Update:
We have received the following information from Laralee regarding the availability of Wicked Good Charcoal's Competition Blend:
"Unfortunately, the Wicked Good "Competition Blend" Lump Charcoal is no longer available to us. In March '06, the manufacturer
informed us that they will no longer be harvesting the woods that make up the Competition Blend. "
To our knowledge, this charcoal is no longer available through any source.
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This charcoal is already being used by the Executive Chef and his Head Chefs at The Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, Maine (www.stayfreeport.com) and they are reportedly very pleased with it because it burns forever, with little smoke (so they can add any kind of woods for flavor) and hardly any ash. Now that it is available for retail sale, we have prepared the following review.
This charcoal is made from wood in Brazil that comes from forests certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council. (For more information on the FSC, visit the FSC website.
We opened two bags, one 11 pounds, the other 22 pounds. The size distribution was excellent, as you can see from the photo below. There were very few small chips and little dust. The charcoal has a pleasant mild smell with a hint of what we usually refer to as a perfumey smell, something that seems to common to charcoals made from tropical woods. We think this charcoal would be especially attractive folks who don't like much smoke flavor in their food.
Now, we come to the issue of lighting. There is a basic tradeoff in charcoal, how easy it is to light vs. how long it lasts. The denser the charcoal (the higher the fixed carbon content), the longer it lasts and the harder it is to light. This lump is quite a bit more difficult to light than other charcoals we have tested. Most charcoals rate a 2-3 in our lighting test (how many sheets of newspaper it takes to get the lump going in a chimney starter). This lump took 5 sheets to get it going. We further tested the lighting characteristics by lighting in the Big Green Egg as we would normally do when we cook. We took two pieces of starter log about the size of a small golf ball, buried them in the charcoal and lit them with the air vents wide open. The charcoal lit, but it took quite a while for the fire to spread to the entire load of charcoal. However, once it did spread, we had no trouble attaining 800 degrees to cook steaks.
Next we considered the longevity side of the coin. This charcoal is dense. Compare the size of a BGE bag holding 20 pounds, with a bag of Wicked Good Charcoal holding 22 pounds in the photo below. The difference is striking. To test longevity we did an overnight pork butt cook, loading the Big Green Egg up almost to the top of the fire ring. (We were also concerned that if the lump is hard to light, the fire might not spread to the other lump during the long overnight cook, and thus the fire might go out.)
The cook lasted 13 hours, starting at 235 degrees, slowly climbing through the nite to 330 degrees. The photo below shows the before and after photos. Clearly this lump is going to last a long, long time and has no difficulty staying lit for a long low fire.
One other benefit of the dense charcoal is that it should hold up better than other charcoals to the abuse that charcoal often suffers in transit. As you can see in the photos below, this charcoal survived the long trip from Brazil to Maine to North Carolina with flying colors.
07/02/05 UPDATE: When we first reviewed this charcoal, we weren't weighing the amount of large/medium/small/chips and dust to see what percentage of the total weight each size was. However, today we finished off a bag of this charcoal and decided that weighing the chips and dust in the bottom of the bag would be a rather quick observation. There were 9 and 3/4 ounces of chips and dust in our 11 pound bag. This works out to 5.5% which is very low compared to other charcoals. (It seems that 10% is the norm for most charcoals.)
UPDATE: We decided to conduct one last experiment regarding the lighting issue. We used a MAPP torch to light the lump and found that a 90 second application of the MAPP torch got a nice small burning area going. After about 15 minutes, the Egg was up to 300 degrees. After probably another 10 minutes it was going 650 degrees. (This was the lump left over after the low and slow cook reported on above, so there was not as good air flow as there had been when we first burned the lump, due to the ash and smaller pieces left over.) 90 seconds is about 3 times longer that what we have read most people use to light their charcoal with a MAPP torch, which makes sense considering how much effort is required to light this lump. But, the MAPP torch does offer an option to those who want their cake and eat it too: long lasting lump and easy to light lump. Use a MAPP torch as long as necessary to light the charcoal in as many places as you see fit.
This is a great charcoal with excellent size distribution, mild pleasant smell and very long-lasting. As for the lighting issue, we suggest using a MAPP torch or a chimney starter to get the lump started if you are in a hurry. Once you get it started, it burns well and can handle both the requirements of low and slow as well as high-temperature searing. We don't own a WSM, but we would think that the longevity of this charcoal might help metal smokers achieve longer cooks than they can presently achieve. (We'd be interested in hearing of anyone's results.) This charcoal gets our Recommended rating.