Royal Oak Lump Review - Not Feeling It

Most of the time, RO works just fine for me.  

  

henapple said:

@Caliking is an unbelievable cook. Why he uses ro is beyond me.

Because its the skilz, not the lump, that makes a good cook!

FWIW, I have never seen a piece of plastic or anything that might burn other then charcoal in RO. Rocks, maybe but plastic? Never, and I have been through hundreds, no thousands  of pounds of RO. I have found a couple pieces of insulation which I was not found of though.

I am only stating this because RO has been my go to charcoal for the last 7 or 8 years since I got my first egg and RO is the only real choice readably available in my area. I burn in the range of 400 to 500 lbs a year. I've gone in on two pallets of WG in that time and used my share of BGE brand with a few other minor purchases in between.  

RO has gone down hill in quality lately and I hope they pick up on the quality because like I said, it is the most readably charcoal in my area. 

I wish I had more choices.

I am in the arm pit some people call South Jersey.

When you come visit them maybe you could do a charcoal run for the deprived eggers in this area.

Yea, that sounds like a great idea!

I have used a lot of RO over the past year as well. I got in a pallet buy of some Rockwood and used several bags of that. Went back to a bag of RO and I noticed that it sounds like rubber when you dump it in the egg. More of a "thud" than the "plink" of Rockwood. In my experience, the RO does smoke a lot more and impart more smoke taste but the RW gets hot quite a bit faster and burns cleaner. I have had some pretty small pieces in some of the RW but overall, I've been pretty happy with it.

Agree it burns fast, had to reload a brisket cook after 9hrs or so, it should have been fine.

SWVABeanCounter said:

I'm in the don't have any other choice camp also.  I dislike RO.  Maybe I got a bad batch, but I loaded up when it was $10  for 17.7 lb bag.  Every bag I get into it seems longer for VOC's to burn off.  Yesterday was over an hour.  I'm usually never in a hurry, but that's ridiculous.  I've convinced myself to make a few hour road trip just to stock up on lump when I run low on RO.

Hey @HungryJoe, do you ever get close to West Chester PA.  That's where Firecraft has a warehouse.  I think it was @Hapster who said they'd let you pick up there.

I was going to make the trip to Firecraft but after talking to them the price was the same, $100 for five bags picked up or delivered free, I opted to have it shipped. I think it would have been a hour trip in each direction. If I could have got some kind of discount I would have drive out there and most likely would have bought up to 30 bags. Plus they told me they charge tax which I didn't have to pay having it shipped. Here in NJ charcoal is not taxed as far as I know.

I don't plan on having charcoal shipped like that again unless I start hearing from people who had better experiences.

saluki2007 said:

Can't say I've ever found plastic either.  I have however found paper, rocks, insulation, and metal bands in both RO and Natural Glo.  This is why I hand place my charcoal in every time instead of just dumping.  Also part of the reason I stopped using those brands and just bit the bullet and started ordering RW and OO online.

Give them a pass on the rocks.......those are unavoidable.  You will find them in our charcoal as well.  Char dust covered rocks look too much like charcoal during the bagging process.

The metal banding will show up once in a while as well.  That's what binds the slabs together when they are trucked from the mill to the charcoal plant.  After 6 months outside, and then 5 days in the kiln they break and usually come out a few long strips--but sometimes they crack in a lot more places.  You will occasionally find that in ours as well.

Same goes for anything that's lodged inside of a tree, and thus inside of the charcoal--bullets, arrowheads, nails, barbed wire, coins, and more.......you'll find all kind of stuff.

Paper, cans, insulation, concrete, etc is another story though.

Hungry Joe said: If I could have got some kind of discount I would have drive out there and most likely would have bought up to 30 bags. Plus they told me they charge tax which I didn't have to pay having it shipped. Here in NJ charcoal is not taxed as far as I know.

I don't plan on having charcoal shipped like that again unless I start hearing from people who had better experiences.

You might talk with them about preordering.  I can call and talk with them if you want and see if we can figure something out.  As much as you like charcoal, I would really like for you to have a better experience with our product.

On the tax, that's PA sales tax.  If you pick it up in PA, they have to charge you for it.  I have to do the same for MO customers that do not have resale certificates. 

@littlesteven I think with the torch, you are creating a HOT environment in the pile of lump.  That's why you don't have the VOC issues.  

I have switched over the last couple years to RO from BGE mostly because of price. I have done many long overnighters(15-18hrs) with no problem and I just pour it in.  I wish I had easy access to some other brands but I'm happy, albeit maybe because I don't know what's out there. Hey, ignorance is bliss I guess.

Used to get Wicked Good at my local ACE.  As has been mentioned they no longer carrying it.

@woody my local ace carries kamado joe in lieu of WGWW as well. I have tried it and find it extremely comparable to WGWW - I haven't used WGWW in months and I really like KJ lump.

The picture below is a bag of KJ poured into my XL, I put my Sierra Nevada in the picture for reference.

Burns hot, lasts long, I love it. It's my go to lump.