Harris Teeter 100% Natural Hardwood Charcoal is brought to you by Nature's Grilling, the same folks who brought you Nature's Grilling Hardwood Blend 100% Natural Wood Charcoal. We are always pleased to see lump charcoal for sale in grocery stores since it means that more and more people can have easy access, and we were pleasantly surprised to find this new lump charcoal at our local Harris Teeter store.
When we dumped the charcoal out for sorting and examination, it was pretty obvious that the charcoal is being screened and sorted with the goal of no wasted charcoal and lots of usable pieces. As you can see from the following table, almost all the charcoal was medium to large and there was only 3 ounces of chips and dust in the bottom of the bag, a miniscule 2.6% of the bag:
| Large |
1.9 pounds |
28.0% |
| Medium |
4.6 pounds |
65.8% |
| Small |
0.3 pounds |
3.6% |
| Chips/Dust |
0.2 pounds |
2.6% |
|
|
|
| Total |
7.0 pounds |
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|
We are almost inclined for the first time ever to ask for a little bit more of the small stuff to fill in the gaps between the larger pieces. If you were trying to build a fire for a all night low and slow cook, we think you'd do well to spend a little time arranging the lump so that there are no large gaps between pieces. (Not to jump ahead, but we can tell you that we had no problem keeping the fire going during our burn test with a BBQ Guru in control.)
We found no scrap, no rocks, and no other "funny stuff" in the bag.
During our chimney starter test, this charcoal took 6 sheets of newspaper to get started. This is very high compared to other charcoals. The "startability" of the charcoal may be been hampered a bit by the relatively large size of the pieces. While burning hot in the chimney, there was virtually no sparking or popping. The smell of the charcoal while burning was a pleasant woodsy sort of smoke, as opposed to the slight perfumed smell of many charcoals from south of the border.
In our maximum temperature test, the charcoal got up to about 900 degrees which is average compared to other charcoals. The speed that the fire spreads is slow to medium. The charcoal itself is dense which means it will be harder to start and for the fire to spread. While burning at maximum temperature there was virtually no sparking or popping, except for one short spell. It seems that perhaps a single piece of wood began sparking and shedding flying ash and grit. This lasted about 30 seconds, depositing a small amount of ash and grit 18 inches away from the cooker's upper vent. You can see a photo below. Then, as soon as it had started it was over. We would recommend that if you use this charcoal for searing steaks, you should make sure the fire is established before putting the meat on the grill. However, this was not an issue for normal cooking temperatures.
And finally, in our burntime test the charcoal burned an average length of time. The ash production was also average compared to other charcoals. So, all in all we have a pretty good charcoal here. A lot of the attributes of the charcoal rank average compared to other charcoals, but you get virtually 100% usable product with virtually all the pieces of a decent size. We have no trouble giving this charcoal our Above Average rating.
And one final word. If you are concerned about carbon feet prints, sustainability, and things like that, you should visit the Nature's Grilling Products web site and have a read. These folks take this sort of thing seriously.
