British BBQ Society Forums

Gents, I have been using briquettes on my first 2 cooks and now I have about a chimney worth of used fuel. My question is, is this pile of ashy briquettes any use? Should I clear them out? Or should I leave then in and only use a small amount in my chimney on my next cook? Or should I pick them up, put them in the chimney and try to light them again? What do you guys do?

From what I can tell you can re-use them for your next cook. As soon as you are done cooking you can close all the vents on your BBQ so they are starved of oxygen and go out, then just knock off the excess ash and use for the next cook.

What Artust said. I put 8kg of fuel in my UDS and I've used it for probably 5 cooks now - just knock off the ash before lighting it up again

Use it just bare in mind it will not last as long

I always burn the leftovers on my next cook. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Fuel is fuel, it just doesn't last as long for obvious reasons

Always re-use whatever charcoal is left, as others have said tap the ash off and then you're ready to use it again.

I collected and dusted off the used briq tonight (about a quarter of a chimney) added a firefighter to help it along and topped off with lump wood, I think for basic bbq techniques I'm going to stick to briquettes as they seem to me to hold a higher heat, and save my lump wood for longer cooks, with a mostly lump wood fuel today when temp settled it was at the 150c mark

ive started to fill my chimney with the used stuff, it seems to light quicker and if everything else is fresh I should get a decent burn time