Charcoal Comparison Tests for BBQ and Grilling

Charcoal Comparison Test's

The Equipment:

• Flame Boss 200 Pit Controller (now a 500)
• Gateway Drum BBQ
• ProQ Chimney Starter
• ETi Therma Q Blue 

The Test:

• Fill the ProQ chimney starter with charcoal
• Light the chimney with wood wool and leave it until fully lit.
• Flame Boss set to 230F (a common temperature for low and slow)
• Pour the lit charcoal into the drum basket
• Put the basket into the Drum Smoker, and let the Flame Boss do its job.
• Observe the results

The key Information is the Temperature graph, which shows how evenly the charcoal is burning, and the Fan speed, which shows how hard the controller is working to maintain the temperature. Sometimes we will note anything out of the ordinary.

Disclaimer: This is a bit of fun and helps people see that there are differences among charcoals. We don't make a value judgement because that is unfair to artisan small batch producers, and those that are environmentally friendly (e.g., sustainable, CO2 neutral)

For comparison, I am grouping the charcoal into three categories.

Lump wood, Briquettes, and composite (everything else)

Click the charcoal name to see its results, or click one of the 3 group links to see the overall comparison.

Lumpwood

• Phoenix Namwood Charcoal
• Weber Premium Lumpwood Charcoal
• Big K ACH15 / ACH12 Lumpwood Charcoal Test
• Quebracho Restaurant Grade Charcoal
• Carbo Black Acacia Charcoal
• Big K Marabu Charcoal
• Globaltic 10Kg Birch Charcoal
• Globaltic Brazilian Eucalyptus Charcoal

Briquettes

• Big K Coconut Shell Briquettes
• Weber Briquettes
• CocoCabanna Grillbriketts
• ZIP Charcoal Briquettes 2Kg
• Supagrill Charcoal Briquettes 4Kg
• Tesco 4Kg Charcoal Briquettes

Composite

• Big K Au RCB10 Natural Restaurant Grade Charcoal
• Greek Fire Premium Charcoal
• ProQ Cocoshell Briquettes
• Globaltic Hazelhex