A New Charcoal in Town - Review Concluded

Followup observations: I'll try to answer some anticipated questions. First, Oooooh, beercuer like! Okay, so I fired up one full chimney, and it took 20 minutes before I spread them out into a layer. I noticed a decidedly "woodsy" kind of fragrance compared to the not-so-woodsy Kingsdord smell. After the twenty minutes, the briquettes were half grey, half black. I can say they do burn HOT alright baby. Whoodog! Now I realize I was cooking in 107 degree weather, but this heat made my thermometer top out. This charcoal has a practically useable time for 1 hour 15 minutes, plus the 20 minutes to start them yielding 1 hour 35 minutes of total practical burn. Finally, they are easy to light, start, and maintain, and my pizzas came out delicious! (I'll try to post those by tomorrow night).

I really like TJ'S, I think its better than stubbs. When I used stubbs I was doing ribs low & slow I had to use over a bag of it. When I used TJ'S I used less than a bag for the same type of cook. Just bought some more Tuesday night for a labor day weekend cook. I still use kingsford for grilling because I got a great deal on it and can burn most of the crap off before putting food on.

barnyardman wrote:

I really like TJ'S, I think its better than stubbs. When I used stubbs I was doing ribs low & slow I had to use over a bag of it. When I used TJ'S I used less than a bag for the same type of cook. Just bought some more Tuesday night for a labor day weekend cook. I still use kingsford for grilling because I got a great deal on it and can burn most of the crap off before putting food on.

Thanks for the idea on what to do with my remaining Kingsford, Barnyardman. I have about 50 lbs of it! Too bad I could not trade it in!

beercuer its hard to turn down the Home Depot sale price in July also.

I used up a lot of my extra Kingsford by using it in my charcoal chimney to get my good charcoal started for long low and slow cooks. I figured by the time my CG was up to 225 most of the Kingsford from the chimney was spent. This way my food didn't see to much of the Kingsford.

I also kept several bags of Kingsford around as my emergency backup in the Winter. Sometimes around here it can be hard to get any kind of all natural charcoal in the Winter. Stubbs is the exception these last two winters. Lowes seems to keep a small supply in. I am hoping the TJ's keep their natural charcoal in for the Winter.

Jim