Is there a "Kingsford" of lump charcoal?

[Attjack]

Also what's your prefered brand of lump?

[ecowper]

I guess I would call Cowboy the Kingsford of lump

[customtrim]

I use B&B or frontier

[lual]

Cowboy brand is probably the most widely available...but reviews of it are pretty mixed--whereas I think we can all agree that KBB (your referenced benchmark) is rock-solid reliable from one bag to the next (and is thus part of its appeal). Next most easily available lump is probably B&B, or Frontier brands. You should have good experiences with either of them.

If I could just choose one brand, regardless of price, it would probably be Kamado Joe--but it's pricey. I only buy it when it's on sale at Costco.

[JeffJ]

I bit the bullet and purchased a 20 pound bag of Kamado Joe (never used it before) and am looking forward to giving it a try.

[JeffJ]

Royal Oak seems to be the most readily available, but like Cowboy it's reviews are mixed and its quality is lacking.

[SierraBBQGuy]

I wish there was, Kingsford is available at every grocery and hardware store....everywhere. Lump isn’t always so easy to find, usually when traveling around in RV and need some. Lol

Out here in left coast, Cowboy is most available at hardware stores, followed by Royal Oak, which I can find at Walmart. Good thing we have Amazon.

[SmokeyGator]

My grill came with a bag of Primo lump. Used it all up and picked up a bag of royal oak which an informed source (friend who worked at a high end outdoor kitchen custom builder / grill dealer) said is the supplier for BGE lump. BGE selects the stuff they want, the rest goes into royal oak bags. I cant say I noticed a difference in the Primo and royal oak.

More recently I bought a 35 pound bag of "frontier" lump at the wholesale club for $15. Haven’t opened it yet, but if it burns and gets the grill to 225-350 it’s all good.

I can get fogo lump at a few places around me, and if I venture to their main shop in Hialeah (about 12-15 miles away) I can get that Cuban artisanal lump. I’m going to try that once just to see if there is a big difference. But I suspect that there isn’t. Just a guess though. Charcoal isn’t supposed to have much smoke flavor, that’s why you add wood. At least that is what I have gathered from research.

[SmokeyGator]

If you meant "standard" as opposed to "can get it anywhere", I don’t think so. Briquettes are engineered. They can make them all the same, or at least consistent enough for charcoal. So if you use the "competition" stuff you know there will be consistency from bag to bag, and a certain degree of predictability about burn time, temperature, and so on.

Lump just doesn’t work that way. You won’t find any 2 pieces that are the same in any bag. There will be different sizes and shapes. So varying mass, varying surface area, and so on. Even if you have 2 chunks of identical mass they will have different surface area, and thus won’t burn the same. Even if you buy 2 bags of the same brand from the same lot, each bag won’t be exactly the same (except by weight).

But I really don’t think that matters a whole lot. I can see how in a competition where subtle little differences means a win or not, but for a regular home cook it doesn’t matter. The way I see it, if you don’t like what I cooked no problem. McDonalds is down the street. You know where the front door is. Don’t let it hit your butt when you leave

[Attjack]

I'm just to figure out something to potentially stock up on at some point. I'll try a few brands and see what I think. In the past I've used cowboy and frontier many times. I see there's a BBQ store in the metro area that carries all the brands like Primo, BGE, etc. I've never tried any of that stuff before.

I just recently bought a bag of simple truth organic lump. It was actually pretty good quality and pretty consistent in size.

[SmokeyGator]

You can count on the BGE lump having larger pieces than Royal Oak. That means less little pieces and dust that you just discard. Because BGE gets dibs on first pick. I think the other "premium" brands operate in a similar manner. So there is a difference, the question is "is the difference worth the price premium". To that, I don't know.

[ecowper]

Hasty-Bake has fairly good quality lump that you can order from them. Not sure who they source it from.

[EdF]

My staple brand when we were living in Mass was a Canadian brand "Charbon du Bois". Great stuff up until we moved a few years back.

[JoeSousa]

I have used a few bags of Cowboy lump and it is probably the most readily available. I got mine at Costco. It was a decent price but there were a lot of small pieces and dust in the bags I got.

My favorite lump I have used is the Kamado Joe Big Block XL charcoal. Some of the pieces in these bags are huge. Almost too big depending on what you are cooking. Very few small pieces. When Kamado Joe has one of their roadshows at Costco they have it for I think $20 for a 40 lb bag. I use it in my Weber kettle and it does a great job.

[vandy]

I am the same when it comes to the KJ big block-great stuff! I just hope Costco does another roadshow here this year so I can stock up.

[JoeSousa]

https://www.costco.com/kamado-joe-schedule.html Here is the schedule.

[BGWolf]

Royal Oak is the standard grade lump (they also make Big Green Egg lump and several "restaurant" grade lumps). Be careful when buying from big box stores, they tend to handle it roughly and can turn decent size chunks into dust. Rockwood and Wicked Good are examples of higher grade lump. They have more neutral flavored smoke and tend to burn longer. The Naked Whiz web page has a good lump charcoal database.

[Mudbeaver]

I have used royal oak, carbon du bois (sugar maple lump), and cowboy as well and I really like the carbon du bois

[Troutman]

Has anyone bothered to try this out? Seems to answer the original posters question (at least somewhat). I see it around town but don't particularly like lump so I don't know anything about it.....

[Attjack]

But those are briquettes...