612201 Wed Apr 15 08:47:32 -0700 2009 24 41 Cookware 0 4597799 Looking for suggestions for the best charcoal/hardwood choices, as I transition my outdoor cooking from gas grill to Weber kettle! Wed Apr 15 08:47:33 -0700 2009 14330 nickdanger 1 4597834 Hardwood is the only way to go. Hardwood burns a lot hotter(and faster) than brickettes and doesnt have the chemicals that brickettes have. My top choice for hardwood is wicked good. Its not easy to find, but its well worth the effort. When in a bind, i use royal oak, but stay away from cowboy. Also, if you use hardwood you'll need a chimeny starter. Wed Apr 15 08:57:27 -0700 2009 4597799 163807 baldwinwood 2 4598198 Thanks. I live in Washington DC area, and have seen Cowboy and Royal Oak, but not Wicked Good. Trader Joe has a brand also. Know anything about it? Wed Apr 15 10:35:51 -0700 2009 4597834 14330 nickdanger 3 4598246 I COMPLETELY agree with the advice baldwinwood has given. My suggestion is to look around at hardware stores and call your local BBQ shops. The website below is just about the ultimate authority on charcoal quality. Someone is bound to have something better than your average stuff. The problem with most grocery store brands like Cowboy, Whole Foods, and (maybe, I've never used it) Trader Joe's brands are that they are simply hardwood charcoal, not larger lump hardwood charcoal. Now there's no legal description between the 2 as far as I know, but lump typically has bigger chunks and does NOT contain scrap wood. I've seen pieces of DIY hardwood flooring in bags of Cowboy. That's not to say that it is bad or harmful, it was very likely a piece of simple oak flooring, but the quality of the charcoal does suffer significantly as a result. Smaller pieces burn real hot and real fast and the heat doesn't last that long. Larger pieces burn far slower and with a more regulatable (is that a word?) heat. I just slow cooked (over indirect heat) a 6 lb leg of lamb this past weekend and I never had to think about adding more charcoal. And I was grilling for about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours using Wicked Good charcoal. Do know that you can grill over real wood as well. You can probably find wood chunks in bags at your local grocery store or certainly at your local BBQ shop. Buying wood in those situations is more expensive than charcoal but it can give some good flavors. Oh, and you have bought yourself a charcoal chimney, right? I'm sure you have but I just have to ask. ;-) www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm Wed Apr 15 10:52:01 -0700 2009 4598198 280462 Squirrels 4 4599068 Thanks for the insight. The nakedwhiz has great exposure to the products. Wegmans/Walmart look like good choices for Royal Oak brands. I'll be playing around with this stuff for a while. Actual cooking is only part of the experience. Wed Apr 15 14:23:25 -0700 2009 4598246 14330 nickdanger 4 4599380 Several brands like Martha Stewart, Trader Joes and whole foods are all packed by Cowboy. Cowboy is made from scrap wood and I avoid it like the plague. As you say it contains plywood and that's how I first found the whiz a while back. I was stunned when I opened a bag of Cowboy and foung a mongo piece of charcoal plywood. N A S T Y! I wish I could get Wicked Good here. I would really like to try that out. I use Royal Oak from Walmart and even though it's gone up a buck a bag this year it's still a great value. I use BGE starters so no chimney. Actually I get them at TSC in big boxes and they are a lot cheaper. I have some pork butts thawing right now for this weekend. :) Wed Apr 15 16:02:51 -0700 2009 4598246 253154 Fritter 5 4604329 I haven't bought yet, but my understanding is that TJ's in GA are carrying Rancher briquettes this summer. Definitely a step up from Kingsford in that there's no coal and they use yucca starch instead of clay as a binder. Seems to make less ash. I'll buy just to support the Original Charcoal Co. Although I liked the loss-leader pricing HD had on it when they were carrying it a couple years ago. I still have 8 or so bags of that left. Lots of competition teams bought it by the pallet when HD decided to close it out at $2.50 a bag. For lump, I use Royal Oak. I used to get the BGE charcoal, but it's just expensive, relabeled RO. Several of the Ace hardware stores intown in ATL carry BGEs and good charcoal. Fri Apr 17 09:17:15 -0700 2009 4599380 12626 ted 3 4598290 I spend a fair amount of time in the district. There s a place in Alexandria Va, i think its called VIllage Hardware(or something like that) where i have bought Wicked Good. Not sure where you are in DC, but from Garfield St (National Cathedral) its not a bad drive. You can also order WGC by the pallet, but its a LOT of charcoal. Trader Joe has lots of small broken down pieces which is not good, big chunks are best. Wed Apr 15 11:02:40 -0700 2009 4598198 163807 baldwinwood 3 4606634 I have been using the hardwood charcoal from Trader Joe's for years now. It's not always the same brand, but I have no complaints about any of it. BTW, never use any kind of starters to light it. I use only a page worth of newspaper balled up and a match - that's all it needs. It''s amazing how much better food tastes without all the parafin and "petroleum distallates" hiding in commercial briquettes and starter fluids. Sat Apr 18 07:36:27 -0700 2009 4598198 154386 JRCann 3 4609018 OF the two you have listed I like Royal Oak - Sun Apr 19 11:09:47 -0700 2009 4598198 11622 weinstein5 3 4610725 WickedGood is available in the Mount