Wicked Good Lump $10

The Tewksbury MA store had more than a pallet full on the floor when I was there this afternoon, May 30. Took 12 bags. The WG I bought last year is in the poly bag and is a product of Venezuela. The paper bag product from Job lots is from Brazil and does feel different than what is in the bag from Venezuela. I do recall a conversation a couple months ago about an "issue" with the new bagging process. The recommendation from the owner of the co was to wait and not to buy a pallet at this time. Perhaps these bags are the ones from the trial or bad run. That would make sense to me. Think I'll send off an email to her and see if I can get the real scoop. If I get a response I will report back.

I opened my bag and dumped it out. There are some decent sized pieces, but not as big as I have found in previous bags I have bought. And for the record, I have only used a few bags of WG in the past. Most of the time I had to chop it up to get some smaller pieces to use to cook steak, burgers, etc. There was very little chaff or small pieces in the bag.

This bag has a lot of very small pieces, 1" or less. If I put a few handfuls of the small stuff in the chimney, it fell right through. I'm picking thru this by hand now, I wouldn't dump it in the chimney as there is a lot of dust and small pieces.

I lit a half a chimney to cook a steak and some odds and ends on my Smokey Joe. It is harder to light than Royal Oak and took several sheets of paper to get it going, but there were literally no sparks at all It produced a nice hot fire and doesn't appear to burn up as fast as Royal Oak. It looks to me like it's good hardwood.

I am going to try another bag, maybe from the other store in my area, if they have it, and see how it compares to this one. Again, from my limited experience, this doesn't seem to be up to the old WG quality standards. I still wonder if these bags were crushed and thrown around and that is why there is a lot of small pieces.

I hope that everyone here who bought some at Job Lot will chime in with what the overall quality was.

savageford said:

Well nothing ventured nothing gained, at $10 I don't think it was a total loss.

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Definitely not. I usually by the 8.8lb bags of Royal Oak at WalMart, and they are 6.89 or somewhere in that vicinity. There is a lot of small pieces and dust in many of those bags. Plus it burns up faster too, IMO.

This WG is from Brazil. I'm wondering if it is eucalyptus from the way it burns. The Naked Whiz rated Braseiro very highly and it was eucalyptus from Brazil. I snuffed the fire so I'll see how much ash there is and how much will be re-usable.

The bag I have from last year is from Argentina and it is loaded with big pieces, too big for most of my use. I have to break it up to use it. This new bag seems like a different wood.

The worst charcoal I have used from South America has been the Royal Oak from Paraguay. It was like the 4th of July.

Ok, just returned from getting 5 bags and checked in to read the reports- thanks for them. There was one pallet, stacked high. It seemed as if I may have been the first at it. I don't have much experience buying/using lump. I think I've bought 3 bags prior to this. (I bought a bag of Mali's the other day so I'll compare). Some bags seemed to have a chitload of small pieces, so I picked through the top couple layers to grab the bags that seemed less so. It wasn't hard to find 5 bags that seemed ok, but until they're opened (tomorrow), won't know for sure.

I bought 5 bags. In my novice opinion the bags seemed a little beat up but at half-price it is still a great deal.

i ended up buying 6 bags from the marlboro MA store, they had plenty. i too was going to buy more but in feeling the bags it seemed to be smaller pieces than i am used to getting. however, at $10 per bag a pretty good deal. i have not opened them yet to check sizes. BTW, a full pallet plus available at the marlboro store.

I grabbed 10 bags yesterday in Palmer with plenty more on the pallet. I'm usually a Kingsford guy but i've used Wicked Good before with positive results.

Opened a bag today, and did a non-scientific comparison w/ Mali's Gourmet I bought a few days ago.

I dumped each bag onto a piece of plastic, took pics, then gathered the bigger chunks from the pile and put them in a box. I shook the box when finished to settle the chunks, then took a pic. The Mali nearly filled the box while the WG was less than half full.

As everyone has said, there are lots of too-small pieces and dust in the WG. The bags have been handled quite a bit, it seems. Still, for $10, can't go wrong. The Mali's cost only $11 or $12, and probably is the better buy overall. MUCH less dust/tiny pieces in the Mali's as was expected. The product/bags are fresher. Here's some pics:

Wow, you guys rock Thanks charrederhead!

charrederhead said:

Opened a bag today, and did a non-scientific comparison w/ Mali's Gourmet I bought a few days ago.

I dumped each bag onto a piece of plastic, took pics, then gathered the bigger chunks from the pile and put them in a box. I shook the box when finished to settle the chunks, then took a pic. The Mali nearly filled the box while the WG was less than half full.

As everyone has said, there are lots of too-small pieces and dust in the WG. The bags have been handled quite a bit, it seems. Still, for $10, can't go wrong. The Mali's cost only $11 or $12, and probably is the better buy overall. MUCH less dust/tiny pieces in the Mali's as was expected. The product/bags are fresher. Here's some pics:

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This looks similar to what I found. There is a lot of waste. WG usually has only a small amount of bits and pieces and is mostly large chunks.

just picked up 10 bags from my local OSJL for a little league fundraiser chicken dinner this saturday so hopefully it's good stuff. I did notice that the text was blue on the bags and I thought it was green on the weekend warrior blend I bought in the past. Also the bag is definately paper instead of poly :noidea:

Anyone else had a chance to open a few bags to see what it is like?

Just bought two bags

Been using it the last couple of days. It seems to be decent so far. Not as good as the other Wicked Good that I've used, but good enough for $10 a bag.

As far as the writing on the bag, I believe that it's the original style, and the paper bag definitely is. The poly bags left a lot of strands mixed in with the charcoal that wasn't a good thing IMO.

CarolinaQue said:

Been using it the last couple of days. It seems to be decent so far. Not as good as the other Wicked Good that I've used, but good enough for $10 a bag.

As far as the writing on the bag, I believe that it's the original style, and the paper bag definitely is. The poly bags left a lot of strands mixed in with the charcoal that wasn't a good thing IMO.

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I never noticed the poly strands in with the charcoal. I am going to go to a place that is a WG retailer and see if they are still selling the poly bags or if they are all paper now. In the past, there were really big chunks in the bag, so big that I had to break many of them to fit in a chimney unless I wanted to just use one piece.

A good friend of mine found a piece of WGC in one of his bags a short while back that measured 9 or so inches...cubed. I like bigger pieces, but that's a bit much!!!

Picked up 4 bags in Concord NH yesterday. Hope to pick up 4 more in Ossipee tomorrow. Miss not having a truck.