Note: This is an updated review of HardCoals charcoal. When we reviewed this charcoal initially, we noted "...that CanaSAf, Ltd. plans to take our test results to the manufacturers and discuss potential changes to improve the amount of useable product in each bag. If this does happen, we plan to update this review and the rating of the charcoal after testing a new sample." We were contacted by the Canadian distributor and informed that changes had been made since our initial review which had improved the quality and uniformity of the product. Here are the results of retesting this new version of HardCoals:
This charcoal comes to us from CanaSAf Traders, LTD, a Canadian company focused on bringing African products to North America. The have offices in
Vancouver and Calgary. The charcoal is presently available in the Vancouver area, but there are plans to expand. The charcoal is actually made in
Namibia. Where is Namibia? It is on the west coast of southern Africa, surrounded by South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Angola. See the map at right.
This charcoal is made from four woods that we bet you haven't heard of before. We certainly haven't, which is understandable since we have never reviewed a product from Africa before. Here they are:
- Lowveld cluster leaf (Terminalia prunioides)
- Mopane (Colophospernum mop)
- Black Thorn (Acacia mellifera)
- Wild Teak (Pterocarpus angolensi), only trees that have died naturally and have no economic timber value are used.
These woods are fine grained hardwoods with a very high density. Oak and maple timber typically weigh 1,100 lbs per cubic yard where these woods weigh in the vicinity of 2,300 lbs per cubic yard.
If you are concerned about destruction of rainforest or consumption of woods used by the local population for subsistence fuel, this information comes from CanaSAf:
"We only use invader bush and introduced varieties in our products.
All products are obtained under export permit form the Directorate of Forestry from Namibia.
No endangered species are used in the production of the charcoal."
Also this:
"Only invader-bush and declared weeds that are part of a savanna-reclaiming program to reverse the effects of overgrazing and bad land management is used in charcoal production. Permits are issued on a batch-by-batch basis to ensure that charcoal production is a sustainable economic activity. They are not using wood that forms part of subsistence fuel for the local people. The production area in Namibia is not in the desert but the northeastern quarter of the country where cattle farming is a major economic activity. These trees are thorn trees and the cattle have trouble in grazing of these trees. It forms impenetrable clusters as it grows and pushes the grass for grazing out of existence.
"
As production increases, they will be looking for other sources of charcoal:
"In order to meet demand we will procure charcoal from similar varieties of trees from other Southern African states to fulfill the demand (Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique). The same conditions for harvesting of these resources will apply. We will only supply product made from varieties not on CITES lists but with the same hard wood characteristics.
"
Incidentally, CITES is the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
When we opened the bag, we were pleased to see that the biggest issue with the previous version of this charcoal seems to be addressed. In our first review in December, 2004 we found that nearly 30-40% of each bag was unusable chips and dust. As you can see from the table below, this has been reduced to an exceptional 5.8%:
| Large |
0.2 pounds |
1.8% |
| Medium |
2.8 pounds |
25.0% |
| Small |
7.7 pounds |
67.4% |
| Chips/Dust |
0.7 pounds |
5.8% |
|
|
|
| Total |
11.4 pounds |
|
|
As you can see from the table and from the photo below, there still is no significant amount of large pieces of charcoal, but the amount of usable charcoal has increased dramatically. It appears to us that HardCoals is no longer putting the fines in the bag and the rest of the charcoal sizes have remained the same.
In sorting through the charcoal, we found no scrap and none of the plastic fiber that we found before. In general, the charcoal seems to be the same dense charcoal as before, but more care is being taken as to what makes it into the bag.
The charcoal took 5.5 sheets of newspaper to get started in our chimney starter test, which is higher than average but to be expected for such a hard dense charcoal. The smell of the charcoal is a fairly strong, bold, woodsy smell. similar to what we found in our first review. While burning in the chimney, there was some crackling noise but no significant sparking or popping. When lighting the charcoal with a MAPP torch we did note moderate sparking and popping, so as always, exercise care in using any type of torch to light charcoal.
In our maximum temperature test we were able to achieve a temperature of 1025 degrees, which is very high compared to other charcoals we have tested. There was very little sparking or popping while the charcoal was burning at high temperature. In our burntime test, the charcoal burned a relatively short period of time, low compared to other charcoals. The ash produced was high compared to other charcoals which was an improvement from our previous review where it was very high.
In our initial review, we noted some ammonia smells from the charcoal. As we reported then, we have noted this in various types of charcoal and don't really understand its origin. We can report, though, that we did not detect any such smells in this review. We conducted a taste test in our first review, the results of which we will repeat here:
"We cooked some chicken tenders over Royal Oak in one cooker and over HardCoals in another. We called in our resident taste tester (the wife) to do a blind taste test. We also tasted the chicken, knowing which was which. We both agreed that the Royal Oak tasted more smokey, and the HardCoals tasted more "chickeny". In other words, the HardCoals chicken had less smokiness to it and you tasted the meat more than the smoke. The wife preferred the HardCoals chicken, while we preferred the smokiness of the Royal Oak chicken. Needless to say, this is a matter of personal preference."
So, Hardcoals has done a great job of reducing the quantity of fines in each bag. There is also an improvement in eliminating foreign materials in the bag. The ash produced has gone down, and the burntime has remained about the same. This charcoal represents a pretty good value and now gets our Above Average rating.
