Charcoal advice

[Rick101]

Can anyone advise on the best fuel to use for both long smokes and quick grills?

The only decent stuff I can buy locally (Go Outdoors) is Weber Long Life which I think is great.

I saw some Big K stuff in the garden centre and tried a bag but maybe it saw standard stuff not the '15' I've seen on the website. I did a small shoulder with it but it burnt out pretty quickly, nowhere near as long lasting as the Weber stuff.

I've heard heat beads are a pain to get going and burn too hot, any truth in this?

It's a shame we have to go to specialist suppliers and online to get supplies for our niche lifestyle

[Scantily]

Heat beads are generally thought of as one of the best quality briquettes you can get in the uk, exceeding or equal to the long life weber stuff. They can take a bit longer to light, but they also have a long burn time, as for heat it's down to how well you regulate the fire, they can burn nice and hot if you give them enough air. Only downside is they're quite pricey, but then so is the weber coal.

A lot of people (including myself) use restaurant grade lump wood charcoal, you can buy big blue bags of it from makro/bookers quite cheaply, Big K also sell some very good coal which is very high quality, the RCH12 & RCH15 - http://www.bigkproducts.co.uk/Catalog-B ... al_29.aspx

Lump wood will burn hotter than briquettes and doesn't have any of the binders used to form them, so no additives whatsoever, 100% pure charcoal. The cons are that it doesn't burn quite as long as the high quality briquettes, and doesn't burn as evenly, so the temperature can fluctuate a little. But as long as you know your pit and can manage a fire then it's perfectly fine for low n slow cooks, a full ring of lump wood in my wsm would easily burn for 15-16 hours.

In theory if you wanted to use the most appropriate fuel for each situation then it'd be briquettes for smoking due to more even burning, and lump for grilling due to higher temperatures. But a good quality fuel of either type will do both happily.

[JamsCowbell]

I had no problems with lighting heat beads in my chimney starter and they burned fine and lasted a long time, I would use them again.

I tend to use Big K restaurant grade lumpwood most of the time on both the kettle and the smoker, I get it delivered from here the minimum order is 2 bags but with the postage it's best to order more. I prefer the ACH15 but the RCH15 and RCH12 are both good as well.

[aris]

It would be great if we could post photos of each different type of charcoal you come across. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. I use the blue-bag stuff from Booker - and I see that the bag has changed now, so perhaps what is inside has changed too (new supplier?). I'd love to see some accurate representative pictures of the various BigK lumpwood if anyone could post them.

[Rick101]

Thanks guys.

Yes, I had fancied briquettes for roast/smoke and charcoal for grills. Will give the heat beads a try.
Have seen that Big K website before but wasn't sure if it was for trade or not. I though I was somewhere they delivered by the pallet.

Will have another look.

Thanks.

[JEC]

As others have said the BigK lump is excellent, you just have to be organised about ordering it so you don't run out, to be honest once you've used it and do run out and use whatever you find locally you never run out again

I order 10 or so bags at a time and it's normally enough for free delivery making it even better value