How much do you trust Naked Whiz?

My one issue with that site is the age of the tests. Many of them were done almost 10 years ago. A product like charcoal can change a heck of a lot over that amount of time.

I think the user ratings give a better idea of the overall quality of a particular brand.

A good example is their 8.5 year old review of B&B oak lump. They had mediocre results in their testing back then, and only give it an "average" rating. But if you look at the user reviews, 47% gave it a "best ever" rating, and 35% gave it a "good stuff" rating. So 82% of the users thought it was above average. I'd personally rate it at about 4.5 out of 5, with the half taken off for an occasional bag with too much chips and dust. The flavor that I get from oak lump is IMO much better than any mesquite lump I've used.

OK- I really respect the Whiz and I have been a fan for the better part of 10 years. He and I have gone back and forth a bit on the age of the lump reviews and brands etc on another forum (all friendly). I'll say this- the guy is very smart and very scientific in his reviews. I think if he did all those reviews again today, the exact same effort and thought would go into each of them and maybe there would be some different results (maybe not but I would trust his review without hesitation). That being said, many the same recipes, reviews ideas etc that were there 10 years ago are still there today. I'll never bash the Whiz but I can say that I would like to see more updates. The guy works hard and has a life outside his site. He is a legend and rightfully so, but some of the info is a bit dated. I'm sure he'll refresh and I'll be first in line to read it.

its a lot of work and if he doesn't hear or read that xxx brand is differant, etc, i can see that he has no reason to retest. i certainly wouldn't