Poly twine in B&B charcoal


 
Dustin Flavell

Dustin Flavell

TVWBB Pro
Guess I should have just stayed with KBB. After 30 years of using KBB decided to try the B&B charcoal. Did a brisket yesterday and was pleased with the results. Decided to cook a single rack of pork ribs today using the B&B. When I added the charcoal to the summit 2 briquets were attached to a piece of poly twine (like the material use to secure hay bales). Yuck!
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Never in all my years have I come across trash in my briquets. Few rocks in lump coal but never plastic trash. Anyway if you use this stuff watch it closely. Think I’ll just stick to kingsford products and leave the “duraflame” products on the shelf
 
Coincidentally, I came across the EXACT same thing in a Kingsford Professional briquette this morning. That’s too strange.
 
That is a coincidence! Guess quality control went out the door a while ago. For what we are paying for charcoal these days I would expect not to find trash or filler in these products. I used to complain about rocks in my lump. At least you can catch those and if you don’t it won’t ruin your cook. Maybe it’s time to switch back to lump….
 
If you look close at briquettes you can see bits of twine in them. I’ve not seen a big chunk that I recall, although I seem to remember having a couple stuck together. I suppose they form them around twine and then into an oven
 
Is that poly twine or jute? Back in the day binder twine was jute (or some natural looking fiber) - I assumed so it wouldn't hurt the animals? Maybe I assumed wrongly? I bought a big ball of the stuff at the farm supply back in the day to use for yard work.

It's so carefully placed in the briquettes that it almost looks like a manufacturing aid of some kind - like it's used in the molding process. It's pretty near centered and straight through.
 
Yeah it was perfectly centered in the briquette both ways. I did a burn test on the twine. It burned pretty quick and tried to ball up when I pulled the heat, but didn’t. Kind of like burning the end of poly rope so it doesn’t come apart. I blew it out when it hit the briquette and it sort of formed a plug.

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Had a slight and I mean slight plasticity smell when burned. Perhaps it is part of the processing process and it burns it self up in the cooking process? IDK. I did reach out to B&B will be curious what they come back with…
 
John G (Boston) said:
Is that poly twine or jute? Back in the day binder twine was jute (or some natural looking fiber) - I assumed so it wouldn't hurt the animals? Maybe I assumed wrongly? I bought a big ball of the stuff at the farm supply back in the day to use for yard work.

It's so carefully placed in the briquettes that it almost looks like a manufacturing aid of some kind - like it's used in the molding process. It's pretty near centered and straight through.
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I grew up with sisal twine. No, you do not feed that to animals, that'll cause major intestinal blockage problems. Every bale had to be broken open and the twine collected (more than 15,000 bales of hay & straw annually.) The used sisal twine worked pretty darned good with used motor oil to start brush piles on fire.

Having seen video of of the manufacturing process, I'd have to suspect a completely coincidental placement. Lump charcoal is ground down, mixed with a binder, and metered down out of a hopper between a pair of molding rollers.

Having said all of that...I'd bet that somebody threw a bundle of wood into the manufacturing process tied with sisal. If it was poly, it should have really stunk when you burned it, but the balling up is pretty telling. I'd gripe at B+B.... then again, I don't know if B+B manufactures their own, or contracts it out. Either way, I'm sure not interesting in eating food cooked with burning twine.
 
TimA said:
If you look close at briquettes you can see bits of twine in them. I’ve not seen a big chunk that I recall, although I seem to remember having a couple stuck together. I suppose they form them around twine and then into an oven
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I can't speak for all brands, but I know Kingsford is not done that way, they're pressed in a rolling press machine and pop out loose before drying.

www.virtualweberbullet.com

Kingsford R&D Lab Trip Report 1/2 - The Virtual Weber Bullet

A report on my visit to the Kingsford R&D testing lab in Pleasanton, CA on April 9, 2006. See how Kingsford conducts burn tests on charcoal samples.
www.virtualweberbullet.com www.virtualweberbullet.com

kingsford-2.jpg
 
MikeCantell said:
When the price of charcoal shot up my interest in a gravity feed dropped, I am miserly with my charcoal these days lol
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I'd say that my gravity fed is exactly the opposite, I'm only burning 1 to 1.5 lbs/ hr, with 5 racks, each 25"x28". Then again, it's also fully insulated with 2" of rock wool insulation all the way around, and absolutely not something you're gonna find in a box store. So, yeah..... you have a point.
 
JKalchik said:
I grew up with sisal twine. No, you do not feed that to animals, that'll cause major intestinal blockage problems. Every bale had to be broken open and the twine collected (more than 15,000 bales of hay & straw annually.) The used sisal twine worked pretty darned good with used motor oil to start brush piles on fire.
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Did not know you had to remove the twine but that makes sense. Wow, that's a lot of hay and straw! From the picture Dustin posted of the burnt end it really looks like plastic - not so great IMO.
 
Never seen that before and I've gone thru a fair amount of B&B and Cowboy briquettes which are both Duraflame products.
 
So just an update. I did reach out to duraflame on Monday and got a holiday message, but a response early today:

Hello,
Thank you so much for taking the time to let us know of your dissatisfaction. As always, we hate to disappoint our customers. It is not typical for ANY foreign materials to make their way into our products. We set high expectations on quality, and we sincerely apologize for falling short of that standard with your experience. We thank you for letting us know and will be forwarding this information over to our quality control team who will investigate this matter.
I am happy to send you a bag of charcoal for your trouble.

No real answers to how or why but I did appreciate a response.
 
Dustin Flavell said:
So just an update. I did reach out to duraflame on Monday and got a holiday message, but a response early today:

Hello,
Thank you so much for taking the time to let us know of your dissatisfaction. As always, we hate to disappoint our customers. It is not typical for ANY foreign materials to make their way into our products. We set high expectations on quality, and we sincerely apologize for falling short of that standard with your experience. We thank you for letting us know and will be forwarding this information over to our quality control team who will investigate this matter.
I am happy to send you a bag of charcoal for your trouble.

No real answers to how or why but I did appreciate a response.
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Mistakes can happen but it’s good to see how they responded.
 
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