Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Favorite charcoal for grilling?

Math, I've seen it in St, Louis.

Royal Oak hardwood lump or oak and pecan logs. I can pick up all the pecan I will ever need.

Can hear him now "Ya see that! He slud right in theahr!!

Good stuff.

Live 10 miles from the town where they were born, Kingsford,Mi. I da UP eh. Ford Motor Co. had a huge plant there, fact in 1925 it employed over 7,000 people. Much of the car was then made of wood, frames, wheels, etc., so what to do with all the sawdust. Mr. Ford decided to make charcoal brickets out of it.
I`ve never used anything else.

I have a 100% stainless Sarka propane grill. The grill itself is awesome but the burner design sucks azz. I installed a high pressure turkey fryer burner which works much better but usually just load it with charcoal.
We've tried several varieties of lump and briquettes. Most work fine but match light is terrible. We use a charcoal chimney for lighting.
My son makes charcoal with a modified 55 gallon barrel but it burns hot and fast.

I've had good luck with about every brand of lump charcoal and is my preferred. Will use briquettes of I have to, but don't like it as I don't like all of the ash it creates.

If you are doing a hot cook, load up with smaller pieces of lump. IME, it gets hotter, faster.

Yep, but I also have found it in every brand I have ever used. They scoop the charcoal out of the ovens with skid steers so sometimes things get picked up. I have a 5 gallon bucket that's about half full of rocks, nails, plumbers strap, etc. The worst I ever had was a piece of a plastic milk jug in Royal Oak. Took me several cooks to get that smell/taste out of my cooker. Royal Oak and Cowboy are hands down the worst. Stinky, dirty smoke.....I think a lot of Cowboy's wood comes from building scrap. Really good site below for charcoal ratings.


Charcoal Database

kingsford

but in my bge, bge lump or fogo, that fogo may be the best lump out there in my opinion.

My experience as well, never knew tree branches grew 1 1/2" x 3 1/2".

I make my own for quick lite fast grill- steaks. It looks like sticks of artist charcoal, which is really what I make. For slow cook buy lump oak.

I bought two bags of Cowboy lump to use in a reverse flow smoker. Both bags were charred tongue and groove flooring scraps.

All I have around here for trees are Chinese Elm and Cottonwood, so I use whatever charcoal briquettes they have in stock for my PBC (Pit Barrel Cooker). Then buy some chunks of hardwood if I want some different flavors to throw on top. I've tried hardwood lump in my PBC, but it doesn't work as well as briquettes for long smokes.

I've tried grilling on my PBC, but you have to have long grilling utensils or asbestos gloves. The grill grate just sets too far down inside the barrel, and I've got temps close to 700⁰ at the grate. Hands get a little warm if your tools are a little short!

Isn’t all charcoal really the same?

Ground up furniture and crap?

Propane

Our good guy Ranger Green brought me a whole scheidt load a couple of summers back. It's just the wife and I so I'm still working on it.

Lazzari lump. It's mesquite from Mexico and it works just fine. Tracy brought up some bags of hardwood chunks, about all we have around here is juniper, nearest good supply of oak is about an hour, hour and a half drive, so his hickory, apple and stuff comes in handy to mellow out the mesquite a bit.

And, for good measure the dude brought me a couple of bags of Kingsford ( Royal Oak maybe) onion and garlic briquettes.

Thanks again Tracy, and if you're ever in the area give me a day's notice to pull something out of the freezer and we'll have dinner!

I use Kingsford for quick cooks, like steak, burgers, or salmon. I use B&B for long cooks like briskets or ribs. The B&B lasts much longer and seems to ash less. I just grilled some fresh coho with the Kingsford along with a chunk of alder I cut up. Grilled up perfect.

B&B lump mesquite lump to start then mesquite wood or oak once in a while.