To start I should say my Cubex are from last spring witch makes them part of the bad batch, that said,I through in some N.A.pellets and they seem to be much hotter than the Cubex.They both produce a lot of ash, my Cubex keep my glass cleaner and it does burn hot, I'm surprised at how hot these N.A.'s are. I hope Cubex has fixed it's issues that caused the spring batch to be substandard , they should never be out done by big box store pellets, but it seems they have in my case.