Editorial Policy

Coal & Charrecommends things people spend real money on, so the standards below are not decoration — they are the reason our advice is worth reading. This page states plainly how we keep the site accurate and what we refuse to do to it.

Accuracy standards

Every factual claim on the site traces back to a source we can point to. Product specifications — cooking area, materials, capacity, weight, warranty — come from the manufacturer’s or retailer’s own published listing, read on a dated visit. Every cooking temperature comes from USDA food-safety guidance, not from our own estimate. Where a figure genuinely isn’t published, we say so rather than guess. We do not fill gaps from memory, and we do not round a “probably” up into a fact. The full method behind our recommendations is on the how we pick page.

Corrections

We get things wrong sometimes, and when we do we want to fix it fast. If you spot an error — a wrong spec, an outdated temperature, a price that never made sense — email us through the contact page. We check the claim against its original source, and if you’re right, we correct the page and note that a correction was made. We treat corrections as a normal part of publishing, not an embarrassment to be buried.

How often we update

Different content ages at different speeds, so we review it on different clocks:

• Pricesare pulled live and are only trusted for a short window; a stale price expires and shows a “check price” prompt rather than a number we can no longer stand behind.
• Roundups and comparisons are reviewed at least quarterly, and sooner when a product is discontinued or replaced.
• How-to guides are reviewed at least twice a year to keep methods and temperatures current.

What we do not do

Some lines are bright, and we state them so you can hold us to them:

• No paid placements. No brand can pay for a recommendation, a higher spot on a list, or a kinder verdict. Our affiliate disclosure explains how the site is funded and why commission never moves a ranking.
• No free-product endorsements.We do not trade coverage for free gear, and we do not publish “sponsored” reviews dressed up as independent ones.
• No fabricated reviews, ratings, or testing claims.We are enthusiasts, not a test lab, and we never pretend otherwise. We do not invent star ratings or write “in our testing” about gear we have not cooked on.
• No fabricated prices.If a live price is unavailable, we show a “check price” prompt — we never type in a number to fill the space.

Who stands behind it

Everything on Coal & Char is written under a named human byline, with a clear who-we-are on the about page. If our standards ever seem to slip, the contact page is open and we’d genuinely rather hear it from you than not.