Love my weber kettle. BBQ goodness.

[Esau.]

Christmas dinner under way. Cherry wood for smoke and cuz it's festive. n26 oz of Gibson Sterling while I wait. Merry Christmas folks.

 

 

[c-towns]

Classic! Merry Christmas bud.

[boiler]

Charcoal is expensive, especially if you BBQ a lot like I do. Here's some videos I've compiled to make your own. The first one seems the easiest but only make a small amount. Common advice seems to be, make sure your wood is dry and you can use hardwood or softwood just don't do a mixed batch. One or the other at a time. 

 

 

[boiler]

 

[Esau.]

We make our own as well, though using a different process. It is sort of similar to your second post though. We have a 55g drum, with another smaller canister within it that holds the wood chunks and protects them from any direct contact with flame or open air (which can cause flare-ups). There is only a small vent on the internal canister to allow pressure release but restricts the amount of oxygen to not allow any flame at all. We make the fire in the space (roughly 2-3") directly around the internal canister. The process takes a little to get going, typically we start with hot coals from the fire pit. We've found the charcoal harder, burns a lot longer and evenly using this process.

 

I'll see if I can find a video of our process, if not I'm get to making one the next time we burn.

 

 

 

I find it an great time waster while sitting around the bonfire at night drinking beer, but over all, time vs money vs amount I can make, I still find it cheaper to stock up on charcoal when it's on sale or in late summer when bag prices drop drastically. I got 15 bags of lump & 15 of briquettes for well under $100. I've also found that when doing long cooks, 6-12hrs, especially during the winter the homemade simply burn too fast and I go through much more of it. Taste wise though, nothing beats the homemade so I save it for shorter cooks within the 3-6 hr range depending on wind, of course, also depending on what I'm cooking, sometimes I'll start with the homemade while I apply smoke, then switch to lump when the window for best smoke retention has passed.

 

For example: I smoked a 8 lb roast a few weekends before xmas, used roughly a  three quarters of a 16 lb bag of homemade charcoal. Last weekend, in colder temps I did another 8 lb roast using purchased lump charcoal and used less than 1/4 bag. With briquettes I can cook a similar size roast using a single chimney worth.

[Esau.]

This would be a good example of our process, though we use a much bigger internal canister. Otherwise the process is pretty much the same except instead of making/starting our fire like he did within the larger drum, we shovel a 3-6" layer of hot coals from the bonfire fire-pit in first then add the wood. Same result, just gets it going a lot faster.

 

 

[boiler]

I made a batch using apple wood today. I had a an old fire bowl thingy that the weber lid fit nicely over. I just lit a fire under it with the apple wood jammed in the bowl. Maybe not the most efficient way to do it but I was just going with what I had. 

[Esau.]

Right on. Gotta use what you got. Our last batch was mulberry, oak and cherry. We have a 1/2 cord of peach seasoning we plan to use come spring. Since its impossible to make it where I live (city bylaws about fires) I only get to do it at my friends place in Scotland, being a cabinet maker he usually has large amounts of off cuts and scraps leftover from jobs, typically oak, cherry or maple. In spring we'll spend a weekend making it, which bascially equates to 3 days of drunkenness, stinkin like a bonfire and covered in black powder..lol

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I just lit a fire under it with the apple wood jammed in the bowl. 

 

sounds like the night I knocked up CatPhish