Fuel and Wally's

I have used Sam's Choice Briquettes for years and my cooker eats 'em up like a fat kid eats cake. Along with splits it burns like a WSM.

This weekend, I had issues, bad. I couldn't keep my cooker up to temp to save my life. I found out later in the morning that it was because my fire basket was getting choked with ash. This has never been an issue for me.

Reason I'm posting is, my boss bought a bag of K at the same store I got the Sam's last week and said he couldn't get his kettle hot to save his life.

What are the odds that this particular store had ALL their charcoal get wet and just let it dry and sold it??

I want to get good burns and if I have to switch fuel I will, but the Sam's stuff is sooo cheap and that's important when you cook on a fuel hog.

Anyone else experience this?

luckyduk said:

it is odd this came up.....I built a UDS for my dad which lives in Kansas, he bought his frontier lump from sam's and said he cannot get the UDS over 250-275 for chicken. I just had got done using a bag of frontier and had no problems at all, actually I thought it burned a little hotter than ro or fire king!!
I told him maybe it was the lump, he bought a bag of fire king from somewhere else and said he has no problems now:crazy::crazy:

could be the age of it also, maybe the older it is the more moisture it has taken on???

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While I appreciate your comment and think it is a good point I will say; this store goes through a coupla pallets a week, this I know. No way it was stale from the store point. AT LEAST THAT I CAN SEE. The point about the outside storage is interesting though.

So, distribution problem or has the Sam's Briqs changed to a different formula (read another supplier besides RO)?

Coz said:

Bryan, once I got to temp friday my cooker was ok.But it took way longer then normal and the recovery was not as quick.It may have been the air ?

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My neighbors (In Da Smoke) had the same theory. They were convinced that the humidity was causing my ash to plump and thus causing air flow problems.

Fuel was dry so maybe this was a big part of it?