J Grotz
TVWBB Wizard
I was in Ace Hardware this weekend speaking with their grill guy. They will not be stocking Weber Briquettes in the future, though he did not know whether or not it was discontinued. He talked me into trying Jealous Devil Maxxx All-Natural XL briquettes. It was a small bag and pretty pricey, but I love JD lump for my overnight cooks so I bought one just to try it. JD packages the briquettes (and the lump) in a heavy duty bag (plastic? vinyl?) with a nice clip-on ziplock; A+. So I unzip the bag and it is sealed. Nice, right? I should be getting good fresh charcoal.
I break the seal and fill up a small Weber chimney to cook one ear of corn and a couple of pieces of ono (wahoo). I'm curious how much will fit, so I pick the briquettes out of the bag one at a time. 15 of them filled the small chimney; these are big briquettes. I light it off with one Weber cube. 15 minutes later, the cube is out, there's no smoke or flame coming from the chimney, and barely any heat; it is not even close to being lit. I light another cube under it and wait. Another 15 minutes and flames are starting to come out the top of the chimney and the top coals have a hint of gray on the edges so I dump into my grill. The act of dumping caused about a third of the briquettes to crumble to pieces. A gentle application of the Weber coal rake to spread out the coals evenly caused another third to crumble. I'm talking crumbling into small pieces crumbs, not chunks. Whatever binder JD uses, it's not strong enough.
Crumbs don't generate a lot of heat, but I managed to get the cook in. The corn was great. The fish was awful (not the fault of the charcoal) so it was tossed.
I was very disappointed in my initial use of Jealous Devil Maxxx All-Natural XL briquettes. I will try them again with a full size chimney and two starter cubes at the same time. If my subsequent uses turn up anything different, I'll update this.
Has anyone else tried Jealous Devil Maxxx All-Natural XL briquettes? I'm curious to know if I got a bad bag or if my experience is typical.
I break the seal and fill up a small Weber chimney to cook one ear of corn and a couple of pieces of ono (wahoo). I'm curious how much will fit, so I pick the briquettes out of the bag one at a time. 15 of them filled the small chimney; these are big briquettes. I light it off with one Weber cube. 15 minutes later, the cube is out, there's no smoke or flame coming from the chimney, and barely any heat; it is not even close to being lit. I light another cube under it and wait. Another 15 minutes and flames are starting to come out the top of the chimney and the top coals have a hint of gray on the edges so I dump into my grill. The act of dumping caused about a third of the briquettes to crumble to pieces. A gentle application of the Weber coal rake to spread out the coals evenly caused another third to crumble. I'm talking crumbling into small pieces crumbs, not chunks. Whatever binder JD uses, it's not strong enough.
Crumbs don't generate a lot of heat, but I managed to get the cook in. The corn was great. The fish was awful (not the fault of the charcoal) so it was tossed.
I was very disappointed in my initial use of Jealous Devil Maxxx All-Natural XL briquettes. I will try them again with a full size chimney and two starter cubes at the same time. If my subsequent uses turn up anything different, I'll update this.
Has anyone else tried Jealous Devil Maxxx All-Natural XL briquettes? I'm curious to know if I got a bad bag or if my experience is typical.
