Charcoal Review - Best of The West - $14 for 40# at Sam's

I had a misquote in my $82 Sam's shopping spree thread. I called out this charcoal as a #20 bag. It's actually a #40 bag. The price was $14 plus change. So far this weekend I've done three cooks with this, two in the Egg and one in my BDS. It resembles Lazarri mesquite in size, flavor and burn time. Lazarri is just over $20 for a #40 bag. I can't say about ash production. It's not as sparky as some of the Royal Oak I've gotten lately, so this is a plus. The bag is plastic lined, which is nice. These two pics show the average size pieces I've found so far. There is one huge branch in the bag that looks about 3 or 4 inches in diameter.

Big_AL said:

Thanks for the tip.

I used to use mesquite wood chunks for almost all beef but I had a bit of an over-smoking issue once (I love smoke but it was WAY too strong) which killed my taste for it. Given this, stayed away from mesquite lump...how pronounced is the mesquite flavor? Could this be used for any meat or just beef?

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I don't care for mesquite chunks for flavor wood either and I was raised in Texas..... the family had stick burners but we had separate burn pits to turn the split logs into coals, then they were shoveled into the pits for cooking. Mesquite lump is very popular in Mexico too both for grilling and for other cooking fuel. Once the wood is made into lump, all of the bitter flavors folks associate with mesquite wood are gone.

That said, mesquite lump has a slightly stronger flavor than say Royal Oak, but I still add the same amount of apple of cherry I use with other lumps. Mesquite lump can be sparky when lighting, and it burns hotter than other lumps. It also comes in large pieces, some have to be smacked with a hammer.

I burn about 200# of it per year, and about 150# of Royal Oak.