Skip The Charcoal Briquets at Your Oklahoma Cookout This Weekend

You know, I'm a charcoal guy. That doesn't mean I don't use the convenience of the gas grill from time to time, but charcoal is the tastiest way to cook pretty much any protien... but there are some shenanigans on high happening over at Kingsford and other briquet manufacturers that you should know about.

If you buy briquets, you're buying dirt.

As far back as I can remember, charcoal has been king in my family. Dad had one of those familiar Weber kettle grills growing up, and like most fathers, he fought to keep his charcoal lit. The answer back then was lighter fluid, now we have those handy charcoal chimneys that get everything lit without the use of taste-changing fluid.

Just like my father before me, I have to constantly empty the ashes out of my grill. Now I've used natural lump charcoal, and many different brands of briquets, and I've noticed over time, the briquets do leave you with more ash even though the total original weights were the same.

What gives?

I stumbled across this video. The channel name is Ave. He's Canadian and probably the smartest tool guy on the internet. While many won't approve of his language, it's a different country with different customs, and the information there is worth listening to the harsh vernacular.

In testing, he measured out a specific amount of charcoal, burned it, sieved it, and weighed what was left over. To our disbelief, that bag of trusted Kingsford Charcoal Briquets is roughly 10% dirt.

They are literally selling you dirt.

Like it's said in the video, it's not even a 50/50 of it just naturally being on the tree when chipped up and pressed into those little squares... it's fill dirt that they spent money on to maximize their profits.

Now I'll be honest with you, it's not a complete shocker. Most companies do what they think they can get away with to squeeze more money out of your pockets, but this is high treason at the grilling station. And here's the funny thing, you can't even exact revenge by buying the competition. It's a briquet industry standard these days.

I don't normally buy Kingsford unless it's on sale. Like the end of year 36lbs for $10 kind of sale, so normally I buy whatever is cheapest. Now I'm convinced that the cheaper stuff is more than likely contains the same, or logically, even more dirt in each briquet.

Guess it goes to show, buying the more expensive natural lump charcoal might be the only way to go forward from here. I'm tired of buying and burning dirt. Back to the expensive hardwood lump stuff we shall go.