Grillers and smokers. Time to stock up on some cheap charcoals

[ponyo]

It's Memorial Day weekend and the official start to the grilling season and cheap charcoal sales. Home Depot and Lowes both have the usual Kingsford Blue double 18.6 lb bags on sale for $10. But the real deal this season is at Walmart where they have Western 30 lb lump charcoal for $9.88. I picked up 3 bags today to test it out and I like it. I'm going to grab another 10 bags or so. 30 lb lump for $9.88 can't be beat.

I did quick test on the kettle by cooking four ribeyes and the flavor from the lump was real good.

 

[Ns1]

do you eat wraps/sandwiches every day?

 

[ponyo]

do you eat wraps/sandwiches every day?

I don't always eat wrap but I like to eat some kind of green or veggies with meat. I think wrap goes very well with grilled meat. Perilla leaves are from my backyard garden and I usually have some kind of lettuce in the fridge. And I have like 3 different varieties of homemade kimchi in the fridge. The above is radish kimchi made from Jeju Island Korean radish.

 

[ponyo]

I plan to grill and smoke all weekend rain or shine. I've been stuck living out of hotel the past two weeks so I've been itching to come home and BBQ. I have Coleman instant canopy setup since it's supposed to thunderstorm and rain all weekend.

Weather went from sunny and hot

To dark and pouring rain in about two hours.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Thanks. Lump charcoal >>>>>> briquettes.

 

[Jeeebus]

interdasting... i still have 20 bags or so of the royal oak from home depot from the last sale.

 

[Chaotic42]

Hopefully this time next year I'll have a grill. I'm jelly.

 

[zinfamous]

The last 4 bags of Royal Oak and, whatever it is I got at Sam's Club, all turn out to be mostly shredded pieces of dust. I get maybe a dozen good pieces of lump, but everything else in the bags is almost always tiny tiny broken pieces. Really annoys the crap out of me, because I have no idea how to tell if a bag is going to be good.

One of the bags, I pulled out a 5 lb brick, covered in coal dust. This was in a Royal Oak bag. I mean seriously: wtf?

 

[sdifox]

It's Memorial Day weekend and the official start to the grilling season and cheap charcoal sales. Home Depot and Lowes both have the usual Kingsford Blue double 18.6 lb bags on sale for $10. But the real deal this season is at Walmart where they have Western 30 lb lump charcoal for $9.88. I picked up 3 bags today to test it out and I like it. I'm going to grab another 10 bags or so. 30 lb lump for $9.88 can't be beat.

I did quick test on the kettle by cooking four ribeyes and the flavor from the lump was real good.

What is that useless starch doing there?

 

[sdifox]

The last 4 bags of Royal Oak and, whatever it is I got at Sam's Club, all turn out to be mostly shredded pieces of dust. I get maybe a dozen good pieces of lump, but everything else in the bags is almost always tiny tiny broken pieces. Really annoys the crap out of me, because I have no idea how to tell if a bag is going to be good.

One of the bags, I pulled out a 5 lb brick, covered in coal dust. This was in a Royal Oak bag. I mean seriously: wtf?

They didn't take it out in time so it turned into a brick :awe:

 

[Exterous]

Also watch walmart for sales late fall. I'm stocked up on 30lbs bags because they eventually got down to $5 last fall

 

[ponyo]

Thanks. Lump charcoal >>>>>> briquettes.

I like both. I like the consistency and size of briquettes but I do prefer the taste of lump for grilling. But I've had some poor lump and foul smelling briquettes. The worst charcoal I've used is Weber natural briquettes. That stuff had extremely foul odor when I used it for smoking no matter what I did. For high heat grilling, it was fine. I used up the two Weber bags I had and vowed never to buy it again.

interdasting... i still have 20 bags or so of the royal oak from home depot from the last sale.

So far I like this Western lump more than the Royal Oak lump. The lump pieces are bigger and flavor is more neutral than the Royal Oak. And this Western lump is 30 lbs compared to Royal Oak 15 lb bags at the same price. But I still need to smoke with it and I plan on smoking some St. Louis ribs later today to test out how it performs for smoking.

Hopefully this time next year I'll have a grill. I'm jelly.

Weber kettle is cheap and great. Look for end of season clearance in the fall. I picked up four new 22" Weber kettles for $25-35 each last year. I gave away 3 to family and friends.

The last 4 bags of Royal Oak and, whatever it is I got at Sam's Club, all turn out to be mostly shredded pieces of dust. I get maybe a dozen good pieces of lump, but everything else in the bags is almost always tiny tiny broken pieces. Really annoys the crap out of me, because I have no idea how to tell if a bag is going to be good.

One of the bags, I pulled out a 5 lb brick, covered in coal dust. This was in a Royal Oak bag. I mean seriously: wtf?

