Next question...Cowboy lump, good or bad?

Vanzo

Local store just started carry it and I have never seen it before.

Thx,
Vanzo

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

absolutely fine.

excellent middle of the road lump. burns very hot and fast, works fine for overnight cooks too.

warnings about "scrap lumber" are a little misleading. they use scraps that are culled from the lumber-making process, including t&g flooring. none of it is finished wood or reclaimed construction debris. no one's pulling stuff from a construction dumpster and trying to pass it off as charcoal. it's just 6 inch chunks of wood that had a knot or defect and never made it through inspection, so instead are made into charcoal.

the long narrow shapes make for a great fire

best thing going for it is its lower price, IMO.

every lump has its plusses and minuses.
it's not as dense as wickoed good, but lights faster, gets hotter sooner.

Royal Oak (or BGE) is a nice happy medium bewteen the lightness of Cowboy and the density of WG. the denser it is, the longer it will last at high temps. but Cowboy will go overnight anyway

Boilermaker Ben

My first impression of Cowboy was pretty good. I had a couple bags that were full of larger pieces, very little dust. It burned cleanly (very little burn-in time, and almost no smokey flavor), and very hot and fast. I did have one piece that certainly appeared to be plywood, but I pulled it out and threw it away.

I wound up going back to Royal Oak, because the Cowboy was burning off so fast. A few months ago, I wound up buying a few more bags of Cowboy and my impression was very different. The bags contained a LOT of dust and chips. The lump threw off a lot of fumes and required a long time to burn off the nasty smell. Maybe I got a great batch initially, or maybe it was just a bad batch later, but I've had much better consistency with the Royal Oak I get from Walmart, so I'll be sticking with that. I wish the quality of Cowboy was always as good as those first few bags, because it would make a great pizza-baking lump.

If they're offering a good price, get a bag and see what you think.

Cpt'n Cook

I use Cowboy frequently and like it. Lights fast , Burns clean and the price is right. I don't use it for overnight.

Vanzo

Thanks for the info. I am very familiar with "scrape wood". Here in our little town we have a Hickory Mill that takes hickory and makes the unfinished hammer and axe handles...then they ship them overseas to be finished and assembled. They have TONS of scrape hickory wood, the little ends of the handles, mostly 3-4" but some up to 6-7". They have a huge furnace to burn the scrape and it runs all day getting rid of the stuff!!

Its great for cooking with and I have gone there many times and picked up a sackful. They furnish the free wood to anyone that wants to come get it....including schools and clubs with they cook barbeque to sell. Unforturnately it is not lump and will not work in the egg other than just smoke wood.

Thanks again for the info on Cowboy. Im going to pick up a couple of bags and try it...as you said, the price is right on it.

Vanzo

Sooner Egg

bad lump,not even middle of road lump in my opinion... every once in a while I will pick up a bag at Lowes to give it another shot and everytime I'm totally disappointed....I now stick with Royal Oak, Ozark Oak and Wicked Good(when I can get it)....I have found much better consistency with each of the three aforementioned brands and nothing but disappointment with Cowboy

my 2 cents based on my experiences :evil:

Mr. & Mrs Potatohead

I have only used two bags of Cowboy (from the local Home Depot) and felt they were good. Seemed to burn hot and clean and it wasn’t sparky. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I feel that the Royal Oak seems to burn better and longer, so I’ve burned a lot of it…Could be that density thing.
Recently I got some Wicked Good and like the way it burns, even though a bit sparky at high temps. At least the first bag… :unsure: .

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

remember that all lumps are a little different. if you use one for a long time and get used to it, you can easily think that other lumps "aren't as good". not necessarily true. they are all workable, and in some cases are better at one thing than another. hot/fast versus low/slow for example.

one variable you can't control is how the bag was handled on its way to you. i have had bags of lump(brand is irrelevant) where the size of chunks was perfect, only to find the next bag made of smaller bits.

