Product Review: Cowboy Lump Charcoal. First, in case you are wondering the difference between lump charcoal and charcoal briquettes, here’s the basic difference. Use lump charcoal in Kamado-style smoker/grills such as the Big Green Egg, use charcoal briquettes in grills like a Weber Kettle. While lump charcoal looks like chunks of wood that has been charred, charcoal briquettes look like charred coal that has been pressed into a charcoal cookie.
Lump charcoal burns hotter and faster, and charcoal briquettes burn lower and slower. You can use lump charcoal on a traditional charcoal grill, but just know what you have going. It will burn hotter, and it will burn out quicker.
If you have been out this week trying to find lump charcoal (any charcoal really), you may have had a hard time finding it. I get my lump charcoal at Sullivan’s Hardware and they said lump charcoal is the new toilet paper. They are a pretty major retailer of lump charcoal and even they were having a hard time getting it. That said, when I went back a few days later to get Big Green Egg brand, they still didn’t have it, but they had received an order of Cowboy Brand lump charcoal.
Cowboy Brand is functional…you can use it, it will work, but…
- I am not a wood quality expert, but a lot of the Cowboy Brand wood looks like they collected some of it from their backyard fire pit after burning fallen tree branches.
- It takes longer to get up to temperature. Meaning, it takes longer to get to the point where you can get going with your smoker.
- This is really 2b, but it takes longer to get to temperature, and then maintain temperature. It takes much more oxygen to get the same results from lower oxygen with my normal brand. As an example, I am smoking pork butt today, and to maintain a temperature of 225-250, I’d barely have a crack in the lower airflow intake, and just sliver of a moon in the top airflow, but using Cowboy Brand, I have them both noticeably more open.
- This is really 2c, but the genius of a Kamdo-style grill/smoker is that you can “set it, and forget it.” Meaning, once you get that temperature pegged where you want it, particularly for low and slow smoking, you can walk away for several hours with confidence knowing it will hold the temperature. With Cowboy Brand, I’ve had to go back numerous times to adjust the airflow to normalize the temperature where I want it.
When the guys at Sullivan’s tried to sell me on the Big Green Egg brand when I first got my egg, I thought they were just…selling (because BGE Lump is a little more expensive). Turns out, they were right. In my view BGE is superior for functionality, consistency, and flavor. Another brand that I find as a stand in for BGE is Royal Oak, but that’s another review, for another day.
So here it is… Cowboy Brand is not terrible, it works, it just has its drawbacks. If you can find it, go with Big Green Egg Lump Charcoal. There is a difference, and it is superior.
Brisket & Brawn 