British BBQ Society Forums

Hi guys

Im looking to try out a bag or two of heat beads to see how much better they are than the supermarket alternative, and trying to find a supplier with the best price, so far it looks like the cheapest price for 2x 7kg bags seems to be around the £25 mark, does anyone know if this price can be beaten and recommend suppliers?

Thanks!

wowbbq.co.uk do them for £10.99 per 7kg plus delivery. They do free delivery if you spend over a certain amount.

Have to agree about WoWbbq.co.uk and they have a quick delivery service .Usually take two days although i have had next day delivery.And heatbeads are better by far than supermarket briquettes.

The best we've got fairly locally at Bedsbbq is £6.29 for a 4kg bag

I know they get a bad press (often for some fairly illogical reasons) but I think Weber briquettes do a very good job.

They get hot - Heat Beads may get hotter, but Webers get hot enough to burn anything if you get it wrong, which is more than hot enough.

They are very long lasting. People usually say (for example) that they've had to replenish briquettes when doing beer can chicken, but I've never had to do this, even when cooking a very large chicken - maybe 2.5kg+.

They're not as cheap as supermarket brands, but can be had a little cheaper than Heat Beads. The offer isn't on at the moment, but I got 3 x 10kg bags from GardenXL through Amazon Marketplace. It was £13.49 per 10kg bag, with free postage if you ordered 3 or more bags.

Unfortunately that's not up at Amazon UK at the moment.

Steve W

Weber briquettes also leave a freakish yellow ash behind and smell fecking awful while you're cooking

Or should I say they did the last time I used them which was admittedly 4 years ago. There's every chance they have changed their supplier I guess, I mean they used to be re-branded heat beads before they switched to the little yellow powder producing formula.

For a long time now I have only used briquettes (heat beads) to light my pit or when cooking on an open grill. I'd rather stick to lump wood.

Steve wrote:Weber briquettes also leave a freakish yellow ash behind and smell fecking awful while you're cooking

Or should I say they did the last time I used them which was admittedly 4 years ago.

They're still the same, I had a load of weber briquetts over the weekend and they still smell aweful and leave yellow ash

I've never used Webers but have heat beads (yes even at the price from bedsbbq) and have a stack of Cocoshell.

The cocoshell have been the best briquettes I've used. I guess I'm just not a briquette kind of guy.

The smell? Can't say I've noticed any unpleasant smell from them at all. They smell like charcoal briquettes. Would someone like to describe the aspect of the smell they don't like? I've done quite a few googles, and I've yet to find any comment which says they smell funny.

The ash is yellow. Okay, and the problem is...?

All that means is that the binders used give off a yellow ash, and that most other manufacturers use a binder that gives off white ash. No more and no less.

It's completely illogical to dislike a briquette because of the colour of the ash. I couldn't care less if it were shite-brown with pink spots as long as it does the job it's supposed to.

There are plenty of very nice things which are yellow and plenty of grossly unpleasant things which are white (and vice versa). Saying you don't like briquettes because the ash is yellow is

Steve W