesh. It will also be the way to grab the

lump to put in the KK.

[jnoble]

sorter

I find it's really about the quality of the charcoal in the first place.

I have been using Royal Oak, found at Canadian Tire in BC. Recently tried Komodo Joe charcoal, and wow, what an improvement. Large lumps and much less smaller, crumbly bits.

I also was thinking about sieves, but what I do now is easier. Dump the whole bag of good quality charcoal into a rubbermaid box, leave the box on the ground, and use a long handled shovel to scoop it up a load when I need some. That way, I get the good lumps and at the end, the ash and crumblies are left behind in the bottom of the rubbermaid box.

Eventually, the unused ash gets dumped into the metal can that holds spent ashes.

[jnoble]

Just my dirty hands

I thought about a lump sorter too, and for a while used different tools to pick up and pour out the charcoal.

Then one day, I just used my bare hands.

Done it that way ever since. Easiest way to move around the old coals and shake out the ash, easiest way to pick up a double handful of lump and place it in exactly the right pile. And it sorts as my hands pick up just the right lumps.

And yes, after, hands are covered with soot. Fine. In bathroom, heel of hand pushes liquid soap, scrub before running the water, then water takes it all off in a few seconds.

The point is that I'm about to be handling food. So washing my hands now is a good thing anyway. Then I can go to start food handling with freshly washed hands. So I no longer care about handling charcoal. I like this way.

John

[Amphoran]

I have found the same to be true of cleaning the ash out. The easiest and fastest way I've found is to put the drip pan under the draft door, remove the door, and just scoop all the ash out with my hands. I can at the same time easily toss any chunks of charcoal that fell out of the basket back in the top.

Nice things about hands is that they're washable!

[mguerra]

These are the gloves I use when handling lump charcoal, various grills, the heat deflector and so on. Never get dirty hands. Also have some Bluettes, which are basically the same. For moving hot grills and the hot heat deflector, I use silicone high temp gloves. For every activity, I have a "system". For the KK, another part of my system is to have two towels out there with me. A damp one with a slight amount of soap on it, and a dry one. You keep your hands clean at all times this way, especially when grabbing the door or doorknob at each passage.

Here's more of my system: I use two separate pairs of tongs, at least when I am using tongs. One set is for the raw meat, I only use this set once to put meat on the grill. The second, uncontaminated set is used for turning and removing. In fact, depending on what you are cooking, here is my sister's modification of this trick. If you don't need the lid fully closed for your cook, you can stick your tongs on the edge of the grill with the handles out and close the lid down on the tong handles. Now you get 99% of the benefit of closed lid cooking while disinfecting your tong's grabber end in the fire. This works great for almost any grilled item because you don't need precise airflow control, just a good hot fire. It also is most applicable to a clamshell metal grill or Weber kettle without the spring assist lid of a KK. You can do it on your KK by adjusting the spring tension or just rigging a way to keep the lid down. Of course you could just take your contaminated "raw" tongs inside and wash them before turning and removing food, which I used to do, but the two tong system is less work. I just throw them both in the dishwasher.

[Syzygies]

I've been on a woodworking tear of late. I've made things of wood my whole life, but hit a critical mass of tools recently that put me up on a new plateau of what I could do easily. For example, a router, router table, and a set of bits. For a mathematician, the router is the quintessential woodworking tool: One spends more time making jigs that help do the job perfectly, than doing the job. Math is like that, only many dream levels deep, like Christopher Nolan's Inception.

On my short list is some stacking boxes with dowel grates at various spacings. Has to be dowels, so the pinch is but a moment and charcoal can't get stuck. Yes, I've always also used my hands, but it would be nice to have graded lump in easy reach.

[linuxwrangler]

OCD

I would suggest creating a new forum simply titled OCD, but in this group I'm afraid that it would shortly be the only category in use.

(And the router is my fave, too.)

[Fetzervalve]

I prefer CDO

I prefer CDO it's the same condition, but the letters are in alphabetical order - the way they should be!

[dub]

I'm with jnoble here.

The best fires start with the blackest hands.

Hooray for opposable thumbs!