Jealous Devil Bricks


 
I tried searing a steak with them and they just don't seem to get hot enough somehow. I've had better results with Kingsford. I think they might be ok for low and slow. I was really excited about them. I love Weber and I love B&B. I've never been that particular about charcoal but these just let me down.
 
I haven't used them, but saw the title of the thread and was thinking you may have had the same issue I experienced recently..

below was from the day after a recent cook with JD lump....

I think its a hunk of one their kiln bricks....? lol

52908091804_f7c3d2941c_c_d.jpg
 
If anyone has had a better experience I'd love to hear it. Maybe I got a bad batch. I've had great luck with their lump. Maybe the humidity got to it in my garage. It was a sealed box, though.
 
I've had non-burnable material in practically every brand of lump I've used (at least, more than a couple of bags worth.) The worst for this in my experience has probably been Royal Oak. Due to the manufacturing process, I'd expect briquettes to not have that issue, but briquettes make several times as much ash and I really don't care for the odor when I light them off.
 
Thanks for the input, I went ahead and put a small order through to receive a few boxes of these.
JD lump is STILL......on back order, in stock for a couple months, out of stock for a couple months.....
I just need stock in the garage, down to about 5 bags of JD lump and I do have some smoking plans laid out soon if that is all they are good for it will work out. I couldn't pass up the deal honestly.
10lb boxes of briquettes are on sale for $13.00 each....while that may not sound good to you, our crap is expensive up here.
I pay regularly $40 for a 20 pound bag of JD lump.....it's the second highest price charcoal around but the best in my opinion.......
Ordering for the warm months gets expensive......10 bags cost well.......you can do the math..... add sales tax and shipping too.
I went to the local new butcher place that offers some bbq items and asked if they could stock JD lump charcoal. Claimed I would buy my full supply from them as long as the price was competitive....we can only hope.
I should get the bricks mid next week and will be sure to give a good review as I did with the JD lump.
 
There's a small metro chain of butcher shops that's carrying JD Lump in 18 lb. bags. Price is a bit competitve. The local hardware store generally has a stock of B+B, I usually use B+B lump for grilling. Hard to argue with a 34 lb. bag of Cowboy lump from Costco for use in my smoker where I just don't care about sparks and is very well controlled.
 
My issue might be specific. I was searing a reverse sear ribeye with the slow n sear. You only have a certain window you can sear before you start overcooking the inside. I've had great results with B&B and even Kingsford if the coals are roaring hot. I though it was no brainer that the Jealous Devil would be even better and it was actually worse for some reason. I even went another minute on each side and still had a weak sear. I made sure the surface of the meat was dry and everything. It's a mystery to me. These briquettes are giant. So my guess is there's just some ideal amount of charcoal surface to create the most radiant heat. Too small and the briquettes just burn up too fast. To big and maybe there's just not enough charcoal surface burning? I bet they last a very long time, so I think there's an application for them, just not getting a great sear on a steak.
 
Also there's been marketing for lump charcoal touting the size of the chunks. Fogo, for instance has a super premium bag. I've found giant chunks of lump to be detrimental to the grilling process most of the time. Too small, and the small pieces can choke off the fire, or just fall though your chimney or grate. But too big and you have this uneven fire. There's a just right, and it happens to be about the size of briquette.
 
Sure, lump size has an effect on burn, it's surface area to volume ratios. Larger lumps may have a larger surface area, but volume goes up cubed whereas area goes up squared. Look at the general designs for solid rocket boosters. The core cavity is designed to burn out and thrust over time is controlled by the shape.
 
Yeah when I get a gigantic chunk of lump I break it up. But yeah too small is bad. Just falls through the grate or the starter chimney and does no good. Too large and it's hard to light off
 
Peter Gallagher said:
I haven't used them, but saw the title of the thread and was thinking you may have had the same issue I experienced recently..

below was from the day after a recent cook with JD lump....

I think its a hunk of one their kiln bricks....? lol

52908091804_f7c3d2941c_c_d.jpg
Click to expand...
I got one bag of the XL JD lump because of all the great reviews and have had multiple pieces of clay. On top of that for being XL, it is filled with tiny pieces that fall thru the grates on my WSK, and are essentially wasted $$. I also think it has an odd smell and imparted a weird smell on roasted corn. Maybe I got a bad bag, but I won't be buying another. I did get two boxes of Briquettes but haven't tried them yet.
 
