Charcoal Briquettes vs Lump, and Why We Count
For this class — and for most Dutch oven cooking, period — you want briquettes. Regular bagged kind, none of the lighter-fluid-soaked stuff if you can help it. Not lump.
I know lump has its following. Some folks love it; it's basically charred wood, burns hot, carries that campfire smell. But it burns hot and unevenly, and "unevenly" is the enemy of everything we're doing here.
Briquettes over lump for beginners, no argument. That's where I land. Briquettes are built to be boring — same size, same shape, same burn time, same heat output, batch after batch. When something's that consistent you can count it, and counting it is the entire trick to Dutch oven cooking.
Why we count coals at all
A Dutch oven doesn't have a dial. There's no "350." It's got a lid and a bottom, and heat comes from wherever you put the coals. So the system is counting briquettes on top and underneath, in a rough ratio, to land in the neighborhood of a real oven temperature.
The number people start with is roughly double the oven's diameter in inches, split with more coals on top than bottom — heat rises away from your food, so you're pushing some back down through the lid. For a 12-inch oven that's around 16 coals on top, 8 on the bottom, for something in the 350ish range. The actual chart comes next lesson. Today I just want you to understand why a chart is even possible.
It's possible because briquettes are consistent. That's the whole reason this works. Use lump and that same "16 and 8" gives you a different result depending on which pieces you grabbed out of the bag — some are basically bark, some are dense as a brick. You can't build a system on that.
What this means for your first few cooks
What I want you doing at home before you get fancy:
Buy a bag of regular briquettes. Not the match-light kind if you can avoid it — that stuff's got accelerant built in, it shifts your burn a little, and it smells like a gas station. Plain briquettes, the ones shaped like little charcoal pillows.
Count them out before you light them. Don't eyeball a pile and call it close enough. Actually count. It feels fussy the first time, then it's automatic — same as knowing how much water goes in your instant pot without measuring.
Use a chimney starter if you've got one. The metal cylinder — newspaper in the bottom, coals on top, light the paper, and twenty minutes later you've got glowing coals with zero lighter-fluid taste. No chimney, no problem, we'll cover other ways to light. But a chimney's about twelve bucks and worth every one.
Once they're lit, arrange them — don't dump them. Coals on the lid go in a ring, evenly spaced, not clumped in the middle. Coals underneath get spread out too, not piled.
That ring business matters more than people expect. My son worked it out on his own years ago and told me like it was obvious — and I'd read that exact tip in three places without it landing until he said it out loud. A clump gives you a hot spot. A ring gives you even heat. Even heat is the whole goal.
The story behind why I'm strict about this
My husband tried to help me once by "improving" my coal count. I had it counted out, ready to go, and he decided more was better and dumped basically half a chimney onto the lid. No count, no plan, just more.
The ham came out fine — ham's forgiving. The green bean side dish did not. It went from "green beans with bacon" to something closer to a briquette itself. We still argue about whether that's on his coal dump or my recipe being too delicate to start with. I know what I think.
The point isn't that he's bad at this. It's that "more heat" feels intuitive and is usually wrong. Don't preheat everything to death, and don't overcorrect with a big handful of extra coals because you're nervous. Count, place them evenly, and trust the number for a while before you start adjusting by feel.
One honest caveat
Wind messes with all of this, and I'll give it to you straight: I still can't perfectly eyeball the compensation. Utah County gets breezy, especially in the canyons, and a steady wind pulls heat off your coals faster than a calm day. What I do is check more often when it's windy and add a coal or two if things run cool, instead of guessing up front. That's normal. You're not supposed to nail it blind.
Before next time
Grab a bag of plain charcoal briquettes and, if you don't own one, look at picking up a cheap chimney starter before our next session. We'll do our first real coal count together, and it helps a lot if the tools are already in your hands.