Cowboy charcoal

[Jeffrey R]

Good morning all, I have a question about the Cowboy brand lump charcoal. I was given a bag yesterday to try. I have never used this brand before and figured I would give it a shot.
Just added some to rekindle the Weber, and I went out to find a burning tar substance? It looked exactly like the tar that the guys at work seal the roads with, but without the rancid road tar smell. It burned off to ash and now nothing? I haven't seen anything like this from charcoal before. You could have used a spoon to ladle it up,but it was only in a small area and it was actually liquid mass. Now everything seems fine, just burning coals?
Kinda leery about cooking on it, should of stayed with my Kingsford!
Welcoming any input ya,all might have.

[SMOG MAN]

I have used a few bags of Cowboy lump charcoal and like it, a store close to me has it. I have never had a problem like you describe.

[Spinaker]

I don't buy Cowboy after several bad bags. In my experience, you really never know what you are getting in one of those bags. I have found concrete and rocks in the bag, not a huge deal, but then I found chunks of plastic. That is where I drew the line. I also tended to find un-carbonized pieces of wood, dust and tiny pieces of lump. Not worth it, IMHO.

[EdF]

How long ago? They changed their supplier a few years ago, and the quality improved drastically. (around 2014-5)

[Spinaker]

I'd say 2015 or so. Now that I have found B&B, I cannot be bothered with Cowboy. New supplier or not. They lost my trust long ago. EdF

[EdF]

I had stopped using Cowboy for several years until around 2016, when I was in a situation of no other choice. A great difference with the new supplier. All of the bags since then have been consistent and burn without throwing sparks around, or burning too fast. No junk in them.

[jdhosier]

I tried Cowboy lump charcoal a few years back and did not like it at all. I had way too much popping and snapping and ruined some shirts with burn holes from the floating embers it created. I did not notice any tar. I will stick with standard formed charcoal, thank you.

[BBQ_Bill]

I tried it once, and had the same popping and flipping of Hot Embers out of the Firebox.
I'm with you but I stick with firewood only, lighting it with a large torch.

[Spinaker]

I would argue that Cowboy is not indicative of quality ,lump charcoal. Quality lump won't spark and snap like that. (For the most part)

[N227GB]

A couple of years ago I picked up a bag of lump charcoal because I wanted to try cooking a steak directly on the coals and you shouldn't do that with charcoal briquettes. That method was a gimmick, no surprise, but I just like trying different things.

So then I had the remaining bag of lump to go through. I never was really happy with the performance mostly due to the varying sizes.

[Spinaker]

Lump is designed to be that way. Quality lump should have a variety of sizes, both very large to medium. There should be almost no popping or sparking. What kind of cooker did you use it in?

[Jeffrey R]

Thanks for the info.
Totally off the subject, I just looked closely at your posted picture. Is that my cat?..He has a habbit for wandering and figured he's gone to Florida for vacation! Tom, loves his grills

[N227GB]

It was Publix brand. and yup it would pop. I was using it in my Weber kettle. Around ten years ago I tried in my offset and had similar results.

[Jeffrey R]

Thanks to all for the input!...Going to stick with my Kingsford and hardwood from here on out!
This stuff just doesn't make it! Live and learn.
Once burned, twice shy. No pun intended.

[Jeffrey R]

My follow up on the Cowboy charcoal. Just restoked the Weber for tonight's cook, and I have another pool of molten tar coming from a lump! This is ridiculous and totally unexablel. I took some pictures this time and hopefully I can post (help).
This stuff is nasty!!...I wouldn't feed my cats anything cooked over this crap, and their wild.
Doing a total high heat burn to clean everything out.
Not happy! Threw out a nice slab of salmon!!!!!🤬