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When it's time to fire up your charcoal grill, you're going to need fuel to get it going, and in general, you're going to have to choose between briquette and lump charcoal. While briquette charcoal is more commonly sold in stores, many grilling enthusiasts prefer lump charcoal, which is made by burning pieces of hardwood in an airtight environment to remove moisture, sap, and impurities. What you're left with is pure charcoal that responds extremely well to oxygen, making it easy to control the heat on your grill.
If you're ready to give this type of charcoal a try, here are the best lump charcoals to cook with.
Best Overall: Jealous Devil All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal
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Flavor is smooth and mild
Packaging keeps pieces dry
Lights quickly and heats consistently
Expensive
One of the top-selling points for this charcoal is the re-designed bag that protects the charcoal better in shipping, so there are more larger pieces and less dust and residue. It’s a small thing, but it makes a difference when fire hits the coal.
The coal itself is made from South American hardwoods that users say is similar to oak, but lacking the unpleasant bitterness that sometimes creeps in. The flavor is smooth and mild, so it won’t overpower the flavor of your food, even with long, slow cooking. The wood is purposely selected for coal making and is hand-cut and hand-fired in brick kilns built onsite for that purpose. The largest and most intact lumps are chosen for sale, for a consistent product in each bag.
This wood also sparks less than some other types, so it’s a bit safer and less dramatic to light and use.
Best Budget: Royal Oak All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal
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Easy to light
Burns very hot
Affordable
Quality is inconsistent
Royal Oak Lump Charcoal is affordable and is great for new users who are just getting used to the fuel, and it’s also popular with experienced grillers who like the smoky flavor. This is made from oak, hickory, maple, and walnut.
This offers more smoke than some other brands, can be easier to light, but it also can burn slightly faster. Some users have found that the quality can be inconsistent with bits of rock or metal appearing in the bottom of the bag, although many other users have had no issues at all.
Best Value: Rockwood All-Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal
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Easy to light and burns long
Pleasant flavor
Eco-friendly
Inconsistent quality
While not the least expensive lump charcoal you can buy, this is highly rated by users, and buying multiple bags at a time often reduces the price-per-item significantly, so it’s a great value for those who will be doing a lot of grilling or barbecuing. It has consistently been voted the best by websites and chefs, and it’s often used by competitive barbecue teams.
This charcoal is made from hardwoods harvested in Missouri and includes oak and hickory as the majority of the product, along with some maple and pecan wood. This boasts a rich aroma from woods that offer a desirable flavor in the smoke, adding a pleasant flavor to the food. The wood is not purposely cut for charcoal. Instead, it is leftover wood that was cut for other uses, so it’s good for the environment as well as for your grill.
Best for Beginners: Cowboy All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal
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Burns hot and long
Smoky flavor with no off-notes
Made from renewable resources
Some say there are too many small chips in a bag
Made from a mix of hardwoods including oak, hickory, and maple, this is a great charcoal for folks who are just starting to dabble with lump charcoal, and for all those times when a premium charcoal isn’t needed. While it’s not the least expensive lump charcoal you’ll find, the price is reasonable for everyday grilling, whether it’s burgers, ribs, or a roast.
This charcoal burns hot and fast when needed for excellent searing, and has the longevity needed for low and slow cooking as well. It imparts a smoky flavor to food without any off-notes, for the perfect grilling experience every time. Kind to the environment, this is made from renewable resources. This is a 20-pound bag, so there’s plenty for family grilling and for parties.
Many customers are happy with the quality of the charcoal and that it burns very hot, but some say they found a lot of small-sized bits in the bag that either burn too quickly or fall through the grate.
Best for Big Green Egg: Harder Charcoal 100 Percent Natural XL Restaurant Style Barbecue Grilling Lump Charcoal
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Burns long
Produces minimal sparking
Easy to control temperature
Smaller pieces than expected
Made from South American quebracho wood, nicknamed “axe breaker” because of its hardness, wood for this charcoal is harvested without cutting down any living trees, making it very environmentally friendly. This works well for any charcoal grill, but specifically for kamado-style grills, like the Big Green Egg, Kamado Joe, and others that retain heat for long, low-and-slow cooking as well as high heat applications.
This charcoal produces minimal sparking for safer lighting and grilling, and minimal smoke, while imparting just the right flavor. This is a 33-pound bag, so it’s bigger than most, so you’ll have plenty for summer grilling, winter grilling, family dinners, and parties. Users complimented it for its responsiveness to airflow changes for heat control and the long-lasting fire for slow cooking.