Todd K Wisc said:
I got one bag of the XL JD lump because of all the great reviews and have had multiple pieces of clay. On top of that for being XL, it is filled with tiny pieces that fall thru the grates on my WSK, and are essentially wasted $$. I also think it has an odd smell and imparted a weird smell on roasted corn. Maybe I got a bad bag, but I won't be buying another. I did get two boxes of Briquettes but haven't tried them yet.
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I’ve gone through probably 10 bags of JDXL (chunxx) in two years now. I haven’t experienced anything that you have above.

JD has a slight sweet smell/nose when cooking 300° and higher. I don’t use it for lower cooks than that. I’ll use briqs for sub 300° cooks.

I recommend you place your JD in a charcoal basket to avoid the slip throughs. I rarely lose any of my JD.

I also recycle all my JD. For tonight’s cook, I placed 5 new chunks of JD at the bottom of the chimney and then poured over two CBs worth of previous cooked charcoal.

10 minutes in light up and then poured the chimney over into 2 CBs. Put the center grate back in and then heated the grill another 10 minutes.

Was cooking at the 20 minute mark, searing the burgers up front and then to indirect to reach temp, 145°.

I buy my JD from Amazon and have been satisfied with the shipping results.

Home Depot signed a big deal with JD last year. You should have easy access to a new bag should you decide to try JD again.
 
Brett-EDH said:
I’ve gone through probably 10 bags of JDXL (chunxx) in two years now. I haven’t experienced anything that you have above.

JD has a slight sweet smell/nose when cooking 300° and higher. I don’t use it for lower cooks than that. I’ll use briqs for sub 300° cooks.

I recommend you place your JD in a charcoal basket to avoid the slip throughs. I rarely lose any of my JD.

I also recycle all my JD. For tonight’s cook, I placed 5 new chunks of JD at the bottom of the chimney and then poured over two CBs worth of previous cooked charcoal.

10 minutes in light up and then poured the chimney over into 2 CBs. Put the center grate back in and then heated the grill another 10 minutes.

Was cooking at the 20 minute mark, searing the burgers up front and then to indirect to reach temp, 145°.

I buy my JD from Amazon and have been satisfied with the shipping results.

Home Depot signed a big deal with JD last year. You should have easy access to a new bag should you decide to try JD again.
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I bought from Home Depot and they delivered it. If it was roughly handled, that might explain the small pieces. But they have no excuse for clay brick chunks.
 
Todd K Wisc said:
I bought from Home Depot and they delivered it. If it was roughly handled, that might explain the small pieces. But they have no excuse for clay brick chunks.
Click to expand...
From my reading over time, that clay was likely the kiln that broke when making a batch.

In all seriousness, I have had zero foreign matter in my JD bags.

Maybe order a 35# from Amazon if you’re up to it.

I’ve really come to love the nose on JD and adding a small oak chunk when cooking a steak or burgers really enhances the meat.

Briqs work well too, of course. I just hate the cleanup and byproducts. The JD lump burns extremely clean with very low residue.
 
Brett-EDH said:
From my reading over time, that clay was likely the kiln that broke when making a batch.

In all seriousness, I have had zero foreign matter in my JD bags.

Maybe order a 35# from Amazon if you’re up to it.

I’ve really come to love the nose on JD and adding a small oak chunk when cooking a steak or burgers really enhances the meat.

Briqs work well too, of course. I just hate the cleanup and byproducts. The JD lump burns extremely clean with very low residue.
Click to expand...
I decided to email them and see what they say about my situation. I will let you know what they come back with. Todd
 
I used the bricks I was asking about a few times since I got them.
Once for low n slow in the E6 and a few times in the performer for a variety of cooks.
Seems they work exactly as good as a Weber briquette from my limited experience......tons of left over ash is still a normal thing.
I used them for the grill cooks as well..... I found they hold heat good and for a long time. One cook I wasn't able to hit temps as high as I wanted to. I would buy them if you liked Weber charcoal and if the price was low....I only got them because they were on sale.
It took a good hour to get the dirty smoke to stop pouring out of the E6 once I added the heat to the lower grate with the rest of the waiting charcoal.
I have 50lbs left, will be using them mostly for low n slow or for a bbq I don't need really high heat.
Since then I bought blues hogs briquettes as well.......seemed the same to me although looking at them they appear to have crap stuck in them, what would appear to look like hay compressed in the mixture before shaping them.
Briquettes have their place I suppose, but I won't be using them a lot when I can cook with JD lump....nothing touches JD lump.
It does everything you need it to and the half of it does it again.
 
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