Beef ribs searing over open flames on a grill

Coal Hollow Smoke Co. · Est. 1998

Smoked in Scranton

Sauce · Rub · Wood · Tools

Four sauces from Mild to Inferno, rubs that build real bark, and hickory we split ourselves. Bottled behind the house on Birney Avenue and packed in a wooden crate.

Shop the smokehouseMeet Stosh

The heat meter

Pick your heat

Four sauces, one recipe book. Slide the meter from Mild to Inferno and the bottle changes with the flame.

Kids eat it. Grandma puts it on kielbasa.

Sweet tomato and molasses with a cider bite. No heat at all, just smoke and tang.

The one we pour on everything.

Brown sugar up front, chipotle behind it. A warm finish that fades in a minute.

Bring a cold drink.

Smoked cayenne over hickory. It climbs for ten seconds, then holds.

We warned you on the label.

Ghost pepper and black garlic. One drop per wing. Sign the guestbook at the counter.

Red tomato barbecue sauce in a glass jar beside fresh tomatoes

Sauces

Mine Shaft Mild

$9.50

16 oz bottle · tomato, molasses, cider vinegar

Chicken wing dipped into a pot of glossy barbecue sauce

Sauces

Breaker Boy Medium

$9.50

16 oz bottle · brown sugar, chipotle, mustard

Hot barbecue sauce poured from a cup over fried chicken wings

Sauces

Hot Coal Hickory

$10.50

16 oz bottle · smoked cayenne, hickory smoke

Dark sticky barbecue sauce pooled around a chicken drumstick on brown paper

Sauces

Culm Bank Inferno

$12.00

12 oz bottle · ghost pepper, black garlic

Dry rubs

Bark starts in the shaker

Coarse pepper for brisket, paprika and ancho for ribs. We grind on Mondays and fill the shakers by hand, so nothing sits on a shelf for months.

Sliced brisket with a dark peppery bark on a wooden board
Black Diamond on a fourteen-pound packer, eleven hours on oak.
See all four rubs
Wooden spoon heaped with red paprika rub

Rubs

Cinder Rib Rub

$11.00

12 oz shaker · paprika, ancho, brown sugar

Off the pit wall

The apron and thermometer we hang by the smoker every Saturday, sold as we use them.

Pitmaster trimming a large cut of meat beside an offset smoker
Saturday, 5:40 a.m. Brisket number three goes on.
Pitmaster in denim overalls and a cap working beside a smoking steel smoker

The pitmaster

Stosh lights the pit at four

Stosh Maciejewski welded rail cars for twenty-two years, then started smoking pork shoulders in a 55-gallon drum behind his mother's house. The neighbors kept bringing jars. His daughter Lidka now runs the bottling line, and Stosh still tastes every batch off a wooden spoon.

“If the smoke is white and thick, walk away and fix your fire.”

Read his story

Questions at the counter

Ask the pit

What people ask us most over the counter on Saturdays. Anything else, write to us and Lidka answers the same day.

Write to the pit
How fast does a crate ship?

We pack on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Most of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey get it in two days; the West Coast in four or five. Shipping is $9 flat and free over $75.

Which sauce do I start with?

Breaker Boy Medium. It works on pork, chicken and brisket, and it is mild enough for a crowd. If people ask for more heat, put Hot Coal on the table next to it.

Is your wood dry enough to smoke with?

Chunks and chips are kiln-dried to about 15 percent moisture. Oak splits are seasoned nine months under a roof, so they light clean and burn blue.

Can I pick up in Scranton?

Yes. Order online and choose counter pickup, or just walk in Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 1120 Birney Avenue.