Does your BGE lump look like this? pics...

krobertsmsn · July 2012

I have been thru 1 bag of Bge lump so far with my new egg. It was pretty good as far as burn. There tended to be more smaller pieces than I felt should he but I thought it was just that particular bag. I read reviews and saw pics on naked whiz's site. I know to expect a fair amount of wastes/small pieces. I'm on my second bag now and noticed that I'm seeing a lot of small pieces again. I sorted to what I consider usable and non usable. Meaning would the pieces fit into the air holes and clog them. I have 1/2 filled my egg so I only sorted what was left. I weighed the small pieces and had 7.4 lbs of waste from a 22lb bag minus approx 3 lbs. What do yall think? Is this what I should expect? I just bought some weekend warrior from ace hardware and will check it out like this too...

Richard Fl · July 2012

I used to sort the lump, many brands, I made a frame with 1/2 inch square mesh on a 2x4 frame, big enough to fit over my large trash bucket 18x30 inch apprx. After doing this for a year or so I figured it was a waste of time, so now I just dump from the bag and eggcept near the end of bag , I get so it really does not matter unless I am doing a long burn and then I use bigger pieces which I keep separate as I go thru bags.

Shiff · July 2012

Royal Oak makes the BGE lump. I have used Royal Oak (USA) as my standard lump and always found that it has smaller pieces and lots of dust at the end.

I have switched to Humphrey lump which has larger pieces, is easy to light, and burns well.

I would suggest that you stop paying a premium for BGE lump and try Royal Oak instead which you can get at Wal-Mart (at least around here). FOr a little extra money you could use Wicked ZGood or Humphrey.

Duganboy · July 2012

Royal Oak is all I can get locally and the last two bags have been really bad. Not 5 pieces bigger a fist and most of them the size of an egg.

Prior to these two bags I had been very pleased with RO.

krobertsmsn · July 2012

Where do you get Humphrey and wicked z good?

Rubmyrock · July 2012

Cowboy is the way to go! Last few bags had some major logs in there and it's much cheaper.

krobertsmsn · July 2012

Where go you buy it?

Eggbertsdad · July 2012

Cowboy can be bought at Ace and Lowes. I tried a bag and loved the size of pieces and mild smoke. It did seem to produce a ton of ash, IMO.

You can get a 40lb. bag of Humphreys delivered for $38. Tough to beat for a great charcoal.

Also, Wicked Good WW is about $19-$20 at Ace. Very dense pieces. Lasts a long time, even on re-lights.

the_alchemist83 · July 2012

My first two bags of BGE were not very good at all & they were the larger 20 lb bags. I just purchased to more (10 lb x 2) and the first bag has much larger more dense pieces. I prefer the larger oblong shapes as I think you get more airflow by having more open spaces as opposed to just dumping in & using all the small pieces that fill in holes & what not.

Edit: I purchased more BGE because I had a gift card to a store that only sells BGE or Wicked Good. I wanted to give the BGE another shot other than the first go around. The lump that I had from this 3rd bag, definitely burned hotter & caught quicker than the previous lumps.

mrjwhit · July 2012

I just opened a bag of Wicked Good and it's WICKED BIG! The chucks were huge. One was almost 2 feet long. I had to check to make sure some of these weren't rocks or even bricks. They burn fantastic. My last bag of BGE lump was of reasonable size, nothing to write a about. I'm certainly going to get another back of WG weekend warrior blend when I'm done with this forest in a bag.

stike · July 2012

It's all usable. Big chunks aren't necessarily great. If you had one 20 pound chunk it would make for poor fire

An even bed of medium/small is great for searing. Large chunks are decent as a base, for airflow, but they are no good at providing an even fire.

JEC23 · July 2012

stike said:
It's all usable. Big chunks aren't necessarily great. If you had one 20 pound chunk it would make for poor fire

An even bed of medium/small is great for searing. Large chunks are decent as a base, for airflow, but they are no good at providing an even fire.

This is my thought process too, big lumps whilst good for low and slow aren't great for an even fire, I prefer golf ball to tennis ball sized lumps, and, if there's some small stuff that's fine, the important factor for me is dense charcoal that burns hot and long, if it takes a while to get going then to me, it's not the end of the world, it almost makes sense, quick to get going, quick to burn away, IMO.

Here in the UK we don't have anywhere near the choice of you folks in the US, I can get BGE lump, expensive but not too bad, there are a few local producers near me but they use mainly ash which doesn't last very long. My current go to is Big K Graded Restaurant Lump, a 30lb bag costs less than a large BGE bag lasts twice as long and gives a consistent burn

dlk7 · July 2012

The original equipment fire grates on the XL have 3/4 or 7/8 inch holes and you don't have to worry about airflow at all due to small pieces or dust. However, one of my XL fire grates cracked and they replaced it with one that has 1/2 inch holes that is much easier to clog with small pieces. My latest strategy is to dump the bag in the one with big holes and pull out the bigger chuncks and put in the one with smaller holes. Haven't had an issue since.

Shiff · July 2012

Someone here on the forum (cortguitarman) has run a group purchase of Humphrey charcoal in the Harrisburg area of Pennsylvania. The last purchase came out to $16 per 20 pound bag. Very good stuff. If I were to get Wicked Good, I'd order it from ACe hardware and have it delivered free to the store near me. They have coupons from time to time if you sign up for their email list.

Dave in Florida · July 2012

Wicked Good lump here - If you have an Ace hardware you can have free shipping to a store near you.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12791311

Brownie · July 2012

The small size will only be a issue for lump that produces a lot of ash which will clog (restrict airflow) you up sooner. Just be sure that your firebox and grate holes are clean. My guess is the only difference you will see is it will come up to temp a little bit slower.
My favorite lump to use comes looking the same way as your pics show, a dozen fist size, mostly golf ball size and the rest chips. I was disappointed at first, but soon realized that because it produces very little ash, there wasn't a need to knock ash loose. Once I stopped knocking loose the ash (between fill ups) I stopped having air flow issues. I don't know if it would work for BGE lump, but it works for Natures Own.

ratcheer · July 2012

I am still on my first bag of the two I got for my birthday with my BGE. The brand is B&B and it came from Academy Sports. I am fairly happy with the ratio of good sized lumps to smaller lumps to little pieces.

I made my first hot cook (steaks) yesterday, and wrapped the thermometer all the way around past zero. It was probably about 800-850 F.

Tim

Does your BGE lump look like this? pics...

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