Customer Reviews

Cowboy Hardwood Lump Charcoal (23288)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is some of the worst lump charcoal I have ever dealt with. A large proportion of the wood appears to be various types of pre-milled wood and I can only hope that it was unprimed. It burns with enough ash to make it nearly useless for anything but a quick steak, which is about all the time you have as it burns very quickly compared to other lump that have used. There are far too many "fines" and dust in the bag and virtually none of the contents are the size of "lumps" (my four bags were packed in an original sealed box, from Lowe's, so should have not suffered extensive shipping damage).

The following comments are not factored into my review and are based on information at http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpdatabase/lumpbag6.htm

There have been reports of plywood (contains glue which creates who knows what when it burns) and other strange items in the bag, including multiple reports of what was believed to be the fibrous ceramic insulating lining of the kiln.

It is stated that "For those of you interested in these things, the June, 2003 issue of Gourmet magazine indicates that Cowboy produces the lump sold as Martha Stewart, Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma. And of course, we already knew that Genuswine Lump is also Cowboy."

Note also that the "Naked Whiz" review finds that the ash levels are very low, in contrast to my experience.

This appeared to be mostly hardwood flooring scrap. Most of the pieces were small, making it poor to use in the grill.

pound for pound it's a nice smelling and tasting charcoal which is rendered utterly useless by the fact that you get 4 humongous chunks that aren't fully carbonized and 8 million tiny chips that either burn up in a charcoal chimney entirely or clog your coal crate to the point it can't breathe properly. I've bought bag after bag (10 or 12) thinking, 'maybe this one bag is bad', this appears to be the norm for the brand.I really tried to give them a chance because I like their grilling woods, but it's better to use a bag of Kingsford then to even bother with this stuff. It's sad when a chain grocery store 'wegmans' has better lump charcoal and BBQ supplies then an alleged hardcore BBQ company.

We used this charcoal for our Thanksgiving turkey. It was AMAZING! The smoky flavor was not what I like for a Thanksgiving turkey, but the meals I made from the leftovers were fantastic! We went through a whole bag for the four hours of use, which is kind of quick, but I think that's just the difference between regular charcoal and hardwood charcoal.

I use two brands of lump charcoal - Big Green Egg's own brand for either low or controlled-heat use, and Cowboy brand for infernos! The Cowboy charcoal is actually the lower quality of the two and consists mostly of flooring cut-offs. I have not been able to use it successfully for low-heat applictions, like smoking. The same quality - the inability to throttle it down - is what makes it so good for super-high heat use! I like to cook steak steakhouse-style. With the cowboy charcoal, I can crank my grill quickly to well over 1,000 degrees. At that temperature, you can cook a tenderloin steak rare to medium rare in 3-5 minutes, depending on thickness. At those temperatures - and ONLY at those temperatures - the fat liquifies almost instantly into the meat. With a little practice, you can get exactly the char you want, a smoky flavor, and tenderness achievable in no other way. This is the charcoal I reach for for that.

From looking at most of the other reviews here, it seems that Cowboy charcoal has fallen victim to Internet hysteria over the scattered reports off odds and ends found mixed in with their charcoal. If you were to find anything that looked like insulation or plywood in the bag, I would immediately contact the manufacturer and demand a refund, BUT I have never seen this myself and therefore can't let it bias my review of the product.

The things to know about this charcoal is that, yes, it consists entirely of low-density, scrap wood. Everyone sees the word "scrap" and immediately thinks "crap". This is not the case. Scrap wood is, after all, still wood and makes charcoal just fine. The difference with this type of charcoal is that it burn much faster than other charcoals due to it's low density. That means you will need to use more of it to cook for equivalent amount of time than you would use for other types of charcoal. Quite often, you will need to fill a typical chimney starter until it is literally overflowing. The benefit, however, is that it is cheaper than most other brands of natural charcoal, and it burns much hotter, making it ideal for quick, high-temp cooking for steaks, tuna, or salmon. Because it's low-density allows it to light much easier and faster than most other charcoals, it makes for a great base layer to put in your chimney starter to help light other, denser hardwood charcoals on top of it. When used alone, once lit, the charcoals will be ready in a shorter amount of time than you're probably used to waiting - approximately 15 minutes or so.

What this should NOT be expected out of this brand is the burn time required for any sort of extended cooking such as for chicken or any kind of low-and-slow, BBQ-type methods. This is not the right tool for the job. It will last just about long enough to cook an ear of corn, however, so you don't have to worry about cooking your veggies elsewhere while your steak cooks on the grill.

Overall, I need to give this product a mixed review because of its niche role. It's a role it fulfills just fine, but a role which can also be fulfilled by other, longer burning brands on the market. If you're in a store and see this brand, you don't need to run away because someone heard from someone else who saw a picture on the Internet of a piece of burnt plywood in the bag in 2003. However, if you have other options, such as if you're buying online, there are generally better options.

My local store normally stocks the Cowboy brand of charcoal and so that is what I have been using lately, and I am not happy with it.

The product consists mostly of hardwood flooring stock that has been charred, not big substantial lumps.

I did not have the issues with sparking and sputtering that the other reviewer wrote about, but I do concur that this fuel doesn't burn well enough for a cooking fire. It barley gets to the stage when you can begin to cook on it, and then in minutes your fire starts going cold. If you add more charcoal at this stage to extend the fire it will get all nasty-smokey on you (and not in a good BBQ smokey way) imparting bad flavors to your food.

The only way I was able to use it successfully at all was to suppliment my fires with real hardwood, like cherry or hickory. The charcoal would only be a base of coals for the wood fire to get going, and then the heat of the wood fire would do the actual cooking.

Pick another brand

I've tried three different bags of this brand all three were equally dangerous, useless and horrible for cooking. The sparking and crackling is ridiculous. Since the patio didn't catch fire from the fireworks produced by this product I was fortunate enough to be alive the next morning each time and was still blowing black soot out of my nose.

It gave a horrible, acrid like, flavor to salmon, pork chops and veggies alike. More than that though, I'm just happy I didn't catch on fire. It was like a 4th of July spectacular going on the entire time it was lighting and burning down.

DO NOT BUY THIS!