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Commentary
Since we published this review on August 5, 2007 there have been questions about our testing and results, along with suggestions for further testing. In addition there have been statements made about this charcoal which simply defy common sense. All of which prompted several updates to this review that included new tests, new results and further evidence in the way of photographs that demonstrated our results. In order to clean things up, we have overhauled this review to include the new tests, photos and results.
In addition, on August 9, 2007 in a post to his company's online forum, Richard Johnson, owner of Kamado, raised questions about our integrity, our motivation, our education, how we have represented ourselves to our readers and how we obtained the product we used in this review. While most of his statements are just downright childish, we would like to clear up certain issues of fact which Richard Johnson raises in his post. (We feel the rest of his post speaks for itself.) From Richard Johnson's post, we quote:
The Naked Whiz
We last reviewed Kamado extruded coconut charcoal at the end of 2003. (Readers interested in the review of the 2003 extruded coconut product can find it by clicking here). In the years since, Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes have been available only sporadically, and Kamado has obtained the charcoal from different sources. Recently, Kamado has again made a coconut charcoal briquette available. So we felt it was time to update the review, looking specifically at this new product. We should note that this product is indeed different than the previous product. The 2003 product came from the Philippines, while this product is made in Indonesia. As you can see from the photos below, the two products look quite different from each other:
Thus it is inevitable that the new and old products should be compared, which we will try to do as best we can. The following table shows how the contents of a box fell into "whole pieces", "broken pieces" and "powder/chips" categories:
Clearly, the new charcoal is more vulnerable to rough handling than the old. We were also able to get our hands on a box of this charcoal which had been delivered as part of a pallet order. This box was in much better shape, so it all depends on how the charcoal is handled when it is shipped to you. We suppose it also doesn't help that the boxes used for this new charcoal are less substantial than the boxes used for the older charcoal. The 2003 boxes were sturdy and had capacity and strength data printed on the bottom. These new boxes are flimsier and have no such data printed on them.
To then calculate the volume of a hexagonal cylinder with a hole down the middle, you subtract the volume of the hole which is given by the area of the circle times the height of the solid, or 3.14 x R**2 x H, where R is the radius of the hole.
However, it is probably more important how the charcoal performs in the cooker, so let's see how it did. In the chimney starting test, where we gauge the difficulty in lighting charcoal, this charcoal took 7 sheets of newspaper to light, just like the old charcoal did. This should come as no surprise. While lighting, the charcoal has the same coconut smell, almost a little perfume to it. And of course there was no sparking or popping, as is the case with all powdered/granulated coconut charcoals. Even when lighting with a MAPP torch, there is no popping and just a hint of some sparking. In the maximum temperature test, this charcoal burned at 990 degrees, which gets it up into the "very high" category. Although it takes this charcoal quite a long time for the fire to spread and thus get up to high temperatures, it does get there eventually in a big way. Unfortunately, while this might be good for searing steaks, the way the charcoal degrades when exposed to heat, you may find that you won't be able to use much of the left over charcoal after you are done searing.
Which leads us to our final observation about the fragility of this new charcoal. After the maximum temperature burn, we closed up the cooker and let the fire go out. When the cooker was completely cool, we stirred the left over charcoal to knock off ash. Much of the charcoal crumbled to powder when agitated, so a lot of the left over charcoal could not be reused. By contrast, the old charcoal could be stirred without much damage to any of the pieces and thus could be reused. Indeed, we heated up our sample of the 2003 charcoal two additional times in order to cook with it, and then we shoveled it out into a bucket to use the cooker for a test on another charcoal. The 2003 charcoal still held its shape and could be reused.
Next up is the burn time test, and here we were very surprised at the results. The burn time on this charcoal was very low. In fact, it was the fourth lowest burn time of the 44 brands of lump and coconut charcoal we have ever tested. The ash production was an even bigger shock. The ash produced was the highest amount of ash produced by any lump or coconut charcoal of any type that we have ever tested. To put this in perspective, the ash produced by these Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes was higher even than that produced by Kingsford briquettes. We doubt that you could use this charcoal in many ceramic cookers for 18 to 20 hours without having to do some ash management during the cook. We were so stunned we repeated the burn time and ash testing and produced virtually identical results. We might point out that on the box, this charcoal claims to be "Ashless."
As a result of the many questions about our results regarding the ash production, we conducted further tests which we documented photographically to demonstrate our results visually. In this first test, we burned equal amounts of both the 2003 charcoal and the latest charcoal. The two pieces were burned side by side, at the same time, under identical conditions. Any arguments about "open burn" and "closed burn" situations are irrelevant. The simple truth is that the new charcoal produces volumes more ash than the 2003 charcoal, and you can see it in these photographs. Notice also the marked difference in color of the ash between the two charcoals. This calls into serious question claims that this charcoal is identical to the previous charcoal, save for the shape of the briquettes.
Several readers wrote to ask about the difference in the weight of the ash produced by the two charcoals. We don't normally weigh the ash since when it comes to cooking in a ceramic cooker, it's volume that matters. Volumes of ash will block your air flow, regardless of the weight of the ash. However, it was pointed out that the weight of the ash is indirectly a rough indication of the amount of fixed carbon in the original charcoal. The more weight left over, the less carbon there was to start with. So we burned a second sample of each charcoal, but this time a larger sample so that the weight of the ash generated was large enough to be accurately weighed with our 5-gram resolution scale. Again, the two samples were burned side by side, at the same time, under identical conditions. The old charcoal produced 10 grams of ash, while the new charcoal produced 45 grams of ash, or 350% more!
