British BBQ Society Forums

Hi all. Am having my fourth crack at brisket tonigt (previous 3 have been: tasty but tough; absolutely perfect; better than the first, not as good as the second) and am going to load up the ProQ and let it do its thing overnight. I've now got a charcoal quandry though because the Aussie Heat beads I had ordered have actually turned up today, when I thought they'd be another few days and I'd be using Big K restaurant grade. Anyone have a preference of which I should use, or could I even use a blend? Whatever would work best to get the smoker through the night. Thoughts/opinions?

Am probably going to use a minion method with as much fuel as I can get in the charcoal cage - it's a ProQ Excel Elite, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get enough fuel in there for the duration.

Anyone else had any success stories letting ProQs run overnight? You can tell me the disasters too if there's a worthwhile lesson from it!

A bit late I know but I always use heat beads for really long cooks and especially over nighters. I have an 18inch WSM so same principle as your ProQ.

I have had 18 hour cooks and been left with unused fuel with Heatbeads. I also find their burn very consistent. With lump I find temp tends to vary more as different size pieces catch and burn.

Thanks BraaiMeesterWannabe, much appreciated. In a typically uncommital way, I went for a blend and it turned out well. I got a good 13.5 hrs from it, but take your point that with exclusive use of heatbeads I might get another few hours as well. Anything was a step up from what I had before! I wrote a bit of a report of the cook here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9722

Experimenting is the how we get better. Sounds good