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Lump Charcoal

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Comments

  • Hans61
    Hans61 Posts: 3,901
    blind99 said:
    @Hans61 menards near me doesn't carry it in the winter. Home Depot usually stocks it year round. 
    Home Depot $13.00/bag! Thank you blind99
    “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.”
    Coach Finstock Teen Wolf
  • Abter
    Abter Posts: 125
    I'm surprised no one has mentioned Primo charcoal. Amazon has a 20 # bag of their 608 All Natural Hardwood for a mere $99.86 plus $7 shipping.  Yep...one 20# bag for >$100, delivered.   :o    Better hurry though...the Amazon listing says ShopperDooper only has 3 left at this great price.  check out:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018YIBR1K?keywords=lump charcoal&qid=1455141393&ref_=sr_1_1&s=lawn-garden&sr=1-1

    Of course if you insist Wired Fox, another Amazon vendor ,is selling an obviously inferior grade of Primo 608 20# bag on sale now for $44.42 (regular price $67.64) with free shipping; what a deal :s     Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/Primo-608-Natural-Charcoal-20-Pound/dp/B003LNL7P0/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1455143287&sr=1-1&keywords=primo+608+charcoal

    Ebay has it for $40 to $60.
    Back here in reality, it's not too hard to find online places (most looking like local retail BBQ supply stores) selling it for $24 to $30 per #20 of 608.

    Stay Calm and Egg On
    1 lonely medium in Rockville, MD
  • I live in south Texas near the Mexican border.i normally use BGE or another brand called"the best one" recently I picked up a bag of mesquite lump from Walmart and seems to do great for less than half the price of the above two I mentioned.one thing I notice is there is much more broken smaller pieces and powder in the mesquite.it comes from Mexico by the way
  • YukonRon
    YukonRon Posts: 16,984
    I have become pretty much exclusive with Rockwood and I still have a few bags of Carbon Del Sol I bought from RD. I give the edge to Rockwood over all else I have tried. I use it exclusively for my long low and slows. Carbon Del Sol is a very high quality lump as well, it just takes a bit longer to get to neutral smoke than does the Rockwood. Both have more larger sized chunks and less dust and debris than the Royal Oak family of brands. I have stopped purchases of BGE and other RO lump brands due to a few reasons; first, the smoke flavor,from the dozens of bags I have tried, limparts a somewhat undesirable acrid flavor, revealing itself in the cook, frequently overriding the chunks of smoke wood I had added. Trying to bury that lump taste with additional chunks, overwhelms the desired flavor I seek when smoking. (Personal taste here, and that of my family.)
    2nd major reason is lump size. In my area, I have yet to purchase a bag from the RO family of which I have been able to use more than 1/2 of a bag. I use KABs in both my XL and MM, and most of the bags that I have used, from the RO brands, pour right through the baskets, leaving me with about a 1/2 (and occasionally a lucky bag bag yielded 2/3) of usable material. I will also say every bag, from every source to which I have purchased, has yielded unusable material. The two brands I keep, are significantly higher in usable lump.
    3rd issue I have is debris. No lump provider is 100% exclusive in debris free lump. However, I have found wires, metal bands, stones, pieces of tools, glass, and wood not fully processed in the RO family of lump charcoal. I have only found some small rocks occasionally in RW and CDS. Interesting story; I received a bag of BGE free with a purchase of my MM. I did not use it immediately, as the BGE brand fell out of favor from previous use. I had several grills going, and I thought I would use small amounts of the BGE to keep them stoked, the bag had a hole in it, which was no big deal, but this hole seemed to be the result of what remained of a screwdriver (flat head about 8" in length). no biggie, found things before in these bags. When opening it I scooped out some lump, and in the first scoop was significant size rocks,  and what appeared to be radial tire metal wires (wadded it up in a loose ball), and some medium sized lump. I pulled the non lump material out, scooped again, got some larger lump and more debris of what looked like wood parquet floor tiles, partially processed, still having the non burned off varnish. I put all the stuff back into the bag, took it back to the BGE dealer, and showed them what I had. They gave me another bag, that I since regifted and have felt guilty since.
    I am 100% sure this was an unusual anomaly. It just happened to be my day to get the worst bag they had. But, I have not had an experience of anything close to that with either RW or CDS.
    I am positive others will have great experiences with the brands under the RO name, but mine were not so good.
    I have not tried others that are available. I have a couple I experience excellent results with on a consistent basis, and until these start giving me problems, I am staying with them.
    "Knowledge is Good" - Emil Faber

