Manly Therapy… The Road Trip, Part II
I’m willing to bet my recent behavior could be analized pretty deeply by some sweater wearing deuchebag with a PHD from Harvard, but I’d much rather share my stories with The Mantuary’s faithful readers and save the $40 copay. I had to put my dog down last Monday and I’ve been doing all I can to keep my mind clear. And if I must say so, my “coping methods” have been pretty damn Manly. In the past 3 days alone, I drove 14 hours to get charcoal, smoked over 150 pounds of pork and cut my grass twice. The 14 hour drive was most fun so I’ll tell that tale and save the other 2 stories for later.
For quite some time, I’ve been pursuing the best lump charcoal out there. Price, quality, and burn time were some of the variables I considereed. I could go on about all different types of charcoal out there, but let me cut right to the chase: there is no amount of writing I could do here that would come close to the analysis already masterfully done by The Naked Whiz. That site is The Almanac of Lump charcoal information. If you cant find the answer to your lump charcoal question there, your not going to find it.
With the help of The Whiz and a touch of my own independednt testing, I narrowed my search down to 3 contenders and here is what I came up with:
Royal Oak- quality was middle ground. Not the best, but certainly better then the crap you get at Home Cheapo. It was also the cheapest coming in at $0.45/lb. To boot, I could pick it up from any number of local dealers.
Humphry’s- quality was tops! 100% domestic oak means long burn times and clean fires. Only draw backs was the expense at $0.90/lb and the closest dealer was an hour away.
Wicked Good- tied with Humphry’s in quality. Made from dense hardwoods means this stuff wont burn up like the tinder found in a bag of Cowboy. Wicked Good was a bit more expensive at $0.95/lb and the closest dealer was an hour away.
Upon further investigating, Humphry’s was made in Brookville, PA which was close enough for me to justify a road trip (a mere 5 hours away). I called the company and worked out a pallet price that came to $0.45/lb. Throw in a couple tanks of gas and I’d be getting a seasons worth of Humphry’s at Royal Oak prices! I mentioned this to a BBQ buddy and he jumped at the opportunity to get in on this deal!
Friday morning I woke up like a kid on Christmas at 04:00. Too excited to take a shower, I simply splashed my face and headed into work where I met my buddy. We picked up a 16′ box truck and were on the road by 05:00. We drove till 08:00 and stopped for coffee a fresh tin of Kodiak and topped off the tank with 30 gallons of diesel. We threw in a lipper and got back on the road.
At 09:30 we reached Humphry’s. We checked in with a young lady who prepared our paperwork. She confirmed the 2 pallets we reserved though it didnt take long for my buddy and I to justify getting 4 pallets instead of the 2 we had originally reserved. We didnt drive 300 miles for a measly 2 pallets. We doubled our order to 4 pallets and would worry about how to store it and what the Hens would say when we got home. After all, we had a 5 hour trip home to figure that out.
Paperwork in hand, at 09:40 we headed down an unpaved road leading to a wharehouse filled with pallets of lump. Kinda what I envision the gates of heaven to look like. We got out of the truck and met Pete who picked off 4 pallets of his best stuff. Each pallet had 15 @ 40 lb bags of lump. Thats 60 bags or 2400 lbs of charcoal for my buddy and I. The customer service was top notch: they even dusted off each pallet for us before loading.
By 10:15 we had a full load and headed home. We chuckled like 2 little school girls for the first hour. There is something pretty f’n exciting about hauling over a ton of charcoal for your personal use!
11:30 we were getting hungry and stopped at a “BBQ Joint” that advertised “Award Winning BBQ”. I really dont have anything nice to say about this place so I’ll keep from divulging its name. I did learn a few things that every Man should keep in mind when pursuing an authentic BBQ Joint: If there isn’t smoke billowing out of the back, it aint BBQ. If they are only getting $12.99 for a full rack of ribs, it aint BBQ. If your BBQ chicken comes out of a convection oven, it aing BBQ. I could go on…
12:45 we hit the road again and threw in another lipper. There is nothing like swapping stories with a chew and a bad case of heartburn.
16:30 I arrive home and unload my 2 pallets of charcoal. I took over an area of the garage and declared it my Mantuary (garage). Sure I already have my Mantuary (basement) but it was time I expand a little bit and declare another space of the house that is mine to do with what I want. After all, where else was I going to go with 1,200 lbs of charcoal?
Be A Man.
-The Founding Father
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When still cooking on a Traeger mobile unit we would buy a ton of pellets at a time. Now days with the catering company we have been known to buy a ton of American Kobe Brisket at a time then throw in a ton of butts just for good measure.
Good luck with the wife being happy about storing that much charcoal, been there! LOL