San Rafael Lump Charcoal
 

Anybody ever use it before?

Saw it in a local (Chicago 'burbs) grocery store for a decent price.

Nakedwhiz didn't have any reviews.

Nobody, huh?

Nope, never heard of it.

Be the first.

Buy a bag. If it sucks you're out, what, $5.00? $10.00?

What store?

I just bought 2 bags for $5, it doesn't burn as hot as normal lump, however it had a great aroma to it.

I am going to mix it with normal lump on my next cook; next time at the store, I'm going to pick more up.

Cermak in Milwaukee has 6.6 pound bags on sale for 2/4/5 bucks so I picked up 4 bags.. Agree with it doesn' seem to burn as hot as other lumps.. Pieces were mostly avg with nothing real large and not too much useless stuff. Wasn't a fan of the aroma (Hard to explain the smell but it seemed pretty bitter?) to begin but, once it settled down I wasn't too worried anymore.

Only did some Turds, Hot Italians and cheese stuffed bacon wrapped meatballs on the 18.5 wsm with a hunk of cherry and was pleased with the end taste results.. I put a bed of maybe 3lbs of lump topped with roughly a 1/4 of a weber chimney of lit stuff and it locked in around 250 dome temp with the bottom vents wide open (outside temp upper 40's with a real light waffling back and forth from east to west wind.) seemed to run little lower than if I had my normal lump from sendiks in there..

Bottom line is I'll pick up some more bags for that price and I think if I loaded it up more I could get a good rib cook in and then some... amount of ash to be determined yet along with amount of heat produced.. I'm more of a 275 or so degree cooker so we'll see what it takes with the vents to achieve that.. my normal lump is no problem for me to get and hold around 275 with the bottom vents nearly shut down for 8 hrs.

The local grocery store had these on sale for $1.49 for a 6.6 lb bag.

Some of my observations:
· The bags were covered in charcoal dust and many were broken open on the pallet at the store. So handling them was a pain if you didn’t want to get you or your car dirty. When I tore open the bag at home, it was apparent that the bags were pretty thin.
· I poured the whole contents into my UDS basket. Lots of tiny fragments and dust. There was a piece of uncharred wood in there as well.
· No apparent lumber scraps
· No rocks or metal pieces mixed in like I will sometimes find in RO
· Coming up to temp was difficult. I attribute that to the tiny pieces not allowing adequate air flow.
· My Auber controller seemed to have a hard time providing enough air to maintain the UDS at 250. This is not a problem with RO. The Auber can usually provide enough air to maintain a 300+ temp. I opened up a ball valve to help with more air movement.
· The ribs that I made were more smoky than usual. Not good nor bad.

Overall, I would not recommend this charcoal. The pieces were too small to get a good burn. Lots of dust too.

And I'm left wondering why the name of the store that sells this is such a closely held secret. :confused:

Eurofresh Market.