Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Trying to get used to cooking with DOs has been fun. Tried all kinds of new recipes and have had pretty good success if I say so my self. The recipes on this forum are awesome. While at home I generally place the DO in a cake pan to hold the bottom coals and then sit it inside my gas grill and close the lid. It normally takes about an hour to cook most of what I cook and I've still got plenty of heat left in the charcoal. This summer I cooked on the ground while out camping. Again, I had the DOs sitting in a cake pan to keep the bottom coals off the ground and the normal amount on the lid. I thought it was a fluke that it took so long and that I had to change the charcoal when I'd never had to change charcoal while sitting it in my gas grill at home. (Gas turned off of course). Just bought a Camp Chef DO table and tried cooking with it this Hunting season. I made a considerably taller wind screen for it to rival the one offered by Lodge. I started my dinner, the Easy Potato Bake recipe and the Corn bread in a twelve inch and ten inch lodge DOs respectively at about 6:30 PM. The corn bread wasn't done until about 8:15 and the Easy Potato Bake wasn't done until about 9 PM. It wasn't windy, it was about 24 degrees F. but is this normal taking so long? I was using about 28 coals for the twelve inch and about 24 for the ten inch each time. Three coal changes for the 12 inch and two for the 10 inch. In fact when the corn bread started getting done, I transferred most of the coals onto the top of my twelve inch to help it get done so I could eat my dinner before midnight.

What's your experience with cooking times?

Art

Please tell me the charcoal was NOT Kingsford. I had a buddy complain about just what you have stated and he had an off brand. What we noticed n the ash was that the bricketts were augmented with white silica sand. It's cheap and adds weight to the charcoal but offers nothing in the heat department. I just recently experimented with the Kingsford Competition charcoal and was even disappointed with it and immediately went back to the regular Kingsford. The cornbread with the coals you had should have been done in well under an hour unless way to much liquid was added. Here is the Tearjerkers Dutch oven seminar from 2013 if you are interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trowX9DxwVI

1st you are containing the heat in your gas grill and when out side you are cook and heating the air. Get you a dome for cooking out side in the cold,
I have used them in cold weather and they work great, or build you a box (light metal) for cooking in.
Lot of people use old weber grills when cooking out side.

Bob, yes I was using Kingsford, the kind that doesn't have the lighter fluid in it. What has really surprised me in both summer weather and just recently using the Cooking table with 12 inch high windscreens in 24 degree F weather was how much longer it took than at home. The main reason I place my DO's in my gas grill is for safety sake. My grill is located on a deck that has flammable stuff like straw and a snowblower underneath it. I don't have the option of getting rid of or moving the stuff from underneath the deck. I suppose I could do my cooking out in the yard, but that would mean walking down off the porch and around the gate and probably tying up my dog and I am lazy. But man, the difference in cooking times was astounding. And yes things were simmering and boiling inside the pot just like back home in the grill. In the summer, just cooking with my containment pan (for the bottom coals) sitting on the ground took much longer than I expected. I thought maybe the ground was sucking the heat out of the pan, thus prolonging my cooking time.

Art

cooking on the ground and cooking on the back porch are 2 different animals

on the wagon we found out LONG AGO that one has to keep a watchfull eye when cooking in an oven on the ground

wind and ground temperature can skew your cooking times severely

we use a cook fire for a constant supply of fresh coals which is necessary for cooking on the ground



constant checking and fire/coal tending are just a way of life when cooking outdoors

while you're at it take an old warsh tub and cut it in 1/2 to produce 2 fine windbreaks which will store/travel wrapped around the ovens taking up very little space if any to speak of...

GOOD LUCK

sw

I have been known to put my iron in more iron for a windbreak............ A spider in a spider