Which fuel is better for a BBQ – lump charcoal or briquette?
The above question has no easy answer. Both fuels have their fans, appreciating the advantages of each. The choice depends mainly on the preferred style of barbecuing.
Charcoal
Only charcoal produced from deciduous hardwood is used for BBQ.
It lights easily and quickly reaches high temperature, leaving only little amount of ash behind. It’s easiest to start with a liquid lighter.
The intensity of burning, may hinder the preparation of food that requires longer grilling time. The rapidly achieved high temperature, may also drop relatively fast. Still the varied size of individual lumps of charcoal allow the creation of different heat zones – for better management of food preparation times.
It is perfect for fast grilling of food which requires higher heat. And also an ideal choice for spontaneous meetings by the barbecue.
Briquette
A good quality charcoal briquette is produces in the process of mixing fine charcoal, water and wheat starch (and nothing more!), and then compressed into the form of small bricks. Thanks to the fact that we don’t use anything besides the three mentioned ingredients, our briquette doesn’t emit any unpleasant smell and has no negative effect on the flavor of prepared dishes.
It starts slower (preferably with an eco-firelighter), but burns longer than charcoal. Thanks to its uniform size, briquette tends to produce lesser amount of flare-ups and features an even distribution of heat – which makes it the right choice for food that needs longer preparation time.
