Buyer Beware! Royal Oak Lump From Home Depot

RRP said:

Powak said:

My wife has totally noticed a changed in flavor of my grilling lately. I've been using RO for almost 2 years and bought 2 bags a couple weeks ago at Home Depot  - the bags I'm into right now. She says every taste smokey and kinda nasty. It's true I have noticed way more smoke with the recent stock of RO. Time to go RW? 

Could very well be, but in 2 years now your egg has also built up a definite layer of creosote which came from your RO plus any wood chips/chunks you have used. I'm not knocking RW by any means, just suggesting you might want to try a clean burn out, IF you switch to RW and SWMBO still has a smokey taste issue! 

I respectfully disagree with Ron on this. 

Your cooks smoke flavors are not just going to change all of a sudden.  Everyone that is a RO luvver will tell you to let it burn clean. Yeah Yeah right.   If you didn't change your habits something changed with royal choke.  Try some RW and forget about having long burn clean times.  

Buckwoody Egger said:

There are other threads about this. Something is definitely different every now and then with some batches of RO. I had some bags from a HD bargain weekend in Atlanta area and they absolutely had an accelerant on the lump.  Friends in another state bought the same weekend but reported no issues. My bags were sparky and off-gassing.  They flared when they shouldn't, hard to control temp, melted aluminum foil at grid level.  I have been egging long enough to know they were bad bags. 

I've got to check my bags for the missing Made In USA badge. I wonder if that's what's changed.

Powak said:

Is it possible to burn straight up dried oak in an Egg vs kiln treated lump? 

You can use it, if you leave the dome open and treat it like a fire pit - too much ash. 

Powak said:

Skiddymarker said:

Powak said:

Is it possible to burn straight up dried oak in an Egg vs kiln treated lump? 

You can use it, if you leave the dome open and treat it like a fire pit - too much ash. 

Don't want that. Guess I'll check out RW for a little bit.

@Powak lots of alternatives out there - for those in the US, Rockwood and FOGO seem to be popular, if you are a mesquite fan, Lazzari @ $13 for 40# is hard to beat. Basques or Wicked Good on the east coast or Maple Leaf if north of the 49th. 
Remember to shut the egg down after 5 minutes or so of finishing a direct cook, let it burn to take away any drippings. Once snuffed, you are good to go for the next cook. I always keep some 2nd burn lump to put on top, ready in minutes as the VOCs are already gone. 
If you have some oak, nothing wrong with using it as smoke wood.....

stlcharcoal said:

You run a risk with ANY charcoal of not only getting a bad bag, and multiple bad bags if they're on the same row of a pallet.  One scoop from a loader is about 2 pallets of charcoal.  Even though it's pretty well mixed, there's no telling.  It's an all natural product, and then there's always bad luck.  

I'll defer to your experience and expertise @stlcharcoal, but I've never had bad luck with RW. 

SoCalTim said:

I have no problems with RO. Good stuff.

RO was my go to brand. Great value. Tried a bag of RW; just as good as RO but too expensive. Used 5 or 6 other brands over the years. Only one was superior and stood out as being the best.

Interesting, I purchased a couple of bags from HD in the last 3 weeks and haven't noticed any problems. Good mix in the bags with lots of larger pieces. I had purchased a few RO bags from walmart months ago that were less than stellar but the bags I've gotten from HD recently have been great. I'll go back and see if they have the USA stamp on them. Cooked pizza, chickens, butts, wings recently with no issues. Thanks for the heads up though I will definitely keep an eye on the bags I buy.

@Powak Try firecraft.com as they will ship RW, free with > $99 orders.  Best to order 6 bags as they ship in 3 bag boxes, or 5 bags and some other goodies.  FWIW-
Edit:  here's another solid brand that may be close to you:
http://www.wickedgoodcharcoal.com/maine.htm  

I noticed the pieces small in my last bag. I also use Cowboy Brand which has much larger pieces and very little kibble size bits like RO.

EggMcMic said:

My local ACE couldn't get Rockwood until recently but could get Wicked Good. I did not have a problem with it and I think it comes from Maine. 

You can pick up Wicked Good from their distribution center in Holyoke MA, but that's about 150 miles from the closest spot in Maine. The company is headquartered in ME (near Portland I think), but they only stock the lump in Holyoke. I assume you can buy it in Maine stores though.

Their lump is not made in Maine - Brazil actually. Good stuff though. Long burning, large pieces, neutral smell, smoke clears quickly and I don't recall ever finding any rocks or other debris either (though I'm sure it occasionally shows up). $13+ per 20 lb bag, but you have to pick it up in Holyoke and buy 30 bags to get that price. I got 10 last time (split 30 with two other guys). Holyoke is only 30 miles from me. I think the retail price is about the same as RW.

CigarCityEgger said:

I've gone through 2 bags of BGE lump, tried looking for royal oak and there's none around me. Anyone try the Publix Greenwise Lump? $5.99 for an 8lb bag. 

From your handle and avatar, I assume you're in Tampa so I just looked at three different Home Depot stores there. All have Royal Oak lump in quantity, 15+ lbs at $12.97. RO makes BGE lump, but realistically priced. Same stuff.

Was in the HD by me today and went by to check the bags, all had made in USA on the bags in several locations and got home and the 5 dags I have are the same. Since they bought the ozark oak plant several years ago up in Arkansas maybe north texas gets some of bags. Who knows...