Royal Oak Vs Rockwood Redux

I have not had a problem burning off the VOC's to get clean smoke when I am burning just lump.  I can light up an egg of RO and be ready to cook as soon as it is up to temp.  Now if I add smoking wood, that is a whole different story - it takes me a long time to get "clean smoke" when I have wood in the mix.  And If I add the wood after I get "clean smoke", I no longer have clean smoke.
I do not find that I get much smoke flavor in the egg, particularly if I wait for the clean smoke.  I wish I had a "smoke flavor profile" to control as some of you describe.

I really don't think RW costs more than anything else, it is the cost of getting it.  I looked into a pallet buy once and the shipping charge was equal to the cost of the lump itself - made it impractical to me.  The big box stores are buying full truckloads of RO for their distribution centers, and delivering to the stores on their own trucks, so their cost basis is much different than the local retailer buying one or two pallets.  

With all due respect to @stlcharcoal, who I think has an excellent product, if I perceived a significant difference in the results with different lump, I would spend the extra, but I don't.  

RW for me. I get it cheap as I'm relatively close to St Louis maybe that's why. It's only a few dollars more a bag. 

Maybe part of it is people learn to first cook on their egg using lump that they can find easily in the big box stores.  RO, Cowboy, B&B, etc.  Then they start reading the forum, learn about building a fire, how to identify "good" smoke....and the hype on the charcoal.  "Hey, I'm gonna put this information to use!".  So they buy some Rockwood, build the fire right, identify that bad smoke, not do anything stupid like put 5 pounds of mesquite on top and light from the bottm.... and....hey, the RO/Cowboy/B&B lump was the problem! 

Has anyone ever tried Anthracite, Coke, or just plain old coal in the Egg? Its hard burns hot and lasts forever.. Just a thought, something for the day drinkers to ponder..

off all discussed, Frontier is the worst I've tried. RO is definetly better than Frontier. 

joytreg said:

Please educate me. I use Royal Oak. Why do you prefer Rockwood?

I said this in another post this week I think but the reasons I prefer Rockwood are the neutral smoke, it seems to take less time to burn off the VOCs and up to temp, I find the pieces are more consistent in size (you still get small pieces and dust from shipping and handling but what's left seems better), and I've yet to find a rock in a bag of Rockwood.  It seemed like I would find at least one rock in each BGE/RO bag I would use prior to Rockwood.  This last bit is just a personal preference of mine, I prefer to support small business over large corp when I can @stlcharcoal is a member of this community so I prefer my money go to his business over Royal Oak.

I get the love for RW, it's definitely a superior lump - I buy it when I see it, but I won't make a special trip for it.
Used RO for my first couple of bags on advice from the BGE dealer, who threw a bag on my initial order for "free".

Since then I've tried everything. Nothing, besides our dearly departed Ozark Oak, smells quite as nice as that burst of fragrance from a newly opened bag of Rockwood. It should be bottled and sold as cologne at EggFests.

That said, I buy my lump at Amazon, Quebracho comes in 40lb bags delivered to the door for $40. If RW is a ten, this stuff is a 9.5