Cooked Cornish Hens on the PBC last night.
Coated them with olive oil, and rubbed two with Meathead's Memphis Dust and the others with Blues Hog.
They came out great, and they were a novelty for the kids. They were amazed at the size difference between these and the 18lb turkey we did recently.
Here are my unscientific observations on the Kingsford Competition for this cook vs. the Blue Bag Kingsford I used for the lamb breast the other night. It was mid 30s outside for the Blue and mid 40s for the Comp if that makes any difference.
1. Comp lights faster as advertised. I use a Weber compact chimney to light about 2lbs of coal. The Blue was ready in 15 minutes. (solid flame over the top of the chimney) Comp was probably even further along in 10, so I went ahead and dumped it then.
2. I didn't notice much difference in volume of smoke on startup. I have read reviews that Comp smokes more but I did not notice this. The smoke does smell more like wood smoke and is not quite as acrid as Blue. The Comp claims to be all wood char with a binder so this makes sense.
3. The Comp did burn a little hotter during the cooks but not by much. I monitored them with my Maverick digital and had the probe hanging off of a hook. With the vent set at 1/4 for my elevation of 700 ft. the Blue stabilized at 290 and the Comp at 300 while the meat was cooking. After the food was taken out and the lid back on to monitor temps the Blue settled down at 315 and the Comp at 330.
The main reason I bought the bag of Comp was just out of curiosity to see how much hotter it burned. I was expecting a little more than 10-15 degrees difference. I was guessing it would stabilize closer to 325 while cooking. The smoke from Comp does smell a little better (to me), but for the difference in price I can't justify switching from Blue Bag.
Has anyone else used Kingsford Comp? I saw an old thread where one poster didn't notice much difference with it, and others were going to try it.