Yeah, that's kind of downfall of lump. You don't really know what you're going to get compared to briquettes. Lot of lump bags get damaged during transport and stocking at the store. And Royal Oak lump are generally smaller pieces to begin with so it's easy to get bags with 25% dust. And I've found rocks and pieces of plywood in Royal Oak and Cowboy lump so I'm not a huge fan of either brand. I use Royal Oak and Cowboy lump in my Kamado Joe Jr. since it's better suited for smaller lump pieces and use Kamado Joe lump charcoal in my Big Kamado Joe. Kamado Joe lump charcoal are usually gigantic and sometimes I have to break the larger pieces. But it's all fuel in the end and long as its cheap and not foul smelling, I'll use it.

 

[ponyo]

I grilled two more ribeyes this morning for some steak and eggs breakfast. Later today, I'm going to smoke four racks of St. Louis ribs using this Western lump charcoal.

 

[Ns1]

I envy your red meat consumption

 

[ponyo]

I envy your red meat consumption

I'll probably die early from cancer or heart disease.

 

[ponyo]

I used the Western lump charcoal in WSM and smoked four racks of St. Louis style ribs. Sprouts has the ribs on sale for $1.99 /lb this week in case anyone is looking to buy. I prefer Sprouts ribs over Costco.

Ribs took 6 hours. Normally I cook the ribs in less than 4 hours but I messed up with the WSM temp. I normally use Kingsford briquettes which are all uniform so I know exactly how many charcoal to use and how much I have to open the vents. So I don't even bother monitoring WSM temperature during the cook. I thought lump would work the same as briquettes and tried cooking with the same technique. But because of nonuniform size of lump, it can burn unevenly and it did in this case. When I went to check on the ribs at the 3 hours and 30 minute mark, I noticed the color on the ribs were way off and it wasn't close to being done. It's how it would look at around 1 hour 30 minute mark and not at 3:30. So I brought out my Maverick wireless probe and measured the smoker temp. It was reading 240 F. That explained it. I like to cook the ribs at 280-320 F and for whatever reason, lump wasn't burning hot like I wanted it. So I opened all three bottom vents fully to give it more oxygen. The lump slowly caught on fire and the WSM temp rose to 290 range like I wanted it. It all worked out in the end and the ribs turned out fantastic but it required additional 2 hours because of the low temperature during the first half of the cook. The smell and flavor from the Western lump charcoal and cherry wood smoke was mild and very pleasing. I'm pretty sensitive to heavy smoked meat and this had none of that. The smoke taste was very light and delicate and complimented the flavor of the pork extremely well. This Western lump passed my grilling and smoking taste test no problem. I'm going to go buy bunch of this lump charcoal tomorrow.

 

[Bartman39]

ponyo... Well its a good thing someone else saw this stuff... I too had bought 5-30lb bags of it after I had tried 1 bag and quickly realized just how good and cheap it is... Some awesome cooking stuff for sure...!

 

[ponyo]

ponyo... Well its a good thing someone else saw this stuff... I too had bought 5-30lb bags of it after I had tried 1 bag and quickly realized just how good and cheap it is... Some awesome cooking stuff for sure...!

I love the price. And I think it's better than Royal Oak and Cowboy lump I used. And I've no complaint with the size of the lump pieces and so far I haven't found any strange objects in the bag. So for cheap fuel, I think it's great.

 

[zinfamous]

Yeah, that's kind of downfall of lump. You don't really know what you're going to get compared to briquettes. Lot of lump bags get damaged during transport and stocking at the store. And Royal Oak lump are generally smaller pieces to begin with so it's easy to get bags with 25% dust. And I've found rocks and pieces of plywood in Royal Oak and Cowboy lump so I'm not a huge fan of either brand. I use Royal Oak and Cowboy lump in my Kamado Joe Jr. since it's better suited for smaller lump pieces and use Kamado Joe lump charcoal in my Big Kamado Joe. Kamado Joe lump charcoal are usually gigantic and sometimes I have to break the larger pieces. But it's all fuel in the end and long as its cheap and not foul smelling, I'll use it.

The 2 bags of BGE lump that I have bought in the past were consistent, large pieces. I read that Royal Oak supplies the lump for BGE, so I'm guessing that BGE packages select pieces and since these are smaller bags, and are mostly distributed to smaller, select hardware stores that are licensed to sell BGE, they are able to control quality off the shelf. Hence, the premium you pay for the what is essentially the same material. I have different bags now from different vendors that I mix as I load my BGE, because I've had terrible luck keeping fires going when it's overloaded with tiny pieces of lump shards, as they ash much faster and clog up the vents. But if I'm more patient in loading larger pieces to create nice air pockets throughout, it isn't a problem to use the smaller pieces. They are also great for those 700F+ cooks, of course, so they have their use.