First cook w/Competition K

[Lou]

The last four pictures I added to my photos are of my smoker station in the back yard, my newly built yard cart for the WSM 22.5 and my recent cook with Kingsford Competition.
I finally found some at Costco in Woodinville. Why they don't carry it in Issaquah beats the life out of me and apparently Costco folks as well.

To report on Competition K.
I cooked two 7 lb Boston Butts bone in. In the interest of reducing the time I cut them in half creating four equal. I also cooked six chicken breasts and 12 thighs.
Minion method using about 10 lbs of Competition K and half a charcoal chimney of hot Competition K.

Used a mixture of hickory and apple with one piece of misquete. Probably 10 tennis ball size pieces total.

I placed the butt two pieces on each grate on the same side and started the cook intending for a lid temp of 250.

The comp k took off fast and hot. Without a water pan and no meat the temp quickly got to about 350 degrees and rising. I let it go a short time to melt the spiders down and placed in a full hot water pan and the cooking grates. The temp immediately settled at about 250.

For three hours I tweaked the intake vents a little and kept the temp really cose to my goal of 250l at the lid.

I then put on the chicken and started 45 min cycles of sprtizing w/apple juice. At hour 6 the chicken was done and hour 7.5 the butts were done.

I pulled the chicken and pork for pulled sammies which I served at a BD party last night with Carolina style coleslaw. I finished the pulled meats in bowls with a homemade bbq sauce tempered with a little honey. It was good! Everything was consumed.

I had heat left for another 2.5 hrs. I like comp k and will continue using it but I believe there is a learning curve to its heat and starting heat to control initital fire size.

Sorry for the long discertation.
Lou.

[Dave Kronbeck]

LOL!!! May the BBQ God's reward you with 1/2" smoke rings!

[Lou]

In response to Dave K. I was carefull to put all the "K's" facing up and oriented in concentric rings around the charcoal ring. I believe my care contributed to the long burn and the hot initial temp I experienced.
Lou

[Lou]

By the way, I brined the chicken and used a chick rub out of epicurious. I rubbed the butt with a different rub out of epicurious.

I put half the wood in at the beginning and the second half when I added the chicken at hour 3.
Putting butt on one side of the two cooking grates and chicken on the other side seemed to work in that I couldn't detect any mingling of drips or flavors.
Lou