You can see the results below:
Next we read a claim that the ash produced by the 2007 Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes from Indonesia is no worse than Royal Oak hardwood charcoal. This statement was so amazing, we felt compelled to conduct yet another test to provide visual evidence of the incredible amount of ash produced by the current batch of Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes. This time, it's Royal Oak vs. Kamado 2007 coconut charcoal briquettes. Again, the two samples were burned side by side, at the same time, under identical conditions. As you can see, the coconut charcoal briquettes produced an enormous amount of ash compared to the Royal Oak, about 3 to 4 times greater volume. And the Royal Oak lump charcoal produced only 25 grams of ash while the new Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes produced 60 grams, or 140% more! Simply put, Royal Oak lump charcoal does not produce anywhere near the volume of ash that the Kamado coconut charcoal briquettes produce.
We found yet another statement that the 2007 coconut charcoal briquettes produce about the same amount of ash as the "old stuff." Again, this was incredible based upon our results, until that is, we realized that the comparison was being made to the 2006 extruded coconut from Thailand that Kamado sold at that time. One of our readers sent us a sample so we decided to do a three way ash comparison between the three different charcoals. As you can see, the 2006 Thailand charcoal produced the same amount of ash as the new 2007 Indonesia charcoal, and both produced far more ash than the 2003 Philippine charcoal. To be exact, the Philippine charcoal produced 75ml of ash in this test, while the other two both produced 200ml of ash. So we guess the 2007 is "about the same as the old stuff" if you were referring to the 2006 Thailand charcoal.
Finally, due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this review, we decided to see if this charcoal actually could burn unattended for a long period of time in a a ceramic charcoal cooker. We loaded up a large Big Green Egg ceramic charcoal cooker with about 16 pounds of this charcoal and did the kind of burn that this charcoal is touted for, the low and slow cook. We wanted to see if this amount of charcoal would burn for 20 hours unattended like a cooker full of Royal Oak charcoal or the 2003 extruded coconut charcoal would. We found it could, but barely. The temperature was falling due to restricted airflow by the end of the cook. The primary reason the fire managed to stay alive as long as it did is that we used a convex grate which elevates the charcoal making more room for ash below it. The grate also tends to direct charcoal to the perimeter of the grate as it settles, so much of the ash piled up around the perimeter. You can see in the second photo what would have happened had all the ash fallen through the grate. You may find that your results will vary depending on the size of your cooker, the type of grate you use, and the shape of your firebowl.
So, why the markedly poorer performance by this new coconut charcoal versus the old? We can only speculate, but we think a clue can be found by looking closely at the briquettes:
These briquettes, or logs, do not look like they were extruded under tremendous heat and pressure. They are crooked and uneven. We already know that the density of these new pieces is lower than the older charcoal. The cracks and numerous pinholes in the sides of the pieces also make one wonder about the process used to form them. We don't see these crooked shapes, cracks and pinholes in the old extruded coconut. This and the unusually high amount of ash produced makes us suspect that this charcoal contains a significant quantity of a binder. (All charcoal briquettes which contain binders produce enormous volumes of ash, so we feel it is a good bet this this charcoal also uses a binder.)
Basically, we suspect that this charcoal is the equivalent of charcoal briquettes, but instead of pillow-shaped briquettes that are formed in a mold, this charcoal is formed into hexagonal briquettes.
After researching information about the various ways that coconut charcoal is being produced in Southeast Asia, we suspect that this charcoal may actually be formed by merely placing the charcoal and binder into a hexagonal mold with a rod down the center, i.e., not extruded at all. In this method which molds the charcoal rather than extrudes it, a large amount of binder is required to keep the individual logs in shape. More binder would equate to more ash, and this charcoal certainly produces more ash. While we certainly don't know how this charcoal was produced, the molding process certainly fits with our observations. In addition, we found out that charcoal that is molded with large amounts of binder rather than being extruded is much cheaper to manufacture, and of course, Kamado sells this charcoal for $8 a box when four to five years ago they were charging $12 a box for the vastly superior Philippine extruded charcoal. Again, everything points to the molded charcoal possibility.
This explains the wide variation in ash production and burn times between the different types of coconut briquettes that Kamado has sold. The different manufacturers who have been supplying Kamado with coconut briquettes have apparently been adding various amounts of filler to their products, despite Kamado's claims that their coconut briquettes contain no filler. It also explains how Kamado was able to reduce the price of their charcoal from $11.99 in 2003 for the high-quality Philippine charcoal to $7.99 in 2008 for their current low-quality charcoal.
But all speculation aside, we have to give this charcoal a rating based upon its performance which was quite poor compared to everything else we have ever tested. To summarize:
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Other Information
Unusual or Unique Statements
Statements From The Box
Lighting Instructions
Photos Of Contents
This is the contents of the box. Those are 1 inch squares on the measuring bar.
This is what a box looks like when you open it. Notice the plastic bag.
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About This Review
If you are unfamiliar with our testing procedures, you may wish to read
How We Review Lump Charcoal before reading this review. Also, you can read
How We Score Lump Charcoal to learn about our scoring system.
Prices listed in our reviews are current as of the date of the review. We do not attempt to keep these prices current.
The conclusions and final rating given any charcoal are based upon the opinion of the author. We recommend that you use our rating only as a guide. You should read the entire review and decide what is important to you in making any buying decision.
Performance ratings are designated with stars, 1 star being the worst
and 5 stars being the best:
Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon at the bottom right corner. Click on the icon to display the image in a new larger window. If you wish to ensure that you are seeing photographs the same way that we are seeing them, we recommend that you calibrate your monitor to a PC-normal gamma of 2.2. You should be able to see the difference between blocks A, B and C below, as well as the difference between blocks 3, 4 and 5.
This review is protected by Copyright and may not be reproduced in part or as a whole in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author. You can use the "Email The Whiz" link at the bottom of any of our webpages to contact us about using material from this review.
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