Jealous All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal - 20LB

I love this lump charcoal! This is my go to for long cooks. The heat is higher and longer then my normal standby,(Royal Oak). They both have their place.Long consistent cooks I go with this brand.For the grilling or short cooks I go with Home Depot’s stuff.Both give neutral smoke with out being over bearing.If you want hotter cooks Jealous Devil is what you want.I’ve noticed that JD leaves a little less ash. IMO

I’m not an expert griller. I take my time because I enjoy the process. I’m used to the briquettes and my gas grill. This stuff is different and it takes a few times to learn how to use hardwood charcoal. This stuff burns hot but the nice thing is you don’t need as much to grill a few burgers or when your not on a grilling marathon. Also, you can reuse the lumps that didn’t burn out last time. Try that with briquettes. When I’m done grilling, I spread the coals out, close the lid and the lumps burn out. But they don’t turn to dust like the briquettes. Now you can use the left over lumps again. Also, the flavor the Jealous Devil hardwood puts out is awesome. I have a gas grill that I use for quick meals (when I don’t have time for a few beverages while I get the grill going) but my family knows instantly when I used the charcoal grill because the flavor the hardwood puts off is so much better than the gas grill. Sorry for the long review, but if you want some charcoal that’s different than the normal briquettes, give this a try. That’s what grilling is all about right?

Two issues I had with the charcoal:1) SizeWhen you spend this much on a bag of premium lump charcoal, you expect a little more uniformity than your cheaper bags of lump. A far as size distribution, I would put this on par with cowboy. Over half the bag had pieces as small or smaller than a golf ball. There were only two pieces in the whole bag that were bigger than an apple.2) FlavorThe smoke from the charcoal is very oily, think and sooty. It reminds me of the Kamado Joe Lump. Once the coals have caught and the smoke dissipates, the charcoal does not impart any off flavors. But when you are doing low and slow, the smoke ads a bit of an unpleasant flavor to the food.

Sooooooo, here’s the thing. I damaged my Akorn Kamado grill using these because I am a moron. Or lazy. Or bit of both. I will let you decide. A bit of back story. In my 40 so years of life I have only ever bought grocery store lump charcoal. However, one day while wasting time on YouTube, I watched a comparison video on different brands of charcoal because I am just that kind of nerd. This brand scored really high so I bought some not fully knowing what I was buying. This is not just charcoal this is the stuff stars are made of if you are not careful. Because of its BTU density it took a little effort to get good and lit. But when it did.... Here is where I went wrong. I barely had my vents open on my grill but I was rocking some 450 degrees which made short work of my chicken. I had noticed earlier that there was something bits that needed to be burned off of my heat defuser and had planned to increase the heat after to heat clean my stainless steel grill. Due to my ignorance to the reactant mass in my grill I opened the taps and let the fire breathe. This bit me bumm. I went away for a couple of hours. When I returned the thermometer was off the scale. I had never seen it go past 600 before and this was now past 700. It was so hot I couldn’t touch the handle. I used the grate scraper to lift the lid from a distance. I have now seen the fires of Hades. The grate at the edges were a dull red and where the het defuser was it was a bright red. The edges of a typical fire are defined by colder air. In my Akorn there was no colder air. The fire from this charcoal was nothing like anything I had ever seen. It was like looking into a maelstrom of heat. I moved as if living. I am not exaggerating. It was ethereal. So, I closed the lid and the dampers and came back the next day. There was still a good bit of charcoal left over and my stainless steel grill is not rusty. I looked up the temp that iron turns a dull red. It is 900 degrees. I don’t know what bright red it but wow that was something. I will use this product as long as I can get it. As normal cooking only uses up the smallest amount of coal and smoking meat consumes a negligible amount.

I bought this based on the reviews, in particular from buyers who stated that they use a charcoal chimney + newspaper. These coals failed to ignite using my chimney & newspaper. I had to combine these coals with a bunch of my trusted Kingsford charcoal to get it burning. To add to that the ziplock bag zipper breaks off easily, and after spending a couple of minutes trying to pry apart the opening, I just decided to cut the damn thing open with scissors. A frustrating experience from the start... If I had known it requires more than just a chimney & newspaper to ignite these, I wouldn't have bought it -- I'm not trying to buy a blowtorch just to get these things burning. Back to trusty old Kingsford...