What Does a Charcoal Basket Do?
It can be tricky to maintain a stable temperature in a charcoal grill. Backyard barbecue aficionados have long experimented with ways to solve this problem. The Kick Ash Basket charcoal basket is the fix our founder Chad Romzek devised after plenty of trial and error. Early iterations of charcoal baskets were as crude as a metal salad bowl with holes drilled into it.
The device itself is simple enough. By lifting the charcoal off the base of the grill, airflow is kept steady, ash falls out, and a consistent and smoky burn is achieved. Through trial and error, Chad evolved charcoal baskets by optimizing the metal used as well as the thickness, wire gauge and wire spacing.
Why A Charcoal Basket?
It was about a month after Chad got his first ceramic grill in 2010 that the need for a basket became clear. He was trying to bake a pizza at 425 degrees.
“I couldn't get my grill over 300 degrees, and so I called the guy at the shop where I got my grill and said ‘Dude, what's going on?”
Chad realized that without a way to easily sift leftover charcoal from the ash, the ash plugged the air vents at the bottom of his grill and coated the leftover lump charcoal. That’s when he turned to grill blogs and found grillers making DIY charcoal baskets. That was the “aha moment,” he recalled.
“I couldn't find anything on the internet to buy, so I figured I’d just make one,” he said. “Long story short, I had buddies asking for them when they were getting Big Green Eggs, because they want to be able to clean their grill out easier.”
A few years later, Chad began selling his charcoal baskets; now he and his wife have sold over thousands of baskets and other stainless steel products out of their home in Wisconsin.
Beyond making it easier to clean a grill, a charcoal basket can make smoking a pork butt or another large cut for 16 to 18 hours a hassle-free affair. An overfilled basket can get you through a long cook without needing to be refilled.
To maintain the basket also requires no effort. Cleaning it? The fire takes care of that.
“This is the product that you put in your grill, you use it every time you cook, you don't worry about it,” Chad explains. “It is not a novel grill tool or accessory that you use one time and then you throw in the closet because it's a pain to clean.”
Interested in elevating your charcoal burning experience? Shop Charcoal Baskets here.
The device itself is simple enough. By lifting the charcoal off the base of the grill, airflow is kept steady, ash falls out, and a consistent and smoky burn is achieved. Through trial and error, Chad evolved charcoal baskets by optimizing the metal used as well as the thickness, wire gauge and wire spacing.
Why A Charcoal Basket?
It was about a month after Chad got his first ceramic grill in 2010 that the need for a basket became clear. He was trying to bake a pizza at 425 degrees.
“I couldn't get my grill over 300 degrees, and so I called the guy at the shop where I got my grill and said ‘Dude, what's going on?”
Chad realized that without a way to easily sift leftover charcoal from the ash, the ash plugged the air vents at the bottom of his grill and coated the leftover lump charcoal. That’s when he turned to grill blogs and found grillers making DIY charcoal baskets. That was the “aha moment,” he recalled.
“I couldn't find anything on the internet to buy, so I figured I’d just make one,” he said. “Long story short, I had buddies asking for them when they were getting Big Green Eggs, because they want to be able to clean their grill out easier.”
A few years later, Chad began selling his charcoal baskets; now he and his wife have sold over thousands of baskets and other stainless steel products out of their home in Wisconsin.
Beyond making it easier to clean a grill, a charcoal basket can make smoking a pork butt or another large cut for 16 to 18 hours a hassle-free affair. An overfilled basket can get you through a long cook without needing to be refilled.
To maintain the basket also requires no effort. Cleaning it? The fire takes care of that.
“This is the product that you put in your grill, you use it every time you cook, you don't worry about it,” Chad explains. “It is not a novel grill tool or accessory that you use one time and then you throw in the closet because it's a pain to clean.”
Interested in elevating your charcoal burning experience? Shop Charcoal Baskets here.