Best Multi-Sized Chunks: Kamado Joe Big Block XL Lump Charcoal
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Burns clean with flavorful smoke
Includes many large chunks
Comes in a box that's easy to store
Some lumps are too big and have to be broken down
Made from Guayacan, Guayaibi, Mistal and White Quebracho hardwoods from Argentina, known as “axe breakers” because of their hardness, this wood is roasted in outdoor ovens to create the lump charcoal. The result is clean-burning wood with flavorful smoke.
Packed in a box rather than a bag to protect the charcoal during shipping, according to users, this includes pieces in a variety of sizes, with large pieces filling the box, and medium and small pieces as well. While some users prefer to use all large pieces for long cooking sessions, the smaller pieces light faster and are good for quicker cooking foods like steaks and burgers, since there’s no need to extinguish large pieces to save them for later cooking.
Best Bamboo: CHARBLOX Dragon Fire Bamboo Charcoal Logs
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Burns hotter than typical lump charcoal
Great for long, slow cooking
Takes a while to light
Charblox is a unique charcoal product that’s used like lump charcoal, but is also similar to charcoal briquettes, since it’s formed into a specific shape. It’s a less-expensive alternative to Japanese Binchotan charcoal, and great for any kind of grilling. Made from recycled sawdust, it turns a waste item into something useful, without the need to harvest trees. The unique shape makes this easier to stack and arrange for perfect heat distribution, no matter what type of grill is used.
This version of Charblox is a mix of woods along with bamboo that can burn hotter than typical lump charcoal, but also has the ability to burn for up to six hours, for long, slow cooking sessions. Packed in a box, this is less likely to suffer damage in shipping, so you’ll get larger pieces with less dust and crumbs. This is 11 pounds of charcoal. A less expensive version of Charblox without the bamboo is also available.
Users were happy with how consistently and long this product burns once lit, but several say that the logs take longer to light than typical lump charcoal.
Best Flavor: Fogo Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal
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Gives food superior flavor
Lights easily
Different size chunks
Not ideal for long smoking sessions
If you want to impart the most flavor into your steaks, ribs, and other grilled foods, the Fogo Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal is well-regarded for its superior flavor. This lump charcoal is made from all-natural hardwood oak trimmings with no other ingredients added, and you can definitely tell the difference in the taste of your food.
This lump charcoal lights up easily and is generally hot enough to grill in 15 minutes. It provides a long burn time that's ideal for everyday grilling and short smoking sessions, and its pieces come in two different sizes—70 percent of each bag is made up of medium-sized pieces that are 2 to 3 inches in size, and the remaining 30 percent are small pieces between 1 and 2 inches in size.
We chose the Jealous Devil All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal for the top spot due to smooth, inoffensive flavor and how quickly and consistently it heats up. Plus, it doesn't spark as much as other products. If you're on a budget or are new to charcoal grilling, go for the Royal Oak All Natural Hardwood Lump Charcoal. It's easy to light, burns hot, and produces a great smoky flavor.
What to Look for When Buying Lump Charcoal
Sources and quality
Make sure the lump charcoal is made of hardwood that was sourced sustainably (look for the Rainforest Alliance or other compliance regulations on rainforest destruction on the packaging). In terms of quality, good lump charcoal is composed of 100 percent pure, all-natural hardwood with no fillers, additives, or binders. There also shouldn't be a lot of sparking.
Flavor
A bag of lump charcoal typically consists of a mixture of hardwoods (usually oak, beech, and ash) as opposed to one species. But different hardwood species provide different flavor profiles: lighter woods (e.g., maple) impart a sweeter, lighter flavor, which is better for cooking white meat; darker woods (oak, hickory) impart a stronger flavor that's ideal for red meat. Note that it's difficult to find single-species lump; you'll usually find them in the form of briquettes.
Burning temperature
Each species of hardwood lump charcoal burns at different temperatures. For example, apple burns at 1190 degrees Fahrenheit, while maple burns at 1200. This means you'll have to vent your fire differently depending on the makeup of your charcoal, so take this into account.
Size
High-quality bags of lump charcoal will have mostly large, uniform wood-shaped pieces; the larger they are, the longer and hotter they burn. Also, make note of the amount of charcoal dust at the bottom of the bag; these are useless for grilling and can cause excessive sparking.
Why Trust The Spruce Eats?
When it comes to charcoal-grilled burgers and home-smoked bacon, you can bet The Spruce Eats writer and cookbook author Donna Currie knows her stuff. Check out reviews on two charcoal-burning products she's tested for us that got high marks: the Char-Griller AKORN Kamado Charcoal Grill and the Weber Smokey Mountain 18-Inch Smoker.