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Update: To our knowledge, this charcoal is no longer available. If you have any information,
feel free to contact us using this link: Email The Whiz
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Well, it's time for a little bit of a nature lesson as this is our first encounter with shagbark hickory. What is 
shagbark hickory? According to Wikipedia, shagbark hickory
"is a common hickory in the eastern United States and southeast Canada. It is a large deciduous tree, growing up to 27 m tall, and will live up to 200 years. Mature Shagbarks are easy to recognize because, as their name implies, they have shaggy bark. This characteristic is however only found on mature trees; young specimens have smooth bark."
To the right is a photo of a shagbark hickory tree. So why all the interest in shagbark hickory? Well, we were contacted by the owner of Halls Hill Charcoal and asked to do a review of their shagbark hickory charcoal. They are a small company in Murfreesboro, Tennessee that makes their charcoal essentially by hand, making small batches in small kilns. They sell their charcoal via the web and locally. So, now that we know what shagbark hickory is, let's get to the review.
When we dumped the bag out on the ground for sorting, we found no scrap, no uncarbonized pieces and nothing strange that shouldn't be in a bag of charcoal. As you can see from the following table, the size distribution was excellent:
| Large |
3.3 pounds |
27.3% |
| Medium |
5.4 pounds |
44.0% |
| Small |
3.0 pounds |
25.2% |
| Chips/Dust |
0.4 pounds |
3.5% |
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| Total |
12.1 pounds |
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The 3.5% chips and dust is a very low amount as compared to all other lump charcoals. And as you can see, over 70% of the bag is medium or large pieces. You can see the sorted charcoal and the large pieces in the photos down below. If you think that there are too many large pieces, remember you can always make large pieces smaller, but you can't make small pieces larger. Most of the large pieces we found could be broken by hand, so it is an easy thing to do. We think you couldn't ask for much better distribution of sizes.
Next, in our lighting test, it took four sheets of newspaper to get this charcoal started in a chimney lighter. This is about average when compared to other brands. There was little sparking and no popping when the charcoal was starting up or while it was rapidly burning. The smell of the smoke while the charcoal burned was amazingly mild and pleasant, about as nice a smoke as any charcoal we've ever tested.
In the maximum temperature test, the charcoal was able to hit 1072° which is very high when compared to other charcoals. Again there was a little sparking but no popping as the fire grew and then raged away in the cooker. The fire spread relatively quickly, for those impatient to get cooking.
This charcoal burned a good long while in our burn time test, getting four stars which means its burn time was high compared to other brands. While lighting with a MAPP torch, there was a fair amount of sparking but again no popping. As always, we recommend that caution be exercised when using gas torches to light lump charcoal, just in case. And finally, the ash production of this charcoal was average when compared to other brands of lump charcoal.
| Chips and Dust: |  |
| Lighting: |  |
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This is our first review that utilizes our new key performance indicators display, which you can see to the left. The meaning of the stars is explained at the bottom of the review. As you can see, this charcoal did well in size distribution, maximum temperature and burntime. It was average on lighting and ash production. In assigning a final rating we take everything we observe into consideration, while the average reader is often wont to discard characteristics they find unimportant.
So, what rating does this charcoal get? Well frankly, we loved this charcoal. The smell is heavenly and the overall performance of the charcoal is very good. While expensive, you get a lot for your money with very little waste in the bag and a long burn time. We heartily give this brand our Recommended rating.
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To the left is the rating that our readers have given this charcoal. If you have used this charcoal and would like to rate it and leave your comments, Click Here
To view reader ratings of all brands, Click Here.
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