How Do You Arrange Charcoal in a Big Green Egg?
There’s no shortage of grill masters and backyard chefs that will go into elaborate detail about how best to arrange charcoal in a Big Green Egg. Whether you’re just getting started with your Big Green Egg or you’re just looking for new and different ways to master your charcoal grill, it can seem overwhelming to find the right way to do this part.
We’re here to tell you that, by using a charcoal basket and following a few key points, you’ll be able to get grilling without a hitch!
Here are a few tips we’ve gathered over the 10+ years since we founded Kick Ash Basket:
Why Charcoal Arrangement Matters in the Big Green Egg
Setting up your charcoal the right way isn’t just a small detail; it’s one of the most important parts of a successful cook on the Big Green Egg. The way you stack and space your charcoal affects three big things:
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Airflow: This controls how easily the fire breathes, which affects how hot and fast your grill gets.
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Heat Distribution: A good arrangement helps you avoid hot spots and keeps the temperature steady across the cooking surface.
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Burn Time: Especially for longer cooks, a well-packed firebox helps your charcoal last longer and burn more consistently.
The Big Green Egg does a fantastic job of holding heat thanks to its ceramic build, but you’ll still need to set up your charcoal properly to take full advantage of that design.
Choosing the Right Charcoal
When it comes to fueling your Big Green Egg, lump charcoal is the gold standard. Unlike briquettes, lump charcoal is made from pure hardwood, which means it burns cleaner, lights faster, and reaches higher temperatures, perfect for everything from low-and-slow smoking to high-heat searing.
Briquettes, on the other hand, are often packed with fillers and additives. They also produce more ash, which can choke airflow and make temperature control more difficult in a ceramic grill like the Big Green Egg.
What to Look For
Stick with lump charcoal that offers a good mix of medium to large chunks, with minimal dust and tiny pieces at the bottom. Bags full of small chips and powdery residue tend to burn unevenly and waste space in your firebox.
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How to Arrange Charcoal for Different Cooks
Here are a few tips we’ve gathered over the last 10+ years since we founded Kick Ash Basket on how to arrange charcoal for different cooks in a Big Green Egg.
Always start your cook with a full load of charcoal!
Fill your charcoal basket to the top. This is true for nearly any kind of grilling or smoking you are doing. Remember: you can have too little charcoal, but not too much. And the best part? You can reuse any leftover charcoal next time. Just shut the vents when you’re done and let the fire die out.
If you’re going for a long smoke, like 16-hour pork butt, then you’ll want to overload the basket.
Like Doug Hanthorn says on The Naked Whiz, “the minimum amount of charcoal you should probably ever use (except perhaps for ultra-low temperature smoking like cheese), is enough to just about fill the fire box.” He goes on to note a few more best practices:
- When you are cooking things like steaks at high temperatures, fill the fire box to the top.
- For low and slow cooking, fill it halfway up the fire ring so that it lasts long as long as you need (overnight, for instance)
Use leftover charcoal when lighting your grill for your next cook
A grill torch can definitely make lighting easier, but you’ll get the best results by using leftover charcoal from your last cook. After shaking out the ash from your charcoal basket, save a few of those partially burned pieces. Stack them in the center at the top of your fresh charcoal pile. They light up quickly and help get your fire going fast.
Charcoal fresh from the bag has a tendency to spark or may have accumulated some humidity, making it tough to light. Your par-burnt charcoal avoids these problems without purchasing a fire starter.
Mix it up
Make sure your charcoal is well-mixed: you don’t want the big chunks leaning on each other. This is to avoid what’s called “bridging” when one piece is burning but the next won’t because it is too large. Have a good mix of small, medium, and large pieces when you dump your charcoal into the basket.
Pay attention to the arrangement when you’re smoking on your Big Green Egg
If you’re using smoking wood there’s two main approaches: layered or in a ring.
If you layer your smoking wood, you’ll want to alternate a layer of charcoal with a layer of smoking wood as you fill your basket. You can think of it like constructing a pyre, except you’ll burn it from the top down.
If layering seems too involved, put smoking wood on top of the pile in a scattered, circular arrangement. Avoid placing smoking wood in the center where you start the fire. Use wood chunks, such as two-inch by two-inch pieces of whiskey barrel smoking wood, and arrange them around the center. This way, while the charcoal burns, wood chunks will fall into the center to give your smoked meat flavor consistently throughout the cook.
Get ready for an all-weather activity
The weather won’t affect how you’ll want to arrange your charcoal when you are using a Big Green Egg.
Like Kick Ash Basket creator Chad Romzek notes:
“That's the beauty of using a ceramic grill: they pretty much don't care about the weather, because the physics of it is that it's sealed up and it creates a chimney effect.”
Ready to start arranging your charcoal differently on your Big Green Egg? Start with a charcoal basket from Kick Ash Basket.