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On 9/15/2023 at 2:33 PM, AlaMoi said:

Cowboy brand is my fav as well, however - they produce in USA and Mexico

fyi . . .

the USA uses hardwood cutoff from Carolina furniture manufacturing, the Mexico product uses trees.

the bag of the Mexico production I bought had huge chunks - as in take a hatchet and chop them up so you can use them . . .

 

over the years any number of charcoal briquette makes have hit the boiling water pot due to their "ingredients" . . .

Kingsford:

Kingsford Charcoal is made from charred soft and hardwoods such as pine, spruce, hickory, oak and others depending on which regional manufacturing plant it comes from. That char is then mixed with ground coal and other ingredients to make a charcoal briquette. As of January 2016, Kingsford Charcoal contains the following ingredients:^[7][8]

• Wood char - Fuel for heating
  Mineral char - Fuel for heating
  Mineral carbon - Fuel for heating
  Limestone - Binding agent
  Starch - Binding agent
  Borax - Release agent
  Sawdust - Accelerate ignition

curiously, borax is banned in food products, it is toxic - but apparently when deposited on your steak by burning charcoal, is not a problem.

I just looked up the LD50 for borax (the amount, in mg/kg bodyweight that it takes to kill 50% of of unlucky ingesters). On rats, LD50 is 4500-5000mg/kg bodyweight. This means that table salt is about 50% more toxic to mammals. 

They do believe that borax may be dangerous to unborn fetuses. But it's probably moot, because borax is very flammable, and you're supposed to burn briquettes down to glowing coals before cooking. By the time you get to that point, there will be nothing present but carbon, with some inert limestone in the ash. 

And I think this is the crux of it. No matter what additives are in the briquets, they're gone by the time you put the food on the coals. This is why it's unsurprising that there weren't any taste differences between brands, or between briquettes and lumps.

The one situation that's sketchy is when the coals burn down in the middle of cooking, and you want to add more. This is where impatient people sometimes end up smoking food on top of briquette additives. I think this is the best use of lump charcoal: when you need to add more in the middle of cooking.

The part that surprises me is temperature. Nathan Mhyrvold and company reported that lump charcoal burns hotter and faster, simply because there's more air in it. I wonder if they and Cook's Country tested different types.

On 9/15/2023 at 2:33 PM, AlaMoi said:

Cowboy brand is my fav as well, however - they produce in USA and Mexico

fyi . . .

the USA uses hardwood cutoff from Carolina furniture manufacturing, the Mexico product uses trees.

the bag of the Mexico production I bought had huge chunks - as in take a hatchet and chop them up so you can use them . . .

 

over the years any number of charcoal briquette makes have hit the boiling water pot due to their "ingredients" . . .

Kingsford:

Kingsford Charcoal is made from charred soft and hardwoods such as pine, spruce, hickory, oak and others depending on which regional manufacturing plant it comes from. That char is then mixed with ground coal and other ingredients to make a charcoal briquette. As of January 2016, Kingsford Charcoal contains the following ingredients:^[7][8]

• Wood char - Fuel for heating
  Mineral char - Fuel for heating
  Mineral carbon - Fuel for heating
  Limestone - Binding agent
  Starch - Binding agent
  Borax - Release agent
  Sawdust - Accelerate ignition

curiously, borax is banned in food products, it is toxic - but apparently when deposited on your steak by burning charcoal, is not a problem.

I just looked up the LD50 for borax (the amount, in mg/kg bodyweight that it takes to kill 50% of of unlucky ingesters). On rats, LD50 is 4500-5000mg/kg bodyweight. This means that table salt is about 50% more toxic to mammals. 

They do believe that borax may be dangerous to unborn fetuses. But it's probably moot, because borax is very flammable, and you're supposed to burn briquettes down to glowing coals before cooking. By the time you get to that point, there will be nothing present but carbon, with some inert limestone in the ash. 

And I think this is the crux of it. No matter what additives are in the briquets, they're gone by the time you put the food on the coals. This is why it's unsurprising that there weren't any taste differences between brands, or between briquettes and lumps.

The one situation that's sketchy is when the coals burn out in the middle of cooking, and you want to add more. This is where impatient people sometimes end up with food getting smoked by briquette additives. I think this is the best use of lump charcoal: when you need to add more in the middle of cooking.

The part that surprises me is temperature. Nathan Mhyrvold and company reported that lump charcoal burns hotter and faster, simply because there's more air in it. I wonder if they and Cook's Country tested different types.