Cowboy Oak & Hickory Hardwood Lump Charcoal [not recommended]


 
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Darren C.

TVWBB Pro
I recently purchased Cowboy Oak & Hickory Hardwood Lump Charcoal from Costco. I was shocked to see that my bag included scrap tongue and groove material. That's definitely the last bag of Cowboy I'll ever buy. The bag says that it's all natural Oak and Hickory.
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As long as that milled tongue & groove was untreated, there's no problem at all turning it into charcoal and coking food with it. Treatment of any sort should render it unusable for food purposes.

I've had issues with Cowboy & Frontier branded charcoal sparking like there's no tomorrow. I'll consider using those in my fully enclosed gravity fed smoker, will avoid using them in my open grill.
 
I have used that reclaimed flooring pieces stuff a lot. It works just fine. It's oak, or maple or cherry and some cases pecan/hickory some of the more common T&G hardwoods for floors.
 
I wouldn't use it raw to smoke with, but once kindled any dips are gone, it will burn.
Cowboy or crapboy used to be famous for using basically balsa wood, that stuff would go up in an instant.

Edit: You have to watch out for any Brown or uncarbonized pieces.
Those smell nasty with a big stank. You can also tell those while your lighting, they will start bubbling with resin.
 
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JKalchik said:
As long as that milled tongue & groove was untreated, there's no problem at all turning it into charcoal and coking food with it.
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If you're coking your food you might want to try using a lower temperature. ;)

Since milled lumber is usually quite dry, I wonder how the moisture content of the charcoal that was made with it compares to the content of charcoal made from unmilled wood.
 
I found a bunch of plastic in mine one time and I was done. I know some of those things are hard to control, like some rocks or what not, but I draw the line at plastic.
 
I've found rocks, concrete and angle iron in the few bags of Cowboy charcoal I bought. I won't go near the stuff.

I was recently desperate and bought some Cowboy apple wood chunks at Lowes. These are not chunks, but rather, small logs. Won't be buying that again either.
 
I have to believe that the extra processing (grinding & forming) for briquettes would pretty much eliminate the non-burnable material, metallics especially. I wouldn't want to think too hard about what a piece of angle iron would do to a crusher or a grinder.

I found a half lb. piece of clinker in a bag of Royal Oak natural lump.
 
Bruno said:
Despite the fact it may be perfectly safe I would not be ok with that at all.
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I guess I should have said that different, I would be concerned through the process of becoming flooring it may have been treated and that is what would bother me.
 
Makes you wonder what they use for pellets, those are just compressed sawdust, and I don't think they cut down trees special for that.
 
Flooring is not treated at all. It is simply sanded, stained and finished and most that looks like the photos you showed is laid down as raw wood and stained/finished on site
 
This topic made me search for a How it’s Made episode on charcoal. During the manufacture, they use magnets over conveyer belts to pull out the metals. Also, it seems that they use sawdust and wood chips. I understand that each manufacturer probably have their own process which may or nasty not be the same.
 
I purchased a bag of this stuff after seeing the Made in USA logo on it . I am not a fan of regular Cowboy lump (I swear it’s made from sparklers) but so far I like this bag.

I did a tri-tip last night that was specfreakingtacular thanks to the oak smoke.
 
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