Weber Kettle Club Forums
Grill Talk => Weber Grill Forum (Grills, Accessories) => Topic started by: Lightning on July 02, 2018, 10:46:20 AM
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Today's the displaced holiday for Canada Day and I've got friends coming over for dinner, and I've got four racks of back ribs to go in the 22.5" WSM. I'm using Weber briquettes which I got on sale to fuel the WSM and while I was scooping them out of the bag during the setup, I pulled out a Royal Oak ridge briquette! Then I scooped out more briquettes to load up a chimney and I pulled out a second Royal Oak briquette! They're diminutive next to the Weber ones. If they are being made by Royal Oak, or the same manufacturer that makes Royal Oak, a packaging snafu could account for that.
I'm near the bottom of the bag of Weber briquettes so I'll try to take a look later to see if there's any more of the Royal Oak ones in there. But can anybody confirm they're being made by the same manufacturer?
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I just went back outside after this brief thunderstorm rolled through and lit up my chimney and checked the bag of Weber briquettes and there was a third Royal Oak one lurking in the bottom with the last of the Weber briquettes. Huh...learn something new every day...
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If that’s the case, this is pretty upsetting. The Weber Briquettes are supposed to be all natural and the Royal Oak Ridge are not. Gotta wonder how they would be intermixed.
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If that’s the case, this is pretty upsetting. The Weber Briquettes are supposed to be all natural and the Royal Oak Ridge are not. Gotta wonder how they would be intermixed.
My understanding was that Royal Oak briquettes are all natural and that Kingsford are not. In any event it is certainly possible to make more than one different product in the same plant with different ingredients. The cookie factory I used to work in made Chips Ahoy, ginger snaps, Bits & Bites and a bungx of other things and rarely was there ever a packaging snafu where things go crossed and rarer still for it not to get caught and make it out the door. Anyways, they moved it to Mexico a few years ago and bulldozed the place, so that's someone else's problem now!
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I’m also in the camp that RO briquettes are just wood and a binding agent.
I’m back to Stubbs and the occasional chimney of Lump. I guess I need to try the Walmart Western Lump.
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Interesting what Kingsford web site states about the original blue:
"Each briquet is made with natural ingredients and real wood"
I don't think anything has changed with Kingsford charcoal as it still stinks the same when you lite it, so I guess they all get away with saying natural. It means nothing to say natural, natural what?
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I wouldn’t doubt it. Royal oak seems to make darn near all generic store brands as well. I just ran across a generic Aldi brand that were distinctly royal oak shape. If there are more than 2 or three charcoal manufactures in the states I’d be surprised. Could be wrong. I do know the Weber stuff must be a special recipe because it cooks much different.
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On my last visit to the Weber restaurant in St. Louis during the tour the lead cook or whatever his title is told me that Weber bought some tooling/machines from RO and thats how they got into manufacturing their own. No way to confirm this, just going off what he said during the tour.
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I’ve bought 4 bags and, so far, no ridged briquettes.
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Now if I could only find my $5 ROR bags filled with Weber briquettes! Then, I’d consider that a jackpot!
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From Royal Oak at http://royal-oak.com/grilling-101/all-about-charcoal (http://royal-oak.com/grilling-101/all-about-charcoal)
"Our USA produced briquets are made from ground charcoal mixed and bound with cornstarch"
Looks like Royal Oak is sold as:
-Royal Oak Ridge
-Royal Oak Mesquite Ridge
-Steakhouse Premium
-Ole Diz Premium
-Great Lakes Briquets
-Grill Time Briquets
-Embers Ridge
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It seems like everyone but Kingsford has gotten rid of all the crap.
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Kingsford’s recipe has more ingredients but I don’t think it’s bad nor would I call it wholly unnatural.
Check out the link below.
http://virtualweberbullet.com/charcoal.html
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What's best about Kingsford it that it is cheap when it is on sale at places like HD, and when it is lit it performs well, it just stinks during ignition. I have to go in the house when I light the chimney to avoid breathing this. But it is hard not to buy it when the price is right. I do not use Kingsford when doing low and slow. To much crap in the smoke when it ignites. That crap is there even at lower temperature when the charcoal lights over a period of time, e.g snake method, etc. The guy from virtual bullet fails to see this.
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Kingsford’s recipe has more ingredients but I don’t think it’s bad nor would I call it wholly unnatural.
