Can Lump Charcoal Be Too Big?

[Robot]

We all hate opening a bag of charcoal to find crumbs and dust, but I recently bought a bag of Jumbuck charcoal which has some absolute whoppers inside. About 50% of the pieces are as long as the bag is wide, so about 30cm long with diameters up to 10cm. At first I was concerned that such large pieces would not be carbonised all the way through, so I sawed the largest pieces in half and was happy to see that they were uniform and had no unconverted wood.

Before I use these for the first time, I want to ask whether individual lumps can be too big for certain cooking methods? I would be using this charcoal in a Dragon kamado. It only took two strokes of the saw to split the large pieces, so it's an easy problem to fix if need be.

[titch]

I would be cutting them down, Better temp control I reckon.
No scientific proof though,just trial and error

[Davo]

Yeah when the charcoal makers make the charcoal, they place all branches and sawed down chunks into pits to smoulder for a long time,I guess they figure if it fits into the bag...it's a good size, the last thing a charcoal provider wants is to have lots of crumbs in the bag, often charcoal will get pulverised in bags when it's packed on pallets and /or moved around a lot.

If it's too big...just cut it down to more the desired size.

Cheers

Davo