>shrug

Boilermaker Ben

one variable you can't control is how the bag was handled on its way to you. i have had bags of
lump(brand is irrelevant) where the size of chunks was perfect, only to find the next bag made of
smaller bits.

I wonder if it's a matter of handling, or of bagging. My only knowledge of charcoal production comes from "Dirty Jobs." There was an episode where Mike worked for a charcoal producer. The bagging process consisted of him shoveling lump from a big pile onto a conveyor that fed the bagger. It seems to me that this process would lead to great variability in the contents of bags taken from the top of the pile vs. those taken from the bottom. Perhaps some producers have processes to ensure more even distribution? I know that I haven't been using lump for very long (1.5 years), but I've never had a bag of Royal Oak that contained large amounts of dust and chips. The bags of Cowboy have varied greatly. Maybe if we had a "thumping the watermelon" test for identifying which closed bags are mostly larger pieces... :P

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

i would think much is bagging.
biggest cornflakes are at the top of the bag.

when they load the thing, i'm sure there are similar idiosyncracies with the process.

i do get a fairly even mix though. i don't get a bag of giant chunks, and the next bag is all chips for example.

but sometimes you just do get that bag that is all frikkin chips. although i think WGC is very fastidious about size and making sure the lump is decent sized when bagged. i don't think anyone's getting any of their stuff with half a bag of tiny pieces. everything i had have from them (i even scored an old bag of competition blend) was evenly sized, half-fist or bigger.

Dave in So Cal

I have been disappointed with Cowboy. It seems to spark a lot when lighting with a torch. It also has a lot of dust and chips in the bag. The last two bags I had also had a chemical smell that did not go away even after an hour of burning. Yuck.

For me, Royal Oak performs well. The bags generally have good size distribution, it lights well, it burns consistently, and it has a good smell.

Try the Cowboy to see what you think. Maybe you will have better results than me.

BigMojo

I've used it off and on, and just picked up a bag at Bass Pro Shop because I couldn't get to my normal supplier of BGE lump before they closed, and needed to do a cook.

This bag was very fragrant of a "liquid smoke" smell and when I hit it with the torch to light up, some pieces rather than smoldering like normal actually lit like a candle with a flame, almost like it was doused in lighter fluid. Temp got up quickly, but had an unbearable amount of thick "bad smoke" with damper full open and no daisy wheel. When opened, it immediately flared up into a sustained "campfire" with about 3' high flames(lost some arm hair on that one!) and a strong smell. When I closed the lid again the smoke started again, THICK! So, I canceled that night's cook, and left the top up and burning for about 2 hours, and then closed the top to see what would happen. Now it seemed to be normal. So I shut it down. Last night, went to do a quick chicken breast, and it lit and burned clean with remaining lump.

I don't know what's up with this bag, but, I'm hesitant to use the remaining fresh lump.

RVH

Man, do I ever miss that construction dumpster taste.... :laugh:

DrugCoder

My last two bags were Cowboy. I agree with those that say it burns hotter and faster than others. I will say that it sparks a lot less than the Royal Oak I was using before.

Normally I try to stay with Royal Oak but the only store that carries it around here would have been a trek across town but I was already at Lowes so I went with Cowboy.

A while back I got to hang out with one of the owners of Cowboy brand and she was very nice and a lot of fun. (Pretty darn good lookin too!) I don't mind giving them my business from time to time even though it's not my favorite.

1/2 Chicken

I'm not a huge fan of the stuff but I will add this. First time out with a new smoker (pre BGE) I cooked a brisket at a bbq comp. with Cowboy that took second of 72 and had a perfect KCBS score (999 X 6). I came up against another perfect score that had a better tie breaker. So... some may not be fans but that doesn't mean you can't cook some quality eats with it.

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

there are some hear who have said they were afraid it was taken from a dumpster, don't laugh.
hahaha

hard not to, though. hahaha

BeerMike

Have you ever thought about making your own lump charcoal?

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/makinglump.htm

Cheers,

BeerMike