Lump Charcoal: Worth it or Not?

If you read most of the high-profile grilling cookbooks - Steven Raichlen's Barbecue! Bible and How to Grill, Weber's Way to Grill and Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jaime Purviance, Adam Perry Lang's recent and interesting Charred and Scruffed - the author usually insists that one should really grill only over lump charcoal.

I've started to wonder if that's really useful advice.  I'm not going to lie: I questioned the advice because I'm cheap, and lump charcoal is expensive.  I'd rather get a giant bag of briquettes at Costco for $10 than a small 8.8lb bag of the lump stuff for about the same.  But does lump charcoal really improve flavor or the grilling process?

Over the past few months, I've grilled flatiron steaks and asparagus over three types of charcoal:,  Kingsford's Competition Briquettes (my good-value Costco score), Kingsford's blue-bag Original briquettes, and one over some Cowboy brand mesquite lump charcoal.  I grilled the steak first, then the vegetables, to test the longevity of the heat source.  I used the same quantity of charcoal each time and ignited it with a chimney starter.

The results were essentially identical in flavor; charcoal is charcoal, really, and any interesting volatiles that would lend a distinct mesquite flavor to the meat were burned off as it smoldered.  The mesquite sparked and crackled violently as I cooked, which could suggest that there were still pockets of sap and so forth, but it wasn't apparent in the flavor. 

Lump charcoal required a slightly different and more mindful grilling approach, I noticed. The lump charcoal burned hot but lost heat quickly, and the asparagus took longer to cook.  The sear on the steak's surface, however, was excellent, as the amount of heat the lump charcoal was throwing off was truly impressive.  It required more frequent turning, however, and as smaller pieces of charcoal burned out, hot spots developed across the grill surface.   In contrast, the briquettes threw off a lot less heat throughout the process, but their heat delivery was uniform and long-lasting; I could even grill peaches for dessert later. There were no hotspots.  It took notably longer to grill a steak over the Kingsford Originals, and I could hold my hand over the fire a full second longer, so they were burning much cooler than the lump charcoal or the Competition variety.

Lump charcoal is purer than the Kingsford Original briquettes, which are pressed from a variety of miscellaneous woods and are amended with saltpeter, sawdust, mineral carbon, and other additives.  The Original briquettes smoke more than lump charcoal on ignition and can still throw off some smoke as you grill - this can result in off, acrid flavors.  The Kingsford Competition Briquette uses only wood char and starch, and so they burn just about as clearly as the lump charcoal I used.  They didn't smoke a bit once they were red-hot.  The Originals also left a substantial heap of white ash after they were fully combusted, whereas the Competitions and lump charcoal left substantially less.

My verdict?  Lump charcoal delivers clean, high heat, but it's less predictable and uniform than briquettes.  For some, that added challenge will be fun, and its high heat can be very useful.  It doesn't add much flavor, so don't let that make your decision. For everyday grilling, the Kingsford Competition briquette delivers predictable, uniform, and very high heat, sell for cheaper, and last longer, and they're my pick over lump charcoal.  The Kingsford Original will do in a pinch, but it's cool burning and occasional smoking aren't ideal - so if you don't use lump charcoal, step up to a less amended briquette like Competition, Stubb's, or Trader Joe's, which burn cleaner.