Check out the link below.
http://virtualweberbullet.com/charcoal.html
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I never said it was "unnatural". I said it was crap.
I find it intriguing how the vast majority of briquette producers manage to make a product with nothing but ground hardwood charcoal and starch , but kingsford has to add borax, coal dust, limestone powder...
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Royal Oak makes Weber?
If so? Great. RO makes a better product than Kingsford.
Chefs Select
All Natural
Lump
Ridge
I'll take any of those over any Kingsford product.
Kingsford is one of those familiar things for me that's hard to part with (but gets a lot easier everyday).
KBB is valuable for burning out my smokers. Other than that...Nuh uh. No mas! I won't cook with it unless I absolutely have to.
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Yes, Royal Oak makes Weber briquettes. I work with a guy who's dad works for Royal Oak. This post made me chuckle because we were just talking about it the other day. Weber's briquettes go through the same drying line/oven as Royal Oak bagged briquettes, so there is a very good chance of getting a few of one or the other in a bag at end of a run.
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Ah, ok. That's what I suspected, some unintentional crossover from multiple products being made on the same line or equipment.
I just dropped the three Royal Oak briquettes I found into a chimney full of them to fire up the Ranch for a load of burgers tonight.
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If you find a gold one, you get to tour the factory
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Well, they're mostly carbon, right? So if I squeeze one really hard, can I turn it into a diamond?
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If you find a gold one, you get to tour the factory
HAHAHHHAHA
I’ve never been too impressed with Weber Briquettes as I can’t really tell a difference, except for their price and them being hard as hell to light. However, I’ve heard people rave about Weber briqs because they burn longer and you can reuse partially burnt coals.
In my experience, Ive also been able to reuse RO Ridge on numerous occasions. Now knowing they’re made in the same factory, I bet Weber briquettes have the same formula as RO Ridge and only burn longer because their pillows are larger. Makes perfect sense to me.
It also makes sense cuz sometimes close out prices for Weber are $5/bag. They’re still making money at that price. And that price is ROR’s level. It seems to be simply marketing.
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So I did some research and holy shit, not only are Weber Briquettes made by Royal Oak, but Weber briquettes are the EXACT SAME THING as Royal Oak Ridge briquettes; they’re just pressed into a different shape. I looked through the SDS for ROR and WB, and all of the numbers match exactly. Knowing this, I don’t see why anyone would buy Weber Briquettes for $20 for 20# when you they could buy a 18# ROR bag for $5.
It’s just Marketing.
Maybe some of you knew this already but damn is it news to me!
Weber Briquettes SDS - https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/56/564a0876-847c-4380-bad5-637f6f1971fa.pdf
Royal Oak Ridge SDS (Menards) - https://www.menards.com/main/items/media/ROYAL004/SDS/CharcoalSDS.pdf
Embers (Home Depot) - https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/56/564a0876-847c-4380-bad5-637f6f1971fa.pdf
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Good work Schaefd2, From now on I buy RO.
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Good work Schaefd2, From now on I buy RO.
I mean I could be missing something, but it seems logical to me!
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Could be a typo on the home depot website also or a bad link to the SDS. I just emailed Weber and requested a copy of the SDS. If the home depot SDS is right the weber name should be on it somewhere. How else would you match it up in an emergency. It just seems too vague. I will share their response here when I get it.
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Just out of curiosity, how does the Kingsford SDS compare to Weber and Royal Oak SDS?
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Embers is a Royal Oak brand that sells at lower prices. It would not surprise me that it is the same consistency as Royal Oak charcoal. It is unlikely that Weber has a charcoal production facility and it is more likely that the Weber name is used under contract with a major brand that has a huge production capacity. It is also more than likely any company making charcoal would find it more profitable to crunch the same shit into different molds rather than make different blends of shit.
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All I know is I've pretty much always just used KBB but stocked up on the Royal Oak at Lowes when it was $4/bag. I've been using since May pretty much exclusively and just ran out. Opened my first bag of KBB in a long time and I cant believe how much I hate it! The amount of smoke it generates while starting up is ridiculous. I cant believe it went un-noticed by me until I used something else for a long time, but wow.
I thought maybe I was crazy for liking the "cheapo" stuff vs the good ol standby used by pretty much everyone for ages. But if royal oak/weber being the same can be confirmed that'll pretty much make me want to use royal oak exclusively!
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But if royal oak/weber being the same can be confirmed that'll pretty much make me want to use royal oak exclusively!
