Best Way to Start Extruded Coconut Charcoal ?

[Parrothead72]

Wife likes T bone or filet. I'm a filet man, too. Sirloins ok. Love spicy. Thinking about the coffee cardamom on a steak maybe....

Lower grill?

A few minutes a side kind of thing?

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[5698k]

Have you vented your grill yet? I'll assume you have. Get it to 700° or better, Lower grill. For medium rare, 1.5" thick steaks, 3 minutes lid down, 30 seconds lid up, flip, repeat. This will adjust slightly depending on your desired internal temp, grill temp, and steak thickness. Personally, I like salt and pepper only, but do whatever you like. <br />

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<br />

Robert

[Smokydave]

I start the CoCo in the basket with just one wax Weber starting cube.  Works fine, no dumping from the chimney required.

[Parrothead72]

Good to know. Thanks. Will give that a try, too.

[tony b]

Look up the post on doing the "reverse sear" on steaks. That's where you first roast them, lid down at around 400F, on the main grill until close to done (use a temperature probe to verify). Pull them about 10 -15F below your target final temperature. Then, open the vents up wide open, scream up to about 800F, and finish them on the sear grate (the grate with the side rails upside down on top of the charcoal basket handles) for about 30 seconds on each side. Here's a picture of my first steak cook.

[Parrothead72]

that is awesome and thanks. my one question is let's say i'm cooking them at around 400* as you say, is it easy to jack it to 800* that quickly? i have had mine at 600+ for pizzas but never beyond....

thank you, Tony

[5698k]

Thats why I don't get the reverse sear. You still have to get your grill really hot, so why not just get it cooked in 6-7 minutes, and eat!<br />

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<br />

Robert

[tony b]

One question at a time.

 

Yes, with a good fire in your basket, opening up the top vent all the way and pulling out the drawer on the bottom vent, you'll be amazed at how fast the temp screams up. We're talking a matter of a minute. You can actually watch the dial on the dome thermometer moving. One tip - take out the dome thermometer before it goes offscale high. You can affect the calibration if it ranges too far; and while easy to recalibrate, it's just better not to have to. On that steak cook above, I ran back into the house for just a moment (I'd forgotten the plate) only to come back out and see my dial reading 200F - but it wasn't 200F, but 1000F as it had over ranged that far!!!

 

To Robert's point, it's a matter of control and trying not to over/under cook the steak. When it's down in that roaring flame, it's really hard to stick a meat thermometer in there and check the temps. Otherwise, you're just guessing cooking solely by time. With the reverse sear, you know where you are after the initial roast. And, as long as you are careful with the sear, you're going to be pretty close on your final meat temps. I'm using this technique almost exclusively now that I'm doing sous vide, but was already a convert before that. YMMV.

[dstr8]

+1 for tony b:  For reverse sear I do the initial cook of the meat at 200*F-ish and take it to about 10 degrees F of where I want it...ditto for sous vide'n steaks.  Then a high temp sear to finish and bring the meat to destination temp.

 

The purpose of this type of grilling/cooking is to obtain a very even internal meat temp top to bottom and side to side...works great for me for medium-rare end result.   

[DennisLinkletter]

I light a small piece of lump  (golf ball size) on top of the extruded then hit it with my cheapo hair drier.. the strong airflow makes it glow madly giving off the heat needed to bring the dense extruded to ignition temps faster than any torch..

[CeramicChef]

KKers - I'm new to the world of the KK, but I throw my 2¢ in at this point.

I light my ECC with a MAPP torch. I pick one piece of ECC in the middle of my charcoal basket and light 'er up with a blast from the MAPP torch. I only use ECC for my low-n-slow cooks.

You should understand that my KK is a 32" BB that I call The Beast. It is unlike any kamado I've used in a little over 20 years cooking on kamados. The air control manifold that Dennis has designed for the KK BB is the most unique vent system I've seen on a kamado. It makes controlling temps so incredibly easy it isn't even funny. The left hand side is something that most of us can easily relate to - a dial type of vent with indentations marking various levels of the vent being open. It's the right hand side that is so very unique. It's a dial, but with a real twist: 5 holes ranging from 1/8" in diameter to about 3/4" in diameter. It's those 5 holes that are shear genius on Dennis' part!

When I light the single piece of ECC with my MAPP torch on a low-n-slow I close the lid, open the manifold to the smallest hole, i.e. 1/8", and open the top vent about half a turn and that's it ... voila! In about the time it takes to grab your cook from the refrigerator, do the final prep, grab your smoking wood, etc, you're sitting right at 225°! And all that on one small piece of ECC lit with a 20-30 second blast of MAPP gas. I've lit lump using cotton balls soaked in 90% isopropyl, oil soaked paper towels, starter cubes made from parafin, and MAPP gas. I know how MAPP gas works and I frankly don't see any reason why any standard method, alcohol, oil soaked paper towel, etc. wouldn't work on ECC.

Lighting ECC had me worried at first. It IS much more dense than lump. I haven't found it any more difficult to light than regular lump. Once lit, it stays lit. ECC produces much less ash than regular lump. There is a consistency to ECC that you don't find in regular lump. That means that cooks go smoother than they do when using regular lump, especially at lower temps.

I'm a convert to ECC. I'll never use anything but ECC for my low-n-slow cooks. Easy to light, easy to get to temp, easy to control! What else could you ask for in a lump charcoal?

[DennisLinkletter]

Charcoal needs to be heated to it's ignition point.. 349ºC  / 660ºF  because of the extruded's density this will require more BTUs.

Lump having much less density is ignited more quickly /with less BTUs.

 

Lump charcoal has organic material which will create off gassing.. if there is enough available oxygen this will create flames when the fuel/air mixture is correct.. if not enough air/oxygen it creates a dense grey smoke that is basically fuel.. it burns your eyes, sticks to your hair and clothes and is very bitter.. My belief is that most people use this fuel vapor/smoke to "smoke" their food and is the reason most rubs and sauces are soo sweet.. There is a desirable (? flavor profile if the sweet is balanced with the bitter perfectly..