I am glad you brought this back up.
I searched for it the other day and couldn't find it.
I've been complaining to the wife all winter. (Yes, I grill more with snow on the ground than in the summer.)
All brands of charcoal that are available locally have gone to crap.
Last week, I picked up some basic Kingsford again, just to see if maybe the previous two bags were a fluke. They were not. This bag was absolute garbage, as well.
Nothing. Nothing that I have bought within the last two years has been worth its weight in cat vomit.
I don't know where to go from here.
Even my last bag of Olde Eynsford was not charcoal, it was charred knots with a ton of moisture and raw wood inside. So disappointing.
(If you don't know Olde Eynsford, they were a black powder company that shut down last year. Since charcoal is a major ingredient for BP, they were really good at producing very high quality lump charcoal. "Were" I guess.)