I’m already there! Except for Western lump
Could be a typo on the home depot website also or a bad link to the SDS.
Im interested to know if it is a bad link. The supplier is RO, they just put it in different bags and probably, different molds.
Just out of curiosity, how does the Kingsford SDS compare to Weber and Royal Oak SDS?
Kingsford SDS is totally different than Weber/ROR/Embers. For starters, the Supplier is listed as the Clorox company.... I guess that explains the weird smell!!
https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/30/306f43cd-104e-4eb8-a56a-b71b7b6bf2b8.pdf
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But if royal oak/weber being the same can be confirmed that'll pretty much make me want to use royal oak exclusively!
I’m already there! Except for Western lump
I unfortunately stocked up on quite a few bags of KBB when it was just on sale!
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Wonder why the royal oak sheets all say "trade secret" and not actually what's in it?
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I only know from my limited experiences with both RO (regular, "ridge") and Weber charcoals. They perform vastly different. I struggle to see how the briquet shape and minor size difference accounts for that.
For me, RO is basically smaller KBB that doesn't stink quite as much during startup. The smaller briquets don't (can't ... ) last as long as KBB during a cook. I may give it another try however.
The Weber does seem to require a bit more startup time, but lasts longer, if not also somewhat hotter? And there's no comparison to being able to reuse the Weber briqs.
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I'll share a random anecdote. My Tacoma has Old Man Emu Nitrocharger shocks. OME is an Australian company that sells kickass offload shocks, springs etc. My understanding is that the Nitrochargers are made by Monroe (in Australia) to OME's specs, and there is no Monroe equivalent. Point being, if you throw a manufacturer some cash, they WILL make a custom product for you that's better than what they sell under their own brand name. It happens.
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They perform very different. Ro and Weber. I do think it has a lot to do with size shape and possibly density. Just a hunch on why
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I got my SDS from Weber this morning. It is different than the one on the Home Depot website. The manufacturer is still Royal Oak but the ingredient list is different. The Royal Oak has 4 ingredients the Weber has 2. There is also nothing listed under carcinogens. Where on the Royal Oak there is.
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Weber SDS
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Well there ya go.
Now, what about Stubbs? Or even, the higher-end Kingsford?
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So I did some research and holy shit, not only are Weber Briquettes made by Royal Oak, but Weber briquettes are the EXACT SAME THING as Royal Oak Ridge briquettes; they’re just pressed into a different shape. I looked through the SDS for ROR and WB, and all of the numbers match exactly. Knowing this, I don’t see why anyone would buy Weber Briquettes for $20 for 20# when you they could buy a 18# ROR bag for $5.
It’s just Marketing.
Maybe some of you knew this already but damn is it news to me!
Weber Briquettes SDS - https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/56/564a0876-847c-4380-bad5-637f6f1971fa.pdf
Royal Oak Ridge SDS (Menards) - https://www.menards.com/main/items/media/ROYAL004/SDS/CharcoalSDS.pdf
Embers (Home Depot) - https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/56/564a0876-847c-4380-bad5-637f6f1971fa.pdf
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Does that mean they are the same? I don't necessarily draw that conclusion. Put another way. If they use the same proprietary binder for every style of briquette, how many different MSD sheets/data sets are needed to explain the chemical makeup of carbon....or wood? Not saying they are or aren't. I'm just saying think about the data objectively from a reporting standpoint.
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Does that mean they are the same? ...
Nope:
I got my SDS from Weber this morning. It is different than the one on the Home Depot website. The manufacturer is still Royal Oak but the ingredient list is different. The Royal Oak has 4 ingredients the Weber has 2. There is also nothing listed under carcinogens. Where on the Royal Oak there is.
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Thanks ATS...
I was 20 seconds behind on that post.
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Well in the end I would hope they're not identical considering Weber claims to use no binder and Royal Oak advertises they use cornstarch.
Now, is it possible that the added binder in the Royal Oak is the only real difference between the two?
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Bottom line:
Same cook
Different recipes
I’d love to see the Stubbs MSDS posted. Still my all time favorite fuel.
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I just sent in a request to Stubbs charcoal for an SDS we'll see what they say.
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Awesome!!
I’m glad Weber’s SDS explains they’re different!
I felt kinda betrayed by Weber there for a second....
I’m glad the recipe is different.
But I’m still not spending $20/bag :)
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I love the smell of Borax in the morning ...
SJ