re: What’s the best briquette charcoal for smoking a pork butt?

IMO mesquite is stronger than oak but I haven't used the B&B lump yet to answer your question.

You're right about mesquite. The mesquite lump is one of the only items that I don't use from B&B. They also make a competition charlog. It's basically ground or powdered lump reformed into uniform cylinders. It burns really hot.

I use the Kingsford brand in the big blue bag. A lot of time places like Home Depot, Lowes and Costco put them on sale for somewhere around $14 for the 2 pack of large bags and that's when I pick up a few to carry me over.

I have one of those bullet type smokers with the charcoals on the bottom, water container and 2 racks above that and I smoked a 10 lb. pork butt last week. I filled the charcoal pan after using the charcoal starter chimney to get some coals really going well. The first set of coals lasted over 6 hours before I had to add a few more to finish things off. I used hickory as my wood.

I wrapped it for the last 3 hours or so to keep it nice and moist while it finished off. It pulled apart so nicely and the blade bone pulled out with no effort.

A popular combo at steak cookoffs is equal amounts of the charlogs and the oak briquettes, setup for 2 zone.
IMO, real post oak has an amazing smell while burning.

Update: I wasn’t able to smoke anything last weekend. However, I’ve been grilling with Royal Oak, and it seems to be doing just fine. It seems to keep heat well and can easily achieve high temperatures. I ran the Weber kettle up to 550 degrees with a full chimney of coals the other day.

The only “downside” I’ve found is that Royal Oak does not impart much of a smoky flavor compared to Kingsford blue bag, so I’ve added hickory chunks where necessary.

With that said, I just bought another 15 lb bag of Royal Oak for $3.99. It’s definitely cost effective, especially when it’s on sale.

I am interested in the B&B brand, as I’d prefer to keep it as natural as possible. I don’t mind that it’s pricier than Royal Oak.

I plan to grill lamb chops tonight. I plan to smoke some wings next week, and then do a pork butt sometime after that before college foosball season begins. I will update again once the wings and butt are complete, and report on how quickly the coals burned and their overall performance.