Vernon/Hybla Valley area of NOVA. Let's say Wegmans/RO is $5 for ~10 lbs. WG is $22 for ~20lbs at that location. http://www.wickedgoodcharcoal.com/Virginia.htm Some say its worth the premium. BTW, they have 2 types of WG at that hardware store. Mon Apr 20 06:12:53 -0700 2009 4598198 247632 global_dev 2 4602039 I agree with using hardwood. Burns hotter and leaves much, much less ash than charcoal. But, it does burn faster, so I wouldn't personally try to use it on a recipe that calls for keeping the coals going for a few hours or more. And I ALWAYS use a chimney starter. I can't imagine pouring an inflamatory liquid over my coals and then cooking on it. Of course the neighbors have to get used to the level of smoke the chimney starter puts out. Thu Apr 16 12:56:31 -0700 2009 4597834 124339 bnemes3343 1 4597895 Congratulations on your new Weber kettle and the switch. There is just something special about foods grilled on a charcoal setup. Wed Apr 15 09:16:34 -0700 2009 4597799 280281 slowandsteady 1 4598291 We use only non-briquette 100 percent mesquite charcoal, usually Chef's Wood brand, widely distributed (in the Pacific Northwest at least) by J.C. Wright Sales in Kent, WA. Stay away from Lazzari's Mesquite: we have tried it twice (in different years), and the charcoal in both bags had little pockets of embedded moisture that turned to steam and exploded spectacularly while the charcoal was burning, scattering burning embers as far as six feet from our Weber. Wed Apr 15 11:02:43 -0700 2009 4597799 278068 Politeness 2 4598308 Type of wood is a valid choice to make but it does not mean it's an indication of quality. I know you didn't claim that, Politeness, but I'm just making the point in general to nickdanger. Mesquite has a distinct flavor and is good for some things, maybe not so great for other things. The real key is to find something that is available in your area (Washington DC, not PNW Washington), has consistent quality at a fair price, and hopefully ranks up near the top of the rating scale that the naked whiz folks have put together! It's truly a great website and they don't play favorites - they rate things fairly. Wed Apr 15 11:08:19 -0700 2009 4598291 280462 Squirrels 1 4602024 Depends on what you are doing. Are you grilling, or are you BBQing? When I grill I want high heat. And I prefer hardwood. But when I'm BBQing, I want consistent lower hear (especially with the minion method), so I use briquettes. Thu Apr 16 12:53:28 -0700 2009 4597799 86802 vanillagorilla 2 4602074 Consistent lower heat is a good thing but the ash that is created from using briquettes isn't worth the trouble. Frankly, I've smoked just about everything except for a whole hog and I've ALWAYS used lump charcoal. Thu Apr 16 13:05:10 -0700 2009 4602024 283259 SQHD 3 4602206 That's what I love about the BGE. I can easilly adjust down to 210 and do a 24 hour + burn without even touching the thing again until it's time to Pull That Pig! Thu Apr 16 13:40:15 -0700 2009 4602074 253154 Fritter 3 4604324 When I do a long smoke, I'm almost always using the minion method. Because this combines just a few lit coals, with mostly unlit coals, briquettes just work much better. When I try it with lump, I get much more temperature fluctuation. If I had a bigger smoker like a BGE, that probably wouldn't be an issue; but I'm using a WSM which is a little harder to keep at temp. Fri Apr 17 09:15:02 -0700 2009 4602074 86802 vanillagorilla 4 4605761 Most of my charcoal is used for cooking with my dutch oven -- briquettes are really the only way to go to get reliable heat output. Wood and lump have pretty major temp swings and burn up too quick. Additional cost of lump make it a loser. Fri Apr 17 17:10:27 -0700 2009 4604324 219575 MikeB3542 5 4609300 "burn up too quick" It's unfortunate you feel that way. As I've stated above, I've smoked things - sometimes for 16+ hours and I've never used briquettes. Looks like Squirrels has had similar results too. I think it may be the kind of charcoal you buy. If you can find a good brand, the flavor, clean up and results are far superior to briquettes. Remember why briquettes were originally invented: they are a way to use up the WASTE from real lump charcoal production. It's charcoal dust combined with a binder and then pressed into shapes. Sun Apr 19 13:35:31 -0700 2009 4605761 283259 SQHD 6 4610342 "Remember why briquettes were originally invented: they are a way to use up the WASTE from real lump charcoal production." Close, but not quite. Briquettes were invented as a means to use up the waste from Henry Ford's SAWMILL production. Not charcoal production. http://www.google.com/search?q=henry+ford+charcoal . . Sun Apr 19 21:38:17 -0700 2009 4609300 10606 Joe Blowe 6 4610393 I think you missed my point -- I need consistency over everything. The uniform size and density of briquettes is a huge deal. I can get a fairly reliable cooking temp (in my 12", I get 350 F with 8 briquettes below, and 17 briquettes on the lid.). Flavor is not an issue (food stays inside the oven, coals stay outside, and never the twain should meet!) That briquettes are produced from waste material that would otherwise be landfilled actually should be considered a plus. Waste not want not. Sun Apr 19 22:06:48 -0700 2009 4609300 219575 MikeB3542 7 4610702 I did miss your point, you're right. I was talking grilling, you're talking dutch oven cooking - fair enough! Mon Apr 20 06:02:40 -0700 2009 4610393 283259 SQHD 8 4611152 No problem! Mon Apr 20 08:47:00 -0700 2009 4610702 219575 MikeB3542