A few years ago I spent maybe 4 months researching a smoker. If I was going to spend my hard earned scrilla I wanted to make sure I got a decent pit. During my travels around the nation (via my office chair & a computer) I ran across some neat information. Here’s something I kept hid away and ran into it recently. It’s the story of how Kingsford Charcoal Briquets came into being, and a few added comments from Kit Anderson, Top Pitmaster …
Subject: *** Charcoal – Creation Story (Kingsford) – Courtesy Of Kit Anderson
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 01:19:31 GMT
From: Mikey Lulejian
Organization: “American By Birth …. SOUTHERN By The Grace Of God !”
Newsgroups: alt.food.barbecue
This was posted on the BBQ Porch BBQ email list about a year ago,
by a well-respected Pitmaster, Kit Anderson.
The-BBQ-Porch@egroups.com
I hope it helps a few of y’all.
Mikey
=======================
Here’s the original mail I received from Kingsford.
Thank you for asking about KINGSFORD charcoal briquets.
Nobody knows when or where charcoal was invented, but traces of
it have been discovered in archeological digs of Neanderthal
sites, and cavemen used it to draw pictures of mastodons and
other early animals. The modern charcoal briquet was invented
by automaker Henry Ford. Ford operated a sawmill in the forests
around Iron Mountain, Michigan, in the years prior to 1920 to
make wooden parts for his Model T. As the piles of wood scraps
began to grow, so did Ford’s eagerness to find an efficient way
of using them. He learned of a process developed and patented by
an Orin F. Stafford. The process involved chipping wood into
small pieces, converting it into charcoal, grinding the charcoal
into powder, adding a binder and compressing the mix into the
now-familiar, pillow-shaped briquet. By 1921, a charcoal-making
plant was in full operation.
E. G. Kingsford, a lumberman who owned one of Ford’s earliest
automobile sales agencies and was distantly related, briefly
served as manager of the briquet operation. A company town was
built nearby and named Kingsford. In 1951, an investment group
bought the plant, and renamed the business the Kingsford Chemical
Company, and took over operations. Its successor, The Kingsford
Products Company, was acquired by The Clorox Company of Oakland,
California, in 1973.
Today, KINGSFORD charcoal is manufactured from wood charcoal,
anthracite coal, mineral charcoal, starch, sodium nitrate,
limestone, sawdust, and borax. The wood and other high-carbon
materials are heated in special ovens with little or no air. This
process removes water, nitrogen and other elements, leaving almost
pure carbon. The briquets do not contain petroleum or any
petroleum by-products. KINGSFORD charcoal briquets with mesquite
contain the same high-quality ingredients as KINGSFORD, but with
the addition of real mesquite wood throughout.
Manufacturing briquets begins with preparing the wood charcoal
using one of the following methods:
Retort processing — Waste wood is processed through a large
furnace with multiple hearths (called a retort) in a
controlled-oxygen atmosphere. The wood is progressively
charred as it drops from one hearth to the next.
Kiln processing — The waste wood is cut into slabs and stacked
in batches in a kiln that chars the wood in a controlled-oxygen
atmosphere.
Once the wood charcoal is prepared, it is crushed and combined
with the other ingredients, formed into pillow-shaped briquets
and dried. The advantage of using charcoal over wood is that
charcoal burns hotter with less smoke.
I hope this information is helpful to you. Again, thank you
for your interest in The Kingsford Products Company.
Jessica D. Jago
Product Specialist
**********************************
Let’s see …
1. Wood charcoal. That’s what you thought you were buying.
Then these nice folks throw in all this other stuff for free!!
2. Anthracite. Gives you black lung disease should you decided to
take up snorting the stuff.
3. Mineral charcoal. They don’t know what it is either but this
was a good way to get rid of it.
4. Starch. Makes sure there are no wrinkles in the charcoal
pillows.
5. Sodium nitrate. Found in the back of Bear’s truck outside of
rib joints that boil their meat first. Must be there for that
nice slow burn you need for things like Federal buildings.
6. Limestone. Should you decide to sprinkle it on your lawn
instead of cook with it.
7. Sawdust. Just like wood…only smaller.
8. Borax. For washing your mule team.
No petroleum products ?
How come it smells like a Texaco station ?
Must be the secret spices.
Kit
—
“Just An Old SWEET Song …. Keeps GEORGIA On MY Mind !”
Z. wants to know where the pictures are for this article, dood.
I ain’t got none. It’s just a text file.
I don’t buy this story for a minute. That Kingsford stuff is all cancerous waste chemicals.
Jebs
Shawn-da-lay!
Oh Jebbers, you foo. That was the point of the story. Did you read the comments at the end? Cancerous waste chemicals !!
