If there’s anything that would actually make me use regular charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid over real hardwood charcoal, it’s Cowboy Hardwood Lump Charcoal. Personally, I think grillers all over the world should unite and boycott the Cowboy brand, which also, also produces the lump charcoal marketed as Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma.
What set me off about this stuff? It’s not the fact that the bag is full of chips and dust (which good hardwood coal really doesn’t have), and that it sparks and produces low heat and a ton of ash during use (which good hardwood lump charcoal doesn’t do). And it’s not the fact that it doesn’t burn any longer than the average briquette, which isn’t for very long—good lump charcoal burns steady and hot, for a long time. But I won’t pretend that this is
the main reason for my dislike for the Cowboy brand, even though this is more than enough, not to mention that it took a while to get the residue out of the bottom of my grill.
I don’t like this brand because of the content. Cowboy Hardwood Lump appears to be nothing more than scrap wood taken from the floors at mills and constructions sites. Now, I surely can’t prove that the coals were really wood scraps. But if it burns like it, looks like (they were all fairly small chunks, which is not ordinary of hardwood coal), and smells like it as it burns, then it must be as far as I’m concerned.
If this is true, then one has to wonder how it was ever approved for human consumption. Further, there have been reports from buyers who state they have ...
