Non-Kingsford charcoal


 
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Larry D.

Larry D.

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I found a local source that sells Royal Oak "Chef's Best" and Nature-Glo "Old Hickory" charcoal (briquettes in both cases) packaged for the food service market. Does anyone have any experience with either of these? They also had a Nature-Glo "Old Hickory" hickory charcoal - the bag says it is "made from select wood that is 100% hickory".
 
At about $12 for 48 pounds and very reliable Kingsford is hard to beat. The other stuff had better be incredibly cheap to make me change.
 
$10 for 40 pounds. I bought two 10-lb bags of the Nature Glo just to try it. I'm hoping I'll get less ash and more heat than I get with Kingsford.
 
I just did my first smoke with my new WSM this weekend. It was also my first time using charcoal instead of gas.

Anyway, when I went to pick up charcoal Royal Oak Plus was $4 per 20# bag cheaper than Kingsford and I couldn't resist saving a few bucks.

Things seemed fine until I assembled the WSM. The temp dropped from 350 F, at 225 F I put the meat on but the temp continued dropping. I had trouble keeping the temp UP for the remainder of the cook.

Every hour or so I had to open the access door for up to 20 minutes to allow the coals to revive. Actually, I dangled it by a paper clip from the lid lip leaving about a 2" gap at the bottom of the access door instead of wide open. But I know the coals were dying because there was no smoke from the wood chunks until the coals came back to life.

Gentle prodding and stirring did not seem to help much, all vents were wide open, I did use the charcoal grate and chamber correctly I think.

Perhaps the charcoal was the problem. Is there such a thing as a bad or wet bag of charcoal?

I am going to try Kingsford this weekend. If it works better I will use up the Royal Oak for charcoal grilling, maybe some burgers.

Hope you have better luck with the Royal Oak than I, but being a beginner maybe it was my fault.
 
I used to use the Nature-Glo charcoal briquettes when it was available at Walmart back in the late 90's. It was very good stuff, but when I switched back to Kingsford I was surprised at how much longer and hotter it burned.

I would not hesitate to use Nature-Glo. However, if I was doing a 16 hour cook, I'd use Kingsford so I didn't have to reload.

Regards,
Chris
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Perhaps the charcoal was the problem. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This is an update to my previous post in this topic:

I did butterflied chickens last night using the remainder of the Royal Oak charcoal and had the opposite problem.

Made sure the coals were really burning this time but then I had to fight to keep the temp down after assembling WSM.

I think the previous problems must have been due to operator error, not the charcoal itself.
 
I have used Royal Oak briquettes and found them to be about the same as Kingsford. Maybe that don't last quite as long, but similar IMHO.
 
That's consistent with what I've found with Royal Oak. They're good briquettes but don't last as long as Kingsford. They're fine for many cooking purposes but for those long sessions, Kingsford is better, IMHO.

I used a freebie bag of Wal-Mart 'Real Flavor' briquettes over the weekend to cook a cut-up chicken on a Weber kettle (set up for offset cooking). They worked very well for this purpose but the cook time was only about an hour and a half. I actually suspect they would work quite well in a WSM.

Still, I use Kingsford. If you buy it in large quantities, there is little financial advantage in using El Cheapo briquettes. My local Home Depot sells it for 10.99 for 48 pounds, and it goes on sale for 8.99/48 pounds a couple of times a year. That's cheap.
 
I'd like to try that there Kingsford charcoal if someone could tell me where to find it in or around the Greater Toronto Area. I've got no complaints whatsoever about Royal Oak but if Kingsford's so much better then bring it on.
 
Maybe you could pick some up in Buffalo. I don't know if there are any restrictions to bringing it over the border but they will let a few bags slide, won't they? Just go to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, even most grocery stores carry it, just cheapest at the big discount places.
 
/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gifDon't ever buy charcoal thats been sitting outside,( K-Mart Wal-Mart) it pulls in to much moisture, mignt explain the dropping of the temp. I buy all my Kingsford at BJ'S where its kept inside and out of the elements. Of course you don't know what it went through to get to the store? Fire up the WSM and make the neiborhood smell good.
 
I picked up Royal Oak at the local Sam's Club for $7.11 for 48#. A great deal and I have found after four cooks it is IMO not much different than Kingsfors except the brickettes are more intack. However a full skid was gone in two weeks so I will be back to Kingsford.
 
Well I found that it burns just as long as Kingsford but I know some others on the board found it to be a little faster.
 
As an experiment, I did an extra-low cook on a pork butt a few days ago, trying to keep the temp at or near 220. As I mentioned earlier in this topic, I can't get Kingsford here and use Royal Oak instead. Filled up the chamber (God bless you, Mr Minion) and without adding any fuel the bullet was still chugging away at 225 when the meat finally hit 190 a full EIGHTEEN HOURS later. I'd still like to try Kingsford some time but Royal Oak is going to take some beating.
As for the low-heat experiment, I recommend it if you can stand the suspense. It was my best butt ever.
 
I've only used kingsford and getting 48# for $7.99 at Home Depot doesn't hurt. $5.99 for a 24# bag at the local supper market.

Home Depot wins!
 
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