I've been hearing some rumblings on social media about changes to B&B briquettes
Claims of newly purchased product being smaller briqs and much smokier on light up.
I haven't personally noticed as I'm still going through the large batch I purchased during the spring sale.
Anyone come across any changes
Last edited by Finster; August 25, 2023, 07:03 AM.
Bought a bag of B&B Lump a few weeks ago (first time in a few years) and was very disappointed in the size of the chunks and on start-up it did produce a lot of dark gray smoke. Once it got going the smoke went away though.
I bought two bags of their premium not long ago. I was really disappointed in the lump size. It was no better, or maybe worse than the B&B that cost half as much. As for smoke on start up I haven’t noticed a change. Most of my start ups involve some used lump so I normally have some smoke then. Oh briquettes, “Never mind” miss ya Gilda.
Last edited by Oak Smoke; August 25, 2023, 09:39 AM.
I bought a bag last week to smoke a pork butt, but the cooker struggled to get the cooking temp over 200 with intake and exhaust wide open. I even tried adding a blower, but it just wouldn't get going. Finally after 3 frustrating hours, I just shut it down, dumped the briquets, and restarted with KBB, which heated up just fine. I didn't note anything visually different about them, so I don't know if it was due to a change in the product, but that bag had something not right.
Their Briquets used to be more brittle and not have that "B" stamped on them. The B-less Briquets also seemed to give off slightly less ash. Not sure what changes would need to be made now.
I did 2 chucks on Sunday (8/20) with B&B purchased in the last 2 months from WalMart and had no trouble at all. However these were still the larger briquettes stamped with a “B”!
Found this post on a different website. Ruh-Roh, what’s going on here, it doesn’t look good, the one on the left looks like a cheap imitation. Definitely ain’t the same.
“So I'm loading up my grill this morning to start a brisket and I needed to grab a second bag of charcoal from my garage. Immediately I noticed a difference, the new bag of B&B has smaller briquettes with a less distinct "B" embossed on the charcoal, and the charcoal itself looks a little, IDK, crappier? Anyone else seen this? I switched to B&B from Kingsford about 3 years ago because they seemed to have better quality and Kingsford stopped doing the good memorial day deals, but I'm a little worried now they're dropping the quality.”
I've never seen the ones on the left. The "B" has always been embossed, not raised in any way. Before the "B" stamp the briquet had a more convex shape on two sides rather than being pretty much flat.
Exactly the same concern I was reading about.
B&B was bought out by Duraflame not too long ago. Sounds like they are making changes to the product.
On a side note, while searching for more info, I found out that Clorox (parent company of duraflame) apparently owns 3 of the major charcoal brands….Kingsford, Cowboy, and now B&B.
That doesn’t seem like a good thing to me 🤷🏼♂️
I just purchased 3 bags from Ace and they look just like they always have. I opened all 3 bags in the parking lot just to make sure they didn't look like the left side above pic. The one big difference I've noticed is pressed into the briquettes is what looks like fiberglass strings that you cannot pull out. that was on the last bags I got during the Walmart Spring sale
SNS Deluxe
Cheaptex (Vortex knock-off)
Weber charcoal rotisserie (turkey making machine)
Weber charcoal baskets (only use with the turkey making machine)
Steelmade Flattop (griddle attachment for gasser)
Thermoworks Smoke
PartyQ
Yeah, I noticed different looking B&B briquettes as well. i somewhat recently purchased them during one of the Walmart sales. They seemed to crumble a bit coming out of the chimney too. Didn't seem to notice a difference in how they burned though. But I was smoking a turkey, hot and fast (~325 for 3 hours), so any difference may not have mattered.
Panhead John You know, there really wasn't a 'B' stamped on either side.I actually noticed that first, which reminded me of this post. Really odd. The cynic in me wonders if B&B lowered, or at least altered, their formula for Walmart (hence the sale a lot of us jumped on).
I can't really say that I noticed a difference in performance, other than they seemed to produce the grey smoke for a lot longer, but that could just be my imagination.
Grillin Dad ….your picture looks exactly like what I got from Walmart today. It looks like Walmart is phasing out the bigger ones stamped with a B, and carrying these now. I’d guess B & B is making these and selling this kind only to Walmart now. Just a guess though.
That’s concerning. I strongly dislike royal oak and kbb.
in my comparisons I got much longer runtimes per volume with BB and char logs. Prior to that Stubbs natural was just as good and they discontinued it.
if they are changing BB now I don’t know what else is left..
Have not seen any difference in the almost 2 years I've been using B&B. I just got five new bags, but haven't opened any yet, will need to do that soon and will report back. It remains my go-to briquet on the kettle, where I've been doing almost exclusively longer smokes. All the grilling has been on the gasser lately, but these aren't independent variables: Like Jerod, if all I had on hand was the B&B I wouldn't waste it grilling something on the kettle. Self fulfilling prophecy
I've got both B&B and kbb, but I've got B&B inn the charcoal bin next to the kettle (I've got the Weber Performer). So out of laziness, I usually just use that. But I agree, for quick stuff, kbb and b&b work equally as well. Next time it's empty, I'll probably load the bin with kbb and haul out the b&b when advantageous.
OK FOLKS, YOU’RE NOT GOING CRAZY!…….WALMART’S B & B BRIQUETTES ARE DIFFERENT!
I was running low on B & B so I decided to get a bag from my usual place, Academy, and decided to get some from my local Walmart also. After following this thread I wanted to see for myself if there was a difference. I’ll say there is! Walmart’s B & B briquettes are about half the size of B & B sold elsewhere! Here’s the scoop……
I had a little B & B left from a purchase I made at Academy 6-9 months ago. I picked up one bag from them today, $9.95, and then went to Walmart. When I got to Walmart, they were on clearance for $5.50 a bag! I said hell, for that price I’ll stock up. I bought the last 5 bags they had. Got home and weighed Academy’s B & B and also some from Walmart’s. I weighed 4 or 5 briquettes of my Academy purchase from 9 months ago and did the same with the ones I bought today. Each briquette was around 2.4 to 2.5 ounces for the most part. When I opened a Walmart bag and took some out I could immediately tell they were smaller and didn’t look anything like the “good old” B & B we’re used to! They were about half the thickness and weight….and none of mine had the B imprint on them. I haven’t cooked on them yet, so I can’t say anything about that aspect of them. Here’s a few pics.
ALMOST HALF PRICE AT WALMART…..CLEARANCE
BOUGHT THE LAST 5 BAGS THEY HAD
ACADEMY B & B BRIQUETTES ARE LEFT AND CENTER, WALMART BRIQUETTE ON THE RIGHT
NORMAL B & B BRIQUETTES WEIGHED AROUND 2.4 - 2.5 OUNCES EACH
WALMART’S B & B AVERAGED 1.2 TO 1.4 OUNCES EACH
WHOA. Welp, I had just bought five bags from Walmart, via delivery, because of their crazy low price sale of 10 bucks a bag. Just cut open two of them and lo and behold, they are the full sized, no-kiddin B&B, no chimped out coals there. So it's not consistently Walmart-specific.
Hmmm, I only opened 1 of my 5 Walmart bags. That’s strange. I’m wondering if Walmart is phasing out the “good” B & B in favor of the smaller briquettes? I guess we won’t know for sure till down the road. But, the consensus so far is only Walmart has the smaller briquettes.
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