A friendly alternative to lumpwood charcoal
Posted: 31 Jul 2012, 01:54
Last week a company contacted myself to see if I would carry out a test cook on an friendly alternative to restaurant grade charcoal. The company was Bridge brooke heating http://www.bridgebrooke.co.uk/index.html
and their product was barbies restaurant grade charcoal http://www.bridgebrooke.co.uk/barbies-e ... rcoal.html
These were my findings:
The restaurant charcoal was presented and packed very neatly inside a cardboard box which is very good as it would save on breakages. The mixture of pieces inside was very good as I could use the smaller pieces for the chimney starter and the larger one placed around the basket.
When lighting the chimney I found it quite difficult due to the density of the product and needed to light it a couple of times as the heat logs had trouble igniting, I waited a good 40 minutes until the chimney was fully alight, before I could start the BBQ pit using the minion method.
The BBQ did not take too long to get up to the required temperature, and I left it overnight with the aid of a Pitmaster IQ. The amount of charcoal that I used was 5 kg.
After 6 hours of cooking the pit temp was still up to my desired temp and to my surprise, when I looked to see if I needed to replenish the basket, this wasn’t necessary, unlike my usual restaurant grade charcoal!! At this time I would normally need to fill the basket again, but the Heat logs seemed like they had a lot more life in them.
After 10 hours I placed 5 medium pieces into the pit as the temp just started to drop below my target temp.
Finished cooking after 13 hours, as you can see from the pictures http://s1147.photobucket.com/albums/o55 ... =slideshow that the additional logs that I placed on the 10 hours mark had only just started to kick in and started to give off some heat. I probably would have got away without adding 5 more heat logs to the pit. But as this was the 1st time I had used them, I didn’t know how the pit would re-act?
Sealed off and shut down the vents of the pit and had still heat logs left.
During the cook and after the smoking period had finished I couldn’t smell any unpleasant odours, unlike with household named brickets. I was extremely happy with how the heat log continued to burn, burn and burn and for such a long time. I was so impressed with your product that I would even move away from the conventional restaurant grade lump wood charcoal and use these in a competition.
Regards
Eddie
and their product was barbies restaurant grade charcoal http://www.bridgebrooke.co.uk/barbies-e ... rcoal.html
These were my findings:
The restaurant charcoal was presented and packed very neatly inside a cardboard box which is very good as it would save on breakages. The mixture of pieces inside was very good as I could use the smaller pieces for the chimney starter and the larger one placed around the basket.
When lighting the chimney I found it quite difficult due to the density of the product and needed to light it a couple of times as the heat logs had trouble igniting, I waited a good 40 minutes until the chimney was fully alight, before I could start the BBQ pit using the minion method.
The BBQ did not take too long to get up to the required temperature, and I left it overnight with the aid of a Pitmaster IQ. The amount of charcoal that I used was 5 kg.
After 6 hours of cooking the pit temp was still up to my desired temp and to my surprise, when I looked to see if I needed to replenish the basket, this wasn’t necessary, unlike my usual restaurant grade charcoal!! At this time I would normally need to fill the basket again, but the Heat logs seemed like they had a lot more life in them.
After 10 hours I placed 5 medium pieces into the pit as the temp just started to drop below my target temp.
Finished cooking after 13 hours, as you can see from the pictures http://s1147.photobucket.com/albums/o55 ... =slideshow that the additional logs that I placed on the 10 hours mark had only just started to kick in and started to give off some heat. I probably would have got away without adding 5 more heat logs to the pit. But as this was the 1st time I had used them, I didn’t know how the pit would re-act?
Sealed off and shut down the vents of the pit and had still heat logs left.
During the cook and after the smoking period had finished I couldn’t smell any unpleasant odours, unlike with household named brickets. I was extremely happy with how the heat log continued to burn, burn and burn and for such a long time. I was so impressed with your product that I would even move away from the conventional restaurant grade lump wood charcoal and use these in a competition.
Regards
Eddie
