We were contacted by the manufacturers of Xylo-Carbone Signature Charcoal Lumps who asked us to do a review.
They hinted that they supply the charcoal for another brand of charcoal that did very well that we had recently tested.
They weren't free to say which brand, but we have a very good idea. We will leave it as an exercise for our
readers to see if they can figure it out. In any event, with such a promising teaser, how could we say no?
So, first things first. Where does this name Xylo-Carbone come from? Most bbq charcoals like to brand themselves
with names associated with barbecue, meat, the Old West, family names, etc., trying to stir up images of meat
and smokey goodness in your mind. So where does Xylo-Carbone come from? Well, the "carbone" part is easy.
This company is located in Quebec, Canada and "carbone" is the French word for "carbon". So far so good, but
what about "xylo"? Well, "xylo" comes to us from Greek "xýlon" and "xulon" meaning wood. Think "xylophone". So
roughly speaking, "Xylo-Carbone" translates to "wood carbon".
Next question, who is/are Xylo-Carbone? They are a Canadian company founded in 2017 and located on
15 hectares (37 acres) of land in Saint-Tite, Quebec, Canada. Among other things, they process maple, beech and birch wood
into charcoal. As usual, we provide you a map at right
to help you locate it. They currently produce charcoal that is sold across Canada in outlets such as
Costco, Lowes, Rona, and Canadian Tire, but they have plans to expand into the US, starting with the
East Coast. They also appear to be the world’s only net zero charcoal plant.
The charcoal is made in sealed containers that allow the recovery of gas, and pyrolytic oil produced
by the process, which in turn can be used to generate the energy the plant consumes during the production process.
So, it's time to start testing and see if Xylo-Carbone Signature Charcoal Lumps are indeed as good
as another brand of charcoal we have already tested. It is made from 95% Canadian Maple, with the
remaining bits being beech and birch. In our experience, charcoal made from Canadian Maple has
always been very pleasing, both in performance as well as the smoke it produces.
The first thing we do is dump the charcoal on the ground for sorting and inspection. We found nothing
but charcoal. No plastic, metal, scrap wood or uncarbonized wood. Upon sorting, we found the following
rather astonishing distribution of sizes:
| Large |
4.7 pounds |
30.4% |
| Medium |
9.9 pounds |
63.8% |
| Small |
0.5 pounds |
3.2% |
| Chips/Dust |
0.4 pounds |
2.6% |
|
|
|
| Total |
15.5 pounds |
|
|
The 2.6% chips and dust is
Very Low (
) compared to all other brands of charcoal.
The 94.2% of the desirable medium and large pieces is
Very High () compared to all other brands. In fact, it
is the highest percentage of medium and large pieces that we have ever seen in a lump charcoal.
Apparently, companies can produce bags without tons of small pieces and chips and dust if they so
choose. And happily, we also found no huge logs that need to be busted up to be useful. Just lots and
lots of usable charcoal. Oh happy day.
So now we are off to a superb start in our test. How did Xylo-Carbone Signature Lumps do in our lighting test?
It took only 1.5 sheets of newspaper to get this charcoal burning in a standard Weber chimney
starter. This was Very Low () compared to all other brands of charcoal.
There was no sparking or popping and the smell was that of North American maple charcoal,
mild and pleasant.
Next we move on to our maximum temperature test in which this charcoal burned at 1196°F. This is
Very High () compared to all other brands of charcoal.
In fact, of the 128 brands of charcoal that we have done a maximum temperature test on to date, this is number
6. And we should probably point out that some Facebook charcoal experts will tell you that this charcoal
burns too hot and too fast. Remember though, that if you are cooking in a closed cooker like a kamado-style
cooker, YOU control the temperature by controlling the airflow. This charcoal will cruise along at 225°F
as well as any other brand. But back to our maximum temperature test. There was, again, no sparking or popping
either while this charcoal was coming up to temperature or while it was burning away. And finally, once lit
the fire spread quite rapidly.
In our burn time test, Xylo-Carbone Signature Lumps charcoal burned quite a long time. In fact, the
burn time was
High (
) compared to all other brands of charcoal, just
barely missing the Very High grade.
When lighting this charcoal with a MAP-Pro torch, there was very little sparking and no popping. Of
course, always take appropriate precautions when using a torch of any kind to light lump charcoal.
And finally, the amount of ash produced by this charcoal was
Low () compared to all other brands of charcoal.
So as always, it is time to give this charcoal it's final rating. That shouldn't be to hard with it
scoring 28 out of 30 stars. Still, let's run through the results. The size distribution was insane with
94.2% of the bag being usable, good sized pieces. It was terribly easy to light and burned almost as hot
as anything we have ever tested. The only place where this charcoal stumbled a bit (if you can call it that) was burn time and ash
production, but nonetheless, it burned a good long time and didn't produce much ash, just missing 5 stars. All in all, this was
a very enjoyable charcoal to test and we sincerely hope Xylo-Carbone gets this into the US market.
And finally, can you guess which brand of charcoal is being supplied by Xylo-Carbone? Whether you can or
cannot, we give it our Highly Recommended rating.
