Strolling through the local Home Depot, I noticed something exciting, something new. In the grill aisle, where I would usually find my standard Kingsford Charcoal I spotted an unusual looking Kingsford bag. It appeared that Kingsford has made a play for the serious BBQ crowd - the competition boys. Reading over the bag, it promised to burn hotter and longer than my normal charcoal. I picked up a bag and brought it home and did a little research. The best article I found was here over at the Virtual Weber Bullet.
The first thing I noticed about the competition briquets was that the bag was lighter by 3 lbs. The writing on the bag promised me a 12 lb. bag was equivalent to a 15 lb. bag. Ok, I thought. Let's see. I didn't have any BBQ on the menu this week, so I decided to try the new briquets out on some tri-tip. As promised, the briquets definitely do burn hotter. But anything that burns hotter also burns faster. For a grilling application, I really like the idea of a hot, fast burning briquet. However, I'm stumped on the idea of how these are going to work for a low-and-slow application. Kingsford promises that these briquets are made of a much more pristine combination of wood char, starch, and borax. The idea is that they burn hotter, cleaner, and don't smell like your regular Kingsford briquet. I can testify to all of the above. It's true. They are hot as hell and don't smell the same. I'm just not sure how they will burn longer when I use them for a slow smoked shoulder. Time will tell. I'll report back as soon as I have some new results. For now, consider this an endorsement with reservations.
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