Char-Broil Mesquite Natural Lump Coals

[VDDZ]

Char-Broil Mesquite Wood Chunks (5 lb bag pictured)

These have become my favorite coals. Cheap, clean, effective; gotta love it!

Price: 2 lbs - $4 (but dont get these as they are small and only good for smoking meats)
5 lbs - $7 (Bigger pieces perfect for hookah, but bag empties kind of quick...)
Big Ass Bag - $12 (This is what I get, big chunks of wood, I've had this bag thats almost out for over a month)
10/10

Ease of Lighting: Tougher then most, they want to go out until you get them red all over, any cold spots will try to grow, but once they are totally lit, all they need is to be used or briefly blown on. Tip: Baby them, I set mine up in a outdoor chimminy with a grate that surrounds them as they sit on a hotplate. They need to be blown on, kept together to share heat, and rotated, but once they are lit, they get hot! and can help lite not-so-ready ones.
2/10

Smell/Smoke: VERY STRONG and ALOT OF SMOKE!!! These are used to smoke meats, thus they smoke before turning into coals good for hookah. If you can not lite these outside, I would not use them. I mentioned where I lite mine, it makes the air outside smell like I'm bbq'ing . It a nice smell, but it will choke you if lit without proper venting. The smoke burns off after a bit, leaving you with hot, tasteless, oderless coals.
7/10 I like the smell but points were dropped cause of inconvenience

Taste: If you allow the coals to become red all around, with no uncooked black remaining, these coals impart no taste or smell. My friend, on the other hand, is a lazy ass and will bring in almost lit coals, making the tobacco taste like mesquite (not bad with lamb flavor )
10/10

Burn Time: The large chunks last a good wile, longer if they just sit on the ash in the tray waiting, but once they start getting small, they burn up quick. I think they last as long as any other coals tho...if you get a good enough piece
9/10

Heat: Can be very hot! Takes some getting used to, coal arrangement is essential, not for noobs. Tho when I first tried natureal coals, I was on the beach and I found a hand full of burn wood, so I lit it and piled it on top of the bowl and it was amazing...
10/10

Comments:
Very clean, even the cleanest finger coals I used to use make me cough now cause it tastes "dirty." Ash is like powder, which kind of suxks cause it flies through the air easier, but only if you let it! If you pick up the coals and drop them to remove ash, you should be good.
Only use if it can be done outside in a chimminy or flut. If you can find a way around the smoke, you'll learn how wonderfull these are.
Cost effective (let's say this, I would go through a bag of coals in a week ($5 a week), this big bag has lasted over a month (plus parties) ($3 a week)), Home Depot has them, so no more "Crap is it after five on saturday?! The market is closed till monday!" garbage again.
What else...OH! I remember hearing somewhere that if the coal's ash is any color other than white (and maybe sometimes black?) then they have some foreign material (chemicals!) on them, these have always come up white (and sometimes black, the bark maybe?)
9.5/10

I hope someone out there tries these, I mean come on! Do you really think the hookah bars are importing lemon wood coals from the other side of the world for your puck ass? hell no! this is how they got paid for that S500! Edited January 23, 2008 by VDDZ