Please can you give the formulas for creating charcoal and how it is manufactured by kingsford i am interested indoing same in nigeria.
Thank you and may God bless you
hmm..I’ll bet the folks who think Kingsford smells like ‘A Texaco Station’ and that it has ‘Cancerous waste chemicals’ have neither ever opened a bag of Kingsford (it smells like nothing – and I’m not talking about Match-light…that’s got lighter fluid added), or don’t know their chemistry from their IPod (dude). Ever see the chemical content of an apple? A Broccoli stalk? Know what glucosinolates are? or sulforaphane? More than likely you’re emotionally driven treehugging social_ists – oops, that was redundant…
Learn the facts, or at least experience something in life (besides your parent’s basement) before you criticize it.
Hey Peter,
Emotionally driven? Yeah, I would go for that.
I don’t believe it fair to make someone spend 4 years college to be able to say they don’t like to use charcoal briquettes when cooking food and what the exhaust smells like to them.
My smoker has never seen kingsford and the smells it emits, even when not fired up, are wonderful and rich. My neighbor uses briquets and his has a nasty sulfer type smell and I don’t ever want to eat anything off of it.
I know the “shit posting” sounds infantile, I’ll agree. But we’re in our 40s and don’t have any use for Ipods. I’ve been grilling and smoking for 24 years and moved out of the basement on my own at 17.
So, I’ve experienced many things in life and still don’t like charcoal briquettes. But that’s what cool about living in this country. It’s okay for you to like them and for me to hate them. It’s okay for me to spew hate at them and it’s okay for you to hate me for hating charcoal briquettes.
It’ll all be over soon anyway, we’ll probably have wood & briquttes outlawed very soon, just as Southern California has done.
Have a cool beverage, fire up the grill (whatever fuel it uses) and enjoy.
Biggles
I was googling for the ingredients in charcoal and your site came up near the top (yay!)
I read a bit about grilling in the Portland, Oregonian’s FoodDay section a few months ago. I was interested in “remembering” what all went into charcoal briquets.
That article led me to buy some REAL charcoal, which while more expensive is much better to cook with than gas or briquets.
I’ve only bought one bag so far, but it lights easier, burns hotter, and lasts longer. That works for me!
Hey Jason,
Thanks for stopping by, very nice.
Did you notice that your food, when cooking directly over, doesn’t burn nearly as fast? You can leave your food over the heat for far longer and not turn the chicken in to a biscuit.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
Biggles
I would like to make my own briquets using natural ingrediants.
I would like to acquire equipment to make such briquets say atleast a couple hundred pounds every day. I would also need the drying process and equipment.
I am sure some one could help me to start on a pilot scale.
Mohan
Hey Mohan,
Ya know, I got no idea. But you’ve got your email address up there, so at least if someone does they can contact you. I wish you good luck!
Actual story is a bit different. EG Kingsford was an engineer, and brother-in-law to Henry Ford. Up until the mid 50’s the only place to buy Kingsford charcoal was at a local Ford Dealer. When company was moved to Louisville, KY they began to place it in supermarkets. The first was Dominics in Chicago. First briquets were ground charcoal with corn starch as the binder. Then coal was added in small amounts to extend and level out the heat curve. Clorox experimented with different coals and percentages of wood charcoal. In early 80’s there were about 9 different manufacturers of charcoal briquets, now there are just a few. Quality has certinally gone down, but Kingsford is still very well made, and safe. Gas grills have been the downfall of briquet sales. But, charcoal is radiant heat and gas/propane is “wet” heat. Lots of moisture released when you burn gas. There is a difference in the taste between the two because of it. Mohan, manufacturing equipment is very expensive, takes up a lot of room and uses a lot of energy. To be efficient, a plant needs to produce at least 50,000 tons annually.
I am looking for an all natural mesquite briquet formula. Would anyone have anything?
Hey Walter,
I don’t. Why don’t you just use mesquite?
Biggles
Hey Biggles I live in Burnside Ky about 2 miles from kingsford charcoal plant I was looking for some kind of air quality about the plant and we also have a coal fired power plant in Burnside so I wonder how our air is. My dad had a trucking business that hauled charcoal. The plant is big and always has a big fire burning. I have unloaded trucks there when the load wasnt on pallets sodium nitrate 44000 pounds on a truck.
Hey Jim,
You need to call your local Air Quality Management District and see if they have any information for you. See what the scoop is!
Biggles
Can I use charcoal briquets for my orchids or are there chemicals in them which could harm the plants. David.
Hey David,
If you need charcoal for your orchids, don’t use briquettes. Talk with your local plant store and/or use the charcoal one might find at a fish tank store. That’s pure charcoal and shouldn’t hurt nuttin’.
Biggles
who was kinsfords wife? how was he connected to henry ford?