Just picked up a 20lb box of this from my boys at
BBQ Island.
I am using it to grill some ribeyes for mom's day tomorrow. I will post some pics and an overall review later tomorrow.
We will see if it tops my current favorite, Ozark Oak also purchased from BBQ Island.
Instead of a bag this stuff comes in a box. Rather fancy for my taste but I am sure it ships well. The contents of the box is a apple/maple mix. I thought this would give a strange flavor to the meat but it turned out great.
When I opened the box I was expecting to find a lot of soot based on the size but there was none.
As you can see each of these pieces are very similar in size. The contents of the entire box were almost simtetrical. Some were a little bigger than the pieces I am holding but none were really smaller. Each one was probably the size of briquette. This similar in size characteristic made the lighting of a chimminey full of charcoal extremely fast. I would say the entire chiminey was lit in about 8-10 minutes. This is probably about 5 minutes faster than any other charcoal I have fired which is a definite plus.
During the cook the Real Montana burned hot. Not as hot as the Ozark, or Diablo, but it burned hot enough for a real good sear on the steaks. I used about 3 chiminey fulls for 15 steaks (My grill is very deep I designed it so the next version will be shallower). When the cook was done I probably had about a bowl full of ash which I thought was a plus as well.
Overall I like the Real Montana. The best things about it are its uniform size and the amount of ash it leaves behind. The heat it gives off is not a drawback even though it does not burn as hot as some other brands. This could be because of the size of the pieces but I will have to do some more experimenting to know for sure.
If you like lump I would definitely suggest picking up a box or two (I will be going back for another because I know this stuff will go fast) from BBQ Island. They also sell it in a grocery type bag as well but I grill so much during this part of the year the box works best for me.
