coals, striaght from stove to grill?

[boostnut]

The issue seems to come up multiple times every year, how to get rid of the excessive amount of coals?? They take up lots of room in the stove and dont put out enough heat to keep the house up to temp. Well, I've got a Weber grill sitting outside that doesn't see much action in the winter. Anybody every take a few shovel fulls of coals from the stove and put them directly into a grill and cook over them? Does your food end up with a strange taste? I cant imagine its going to be much different from using store bought charcoal aside from the time it takes to get a fire prepared. I hate to just shovel the coals out to make room for more wood, seems like a waste.

Just realized I've got some shagbark hickory burning now and a pound of ground beef thawed in the fridge. May have to experiment for lunch. At least if it doesn't come out right I won't have to hear it from my wife (she's at work cuz somebodys gotta pay the bills!)

 

[sly13]

I like the way you think. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Considering store bought charcoal is usually sawdust glued together and dosed in diesel, I'd think it would be a flavor improvement

I do bake potatoes now by raking some coals forward in my stove, wrapping the taters in aluminum foil, and throwing them in. 25 minutes, turn, 20 minutes seems to work well. Takes a little practice to avoid burning the skins.

 

[zr900]

I have been doing this ever since I got a charcoal grill. I never use charcoal briquettes, I use the lump hardwood charcoal in the summer, so I tried it with my wood stove coals and it works great. It is nice to not have to wait for the charcoal to get up to temp. I don't know how well it would work with softwood though.

 

[mdotis]

We do this in deer camp

We always do this in Deer camp. Take coals from the fire pit and put them in an old Weber. It works great for deer camp as you do not have to wait for the coals to come up to temperature and you do not have to hold the chicken over the flame for an hour. Also you get back the control that the Weber gives you. To take this one step farther if you are just dumping the coals out of the stove you might want to get an air tight container and put the coals into that seal the lid and make your own hard wood charcoal for the summer. I have not done it yet but I might give it a try.

Korey

 

[boostnut]

There are methods of burning down the coal build up so the heat gets transferred to the living space. If I remember correctly about 50% of the energy in wood is found in the coals and the other 50% in the pyrolytic gasses. There's nothing wrong with using them in the grill though...seems like a good use. Throwing them out just to get rid of them is a waste though.

Wish I could find a method that didn't take hours. I can get mine to burn down but it usually takes 3 or 4 hours with minimal heat output (250 - 350 stove top temps). Hate throwing them out just to make room but when its cold outside we need more heat than the coals can offer. Gonna have lunch over coals in an hour or so. I'll post the results.

 

[boostnut]

Usually stir up the coal/ash mixture to get as many of the coals to the top as possible, open intake air up 100%, put a couple of small splits on the top and let it burn. Usually end up stirring over and over to keep coals on top. I've also tried it without adding additional splits, doesn't seem to make much difference. Got any suggestions?

 

[smokinj]

The issue seems to come up multiple times every year, how to get rid of the excessive amount of coals?? They take up lots of room in the stove and dont put out enough heat to keep the house up to temp. Well, I've got a Weber grill sitting outside that doesn't see much action in the winter. Anybody every take a few shovel fulls of coals from the stove and put them directly into a grill and cook over them? Does your food end up with a strange taste? I cant imagine its going to be much different from using store bought charcoal aside from the time it takes to get a fire prepared. I hate to just shovel the coals out to make room for more wood, seems like a waste.

Just realized I've got some shagbark hickory burning now and a pound of ground beef thawed in the fridge. May have to experiment for lunch. At least if it doesn't come out right I won't have to hear it from my wife (she's at work cuz somebodys gotta pay the bills!)

Thats how we do brisket.

 

[Jon E]

I've taken hardwood coals out of my OWB many times and put them in a Weber mini-kettle. Not going to get rid of a lot of coals that way, but it works very well. Let the grill heat up for a couple minutes, you're ready to cook. I also have a ceramic smoker (sort of like a Big Green Egg) that uses charcoal, and that will take 5-8 lb of charcoal at a time - one big grain scoop worth. I wouldn't advise it if you're burning softwood, but any good hardwood that you'd be willing to cook over, it's fine. I've been meaning to put a couple shovels full per day into a 55 gallon drum with an airtight lid, just to have lump charcoal for the summer, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's all charcoal, no matter how you make it.

 

[iowa]

Whenever I get a big pile of coals I just heap them up in the front of the furnace and let it run wide open. Sometimes open the door and the ashpan door. I do this after bringing in wood when I'm cold and sit in front of the coals. PHEW. It gets hot!

But yes you can used those coals for cooking. Great idea.:yourock:

 

[husky455rancher]

to burn my coals down i toss in a piece of pine or something like that. then i open the air up all the way and ill even leave the door closed but not latched. it seems to work decent but im still searching for a better method.

 

[gwiley]

About once every few weeks I get rid of excessive coal build up when I go out to add wood in the morning by not loading the furnace fully - just adding a few splits and letting it burn regularly. This approach leads to enough fine ash every 4 weeks or so that I turn to the shovel, but that rarely involves pulling coals out.

As TreeCo mentioned - the coals still have a lot of heat to offer - you are throwing away a portion of your hard work when you pull coals out.

 

[boostnut]

As TreeCo mentioned - the coals still have a lot of heat to offer - you are throwing away a portion of your hard work when you pull coals out.

I agree, thats 1 reason I was looking for another use for them. Just scooped some out and dumped them in the Weber, gonna give this a shot.

 

[beagledog]

My granddad used to shovel the big coals into a steel bucket with a seal-able lid. Close it up and choke the coals out. Once cool he'd store them for summer in plastic buckets instead of buying kingsford. Kinda like how they make coke...the steel mill and power plant coal related coke, that is. Don't get all excited.lol

 

[boostnut]

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Found me a new use for those coals that take up too much real estate in the stove. Talk about easy, put some in the grill, give it about 5 minutes to come up to temp and slap the food on. Couldn't get much easier. Gonna have to do a beer can chicken later this week. The ol webers not going to have any snow on it during the winter months any longer.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Very Cool!

Now you got me wondering about getting a little Hibachi grille just for this purpose...shovel some coals out of stove, cook food, return coals back to stove...

 

[MarylandGuy]

I always rake my coals forward and they seem to burn up. There are times when the ash builds up, so I shovel everything out of my woodstove, sift it in a fryer basket and dump coals back in the stove.

I saved all my coals last season for charcoal, but it never seemed to work. I would add lighter fluid to the coals in my grill, let it soak in a while and then light. They would light like normal, but 20 minutes later they would start to go out. The home made stuff never worked like the store bought stuff.

My home made coals do work well as a supplement. Start a base of store bought charcoal and then add the home made stuff. The store bought stuff below it will keep my stuff going.

 

[HARRY BARKER]

use coals outaa the stove in my smoker during the winter.