Another newbie Q...

BGE works but Royal Oak is the same thing, less expensive, and available at Wally.

I have used BGE once. No need. Many much more affordable and better products. See link. http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpindexpage.htm?bag

BGE lump is overpriced. But to answer your question, any lump will work. Some lumps are better than others for sure.

Around here, BGE charcoal is $25 for a 20-lb bag at Ace Hardware. Royal Oak is $12.95 for 17 lbs at Home Depot. Rockwood is $19.95 for 20 lbs from firecraft.com and Ozark Oak is $10.95 for 10 lbs. Shipping is free from firecraft.com if you buy $100 in an order.

Hankyorke said:

Not this again.... Nakedwhiz reviews/reviewed lump got there read, then try, then repeat

It will keep getting asked by the new guys. I certainly don't mind helping them. 

xiphoid007 said:

Ozark oak or rockwood from firecraft. You get free shipping when you spend $100.

I used royal oak for a while, but I'm loving the Ozark oak. I'm gonna try some rock wood for my next order.

In scoping tons of posts over researching everything, I've found Ozark oak and rockwood to be the most common brands mentioned.

+1 on the naked whiz site. Lots of great info there.

They are the 2 best that I have ever used.

Maccool said:

I haven't been able to see a difference between the Royal Oak and the Ozark Oak, at least not enough difference to justify paying 25% more and finding space to store 10 bags of charcoal at a time.

I find Ozark oak has a much cleaner taste and has much bigger pieces of charcoal. The size thing could be shipping issues from my local walmarts, but I've heard that from other people too. I also find many more rocks in RO compared to OO.

And for the newbies @henapple is a RO connoisseur-he drives around the mid-west delivering precious bags of that lump on a fairly frequent basis...

Seriously though- if you have some of each (sadly, I do) you can see which one you like. I'm not going to get in to good vs bad because I don't think any are really "bad". Hell, I cooked on Best of the West for a year and told The Wiz he was full of it for rating it poorly (he was not full of it- it's bad).

I got another large at Salado this year and it came with a free bag of BGE lump (and I got drunk and stole another from the after party after Micky passed out). I already had OO and a ton of Rockwood in my garage. I hadn't used BGE (royal oak) in years so i fired it up in the new egg to kill the curry cloud that The Little Canadian and the King of Calcutta soiled my virgin egg with at the fest and I had OO on the OE. So without saying one is good and the other is bad, here is what I noticed. The royal oak was very smoky with white smoke billowing out for most of the cook. It imparted a very heavy smoke taste that I found unpleasant. I have also noticed that most newbs that post "help! My wife says my food is too smoky and won't eat off the egg" are using the BGE lump that came with their egg. I would find fish or chicken way way over smoked with that profile. It's smoky. Not bad. But heavy smoke. OO Is much cleaner and a very high quality lump but still way smokier than Rockwood. Rockwood is clean. Like super clean. I like to add my smoke with chunks. If I don't add with RW, it is very light, very clean. I can put cherry wood in for chicken and it tastes like cherry. With Royal and to a lesser degree OO, it tastes like lump smoke. Now if you love really smoky food, you may not notice. But if you are looking for more subtlety and nuance, then you want a cleaner lump and to add flavor through chunks Or maybe not at all.

Try them all and see what you like. I like clean very smoke neutral lump. That is rockwood. OO has a little more smoke, RO a little more still. All personal choice.

+1 on what @The Cen-Tex Smoker said about smokey lump. My wife could tell the instant I ran out of my royal oak and started with OO. Not to bash RO, it was way better than the cowboy I was using!

xiphoid007 said:

+1 on what @The Cen-Tex Smoker said about smokey lump. My wife could tell the instant I ran out of my royal oak and started with OO. Not to bash RO, it was way better than the cowboy I was using!

Chicks dig rockwood.

I might I have missed something, but I liked your post about lump @Cen-Tex smoker. Sorry.

Heanapple is the unofficial OO spokesperson on here and a helluva guy. Was busting his nuts a little but we are all good. He wears my shorts almost every day.

MeTed said:

Thanks brother, I thought I pissed you off. Party On!

Never buddy. Always good here.