Update (02/13/14): As we said in our previous update below, we were informed that the company had mistakenly sent us old product. We went out and bought their current product from a local Lowe's store. It is now made in Malaysia and the Philippines and comes in a paper bag instead of the plastic bag that they used before. We reran our tests and the good news is that it burned a little longer and produced a little less ash. The bad news is that the improvements weren't enough to change our assessment. So if you are looking for coconut charcoal that you can obtain locally for a reasonable price, this may be your answer. However, don't expect to use it in a kamado-style cooker due to the low burn time and large volume of ash produced.
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Update (02/06/14): Shortly after posting this review we were contacted by Coshell and told that we had been sent four-year-old product by mistake. The current charcoal is no longer made in Thailand and now comes in a paper bag. We have been able to purchase a bag of the current charcoal and will be checking the new charcoal to see if it is significantly better. We'll be either updating this review, or posting a new review as soon as we can.
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Well, here we go again with a coconut-based charcoal! We normally don't pay too much attention to briquettes, however, coconut briquettes
caught our eye since good coconut charcoal has a great smell, and good coconut charcoal is typically low ash and a good choice for long even overnight cooks in a ceramic cooker. And since this charcoal should be widely available (currently available in Whole foods, Lowes Home Improvement, Albertsons,
Deca stores (military base commissaries) and many regional supermarket chains through the country, with more locations to be announced in 2014)
this might be the breakthrough that would make quality coconut charcoal available around the country at reasonable prices. So, let's see how Coshell performed.
The bag that Coshell Coconut Charcoal is sold in is a tough plastic bag, different from the paper bags most charcoal briquettes are packaged in. The bag is not going tear or bust. You might, however, want to use a large "chip clip" to hold the top closed since it won't fold/roll up like a paper bag.
Inside the bag you find, well, briquettes. They are relatively large, considerably larger than say, Kingsford briquettes. They average about 40.2 grams apiece, or just over 1.4 ounces. They are pillow-shaped as you can see in the photo at right and about 2 inches square and 1.5 inches thick.
Inside the bag we found several pieces of string, but they are easy to see and easy to remove when you dump the contents into your cooker. As you can see in the following table, we found just over 80% of the bag by weight consisted of whole briquettes. A little over 14% were broken briquettes, but large enough to burn in your cooker. Only a bit over 4% of the bag by weight was small pieces or dust which probably aren't worth burning. This is very low compared to lump charcoals we have tested and average compared to other coconut charcoal products we have tested.
Whole Briquettes |
7.3 pounds |
81.1% |
Broken Briquettes |
1.3 pounds |
14.4% |
Chips/Dust |
0.4 pounds |
4.4% |
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Total |
9.0 pounds |
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In our chimney lighting test, Coshell took 7 sheets of newspaper to get going. While this is very high compared to lump charcoal results, this is average when compared to other coconut charcoals we have tested. In the maximum temperature test, it was able to burn at 789°F which is average when compared to both lump charcoal and other coconut charcoals. As you would expect there was no sparking or popping when lighting or when burning hot in the cooker.
Another test we perform with extruded charcoals and briquttes is to let the fire go out after our maximum temperature test, and then give the remaining charcoal a stir to knock any ash off the pieces remaining. This lets us see how well the pieces hold together after exposure to high temperatures in order to gauge how "reusable" the charcoal might be. Some of the lower quality coconut charcoals just crumble to powder, rendering the remains pretty useless. Coshell charcoal was a bit fragile, but if you are gentle in your stirring, you can knock off some ash and still have a goodly amount of charcoal left for your next fire. (In fact, we did this. The night after we did our maximum temperature test, we cooked some lamb chops. We lit a small amount, say, ⅓ of a chimney and dumped this on top of the stirred remains. We got a nice hot fire for grilling and the chops were quite good!)
One thing that makes coconut charcoal a little special is the pleasant, almost sweet smell of the smoke. While this pleasant smell wasn't as strong in Coshell's smoke as in some of the best extruded coconut charcoals we have tested, it is there and it does give a pleasant taste to food cooked over it. So, if you are looking for that nice coconut smoke, you'll find it here.
Next we come to the burn test and ash test, and unfortunately things weren't so good here. The charcoal burn time was very low, both compared to lump charcoal and other coconut charcoals tested. This probably isn't as important if you are using this charcoal in a kettle grill or other grill where you can't shut the air vents and put the fire out. It certainly burns long enough to do some serious grilling. But if you were hoping to use this in a ceramic cooker overnight, you won't be able to get the burn time you need.
Another reason you won't be using this charcoal for long overnight cooks in a ceramic cooker is the ash production. There is no other way to put it than the ash production was simply staggering. This charcoal produced more ash than anything we have ever tested before be it lump charcoal, extruded coconut, coconut blocks, or conventional briquettes. For the first time in our testing, enough ash was produced to completely fill and block the lower vent of our small Big Green Egg cooker. While this is not a problem in large metal charcoal cookers with loads of room beneath the charcoal grate, this is quite a problem for most kamado-style cookers which have limited space beneath the charcoal grate. The only reason we were able to keep the fire going in our burn test was that we were using a BBQ Guru to control the temperature and it was able keep a small channel open by forcing air into the cooker.
So what rating to give this charcoal? This one is a hard one. Based strictly on performance, and compared to lump charcoal, this would probably get a Below Average. Compare it to other coconut charcoals and it still would get a pretty low rating. It's hard to start (no surprise, of course), doesn't burn very long and produces unbelievable quantities of ash. However, it is made from coconut and has that distinctive coconut smoke. And if you are into things green, it is a plus that this charcoal is made from the fruit of a tree, if you will, and not the tree itself. We think for use as a briquette, it is not an unreasonable choice and thus we give it our Average rating. However, we can't really recommend this for use in kamado-style cookers for anything other than relatively short cooks.