    XL and MM
    Louisville, Kentucky
  • Danny71
    Danny71 Posts: 108
    I posted earlier (weeks) ago about parkers pure mountain lump. I didn't get many answers back. Since I have had a chance to use it. I absolutely love it. It has really big chunks and mixture of medium to small it is better than BGE lump in my opinion. If you have acces to some please try it. My dealer has it for 18.95 a bag 20pd. 
  • GregW
    GregW Posts: 2,676
    Inconsistent RO quality has sadly driven me to use briquette charcoal on most non critical cooks for me.
    I've been using the Stubb's briquette. It seems fine for run on the mill burgers.
    I've grown tired of throwing away the bottom 25-30 % of the lump bag.
  • I made my own last weekend not sure of the weight but that's a 30gal storage bin and a 20 gallon trash can full. I've got $20 invested in the kiln and oak was free. I did a cook with some of it already and was very satisfied with the results.
  • @WindJammer : Care to start a new thread or give step by step details of this little weekend project? Did you get a complete conversion to carbon?

    1 large BGE, 2 small BGE, 3 Plate setters, 1 large cast iron grid, 1 pizza stone, 1 Stoker II Wifi, 1 BBQ Guru Digi-Q II, 1 Amaze N pellet smoker and 1 empty wallet.      Seaforth, On. Ca.

  • http://www.nakedwhiz.com/makinglump.htm I got my information here along with a few YouTube videos 
  • Locating a 55 gallon drum with lid was easy at my local recycling plant. Finding a 30 gallon was difficult. I decided to use a galvanized trash can I already had. Most important step is waiting long enough for it to cool off. First batch I got impatient and when the air hit the lump on bottom it tried to ignite. 
  • bo31210
    bo31210 Posts: 715
    danv23 said:
    Went in with some buddies and split up 2 pallets of Basques Sugar Maple. What you see there is after a 16 hour butt cook.  Filled up the egg to the top of the fire ring and that's what was left.  Needless to say I am super impressed.

    @danv23 That is some good stuff (kind of hard to find in Georgia for me)    I use it and Rockwood  exclusively.     
    In the middle of Georgia!    Geaux Tigers!!!!!
  • bo31210
    bo31210 Posts: 715
    I just saw a bag of  "kamado joe" branded lump at my local ACE.  Anyone have a clue as to who the supplier is?? 
    I have heard it is the old Wicked Good (back when WGWW was great)    All disclaimers apply  :)
    In the middle of Georgia!    Geaux Tigers!!!!!
  • If you live near an HEB, I'm a big fan of Central Market Mesquite Lump. It's roughly $13 for a 20-pound bag. The bags are loaded with huge pieces. It's super convenient to buy since I just get it at my local grocery store. And, I haven't had problems with the lump putting a strong mesquite smell on my food. (I was really scared of that when I first tried it.) It's all I've burned in my Egg since I made the switch from Ozark Oak (which I think is now defunct) two years ago.
  • I have about 300 lbs of charcoal...some lump and some briquettes.  I buy when it's on sale and stock up.  A lot of my RO came from Walmart when it was $8 a bag.  I have a few bags of KJ lump from the road show, a couple bags of Rockwood, and a lot of RO briquettes ($3/ 16 lb bag at Kmart) and Kingsford briquettes ($4/16 lb bag at Kroger clearance).  I use briquettes a lot on rib cooks...no problems with the ash snuffing the fire on a 5-6 hour cook.  I like to stick with lump on Joetisserie cooks as I'm usually trying to hit a 350-400 temp range with a small amount of charcoal.

    I'm looking forward to trying Fogo...I have 6 bags on the way!
    Augusta, GA
    #BGETEAMGREEN member
    MiniMax, Large, XL BGE
    Featured on Man Fire Food Season 7
  • HeavyG
    HeavyG Posts: 10,324
    bo31210 said:
    I just saw a bag of  "kamado joe" branded lump at my local ACE.  Anyone have a clue as to who the supplier is?? 
    I have heard it is the old Wicked Good (back when WGWW was great)    All disclaimers apply  :)
    It comes from South America - Argentina I believe.
    “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” ― Philip K. Diçk