Your Favouitre Fuel Source And Why?

[dobba1988]

I have been using restaurant quality charcoal (lumpwood) for my last few cooks and have struggled with temps a little...although i think this maybe down to my smoker being cheap and NASSSTY! Never had this much of a problem using Briquettes though

So come on guys/girls discuss...

Give me your heat source, make, how much it is and where you buy it from.

Marc

[keith157]

Originally CoCoshell briquettes, but they apparantly don't make them anymore. When the stockpile is finished I'll switch to HeatBeads.

[YetiDave]

Liverpool Wood Pellets lumpwood for smoking - generally big pieces and zero smoke and briquettes for grilling. I find briquettes produce nasty (it's cheap and nasty stuff I've been using to be fair) smoke until they're fully lit which renders them useless for smoking. Oh and hickory or pecan lumps for the smoke

[keith157]

Uumm Dave I don't know what briquettes you are using but a quality briquette shouldn't smoke enough to stop you using them for smoking. You just have to look on youtube & on here to know that quality is all. I doubt if Toby would be promoting & providing Heatbeads for competition if they weren't any good. Yes they are more expensive than Aldi & garage forecourt stuff and I only use the cheap stuff I have left for quick grilling.

[NomNomBBQ]

I use liverpool wood pellets restaurant lumpwood, depending on how much you order it can be £8-£10 for a 12kg bag. Worth every penny. They also usually have a code kicking around for a discount. 4% off at the moment with code "LWPLovesYou"

Best stuff ive ever used, burns for ages, massive lumps, nice and clean cook. Been using it for the last few years, never had a reason to change.

Did a 2kg pork shoulder yesterday in my WSM, filled it 2/3rds full and it burnt for over 8 hours.

I use it for both grilling and smoking, never had much luck with briquettes. Havnt tried heatbeads but ive tried the weber and supermarket brands. I just dont like the smell of briquettes when they burn.

(I should probably say that I have no affiliation with LWP)

[YetiDave]

I never said heatbeads weren't any good! Like I said, the briquettes I've used have generally been the cheap and cheerful ones from B&Q and alike, which are usually crap

[SmokinBBQ]

I've been using Supaquick lumpwwod lately, it burns clean, lumps aren't as big as restaurant charcoal but not scratty little bits either. Tried Makro restaurant lumpwood, nice big chunks, but it was like a firework display till it was fully lit, definitely no good with kids around. Sparklers when you add more charcoal too. Cookshack Hickory pellets for smoking, tried liverpool lil devils, but wasn't impressed, very little smoke flavour, the restaurant lumpwood sounds worth a try though.

[NomNomBBQ]

Yeah I forgot to mention the sparks, sometimes the LWP stuff can be a bit sparky, just in the chimney tho - some chimneys from a bag spark a lot and others from the same bag dont at all. Just did a quick google, some people think its pockets of gas in the coal and others the fine dust from the coal. Who knows.

Doesnt affect me much, ive got an area out the way where I light my charcoal. I can see it would be an issue with kids tho.

[YetiDave]

Am I the only person who likes all the crappy little bits? I find they're great for filling in gaps - fill a basket with nice chunks and then pour all the bits of shrapnel over the top, I've had some very long burns this way

[Swindon_Ed]

I'm sure some of you might think that i have to say this seeing as i'm sponsored by them but Big K's ACH15 Restaurant Grade lumpwood charcoal is the best of all the charcoal i've used over the years hence i got them as a sponsor and also all of the other regular comp' teams who use Lumpwood charcoal are also using Big K.

Big k is a little bit more expensive than the blue bag stuff but my experience with the blue bag stuff is that you tend to get 1/2 to 1/3 of a bag of dust where as the Big k stuff you'll get good charcoal down to the last lumps in a bag.