Same price also at Home Bargains for 5kg lumpwood & briquettes. Wilko also doing 5kg briquettes for £3.50 if neither B&M or Home Bargains are local to you.

Heat :sunglasses:

It's good charcoal, we use for our bbq great results :sunglasses:

We only use lump wood charcoal. We brought 10 bags it's great

​well what I know of the difference is that lump wood burns quicker and hotter, where as briquettes burn slower, longer and take a while to start cooking. not sure if it's correct though

Most people prefer lump wood as briquettes are usually charcoal dust and various other binders compressed. Consider lump wood as steak and briquettes as burgers you can never be sure what's used to make it. Saying that I've had terrible steaks and great burgers. A lot recommend restaurant grade charcoal but haven't tried this myself.

Lumpwood is whole pieces of wood that are slowly carbonised over a low heat to take out all the moisture. That then leaves pieces of lumpwood charcoal that looks like the original piece of wood. So you get irregular shapes and chunks.

Briquettes are made using a mix of sawdust and binders that is pressed into even, regular shapes, usually like a little pillow or cushion shape. They burn evenly but, depending on the type of BBQ you have, they don't generally work as well as lumpwood for low 'n' slow cooking or smoking. Cheaper briquettes can have binders in them that can taint the flavour of the food being cooked as they can contain petrochemicals with strong or acrid odours when burnt.

There's no real advantage to one over the other, just try and avoid briquettes with the cheap and nasty binders in them.
I now use restaurant grade lumpwood in both my Kamado Joe and my Weber smoker as it burns longer and hotter than normal lumpwood. It's often on offer at Ocado on a three for two basis (Big K restaurant grade) and as it comes in a box, you don't get so many crushed and ruined pieces in the pack.

I have used Weber briquettes with some success in my smoker but I prefer the flavour of lumpwood. From what I have read in BBQ books, pro-competition BBQ cooks tend to go with expensive briquettes as they don't give any odour to the food, good or bad, and it allows them to add the flavour they want with chunks of wood.

Whatever lumpwood charcoal you buy make sure it's hardwood :smiley:

For those who care, this is not FSC certified so is likely to come from unsustainable sources.

actually quality matters most. usually what you get in the supermarkets is the small broken reject pieces. these dont burn well as not enough air circulates around them and because they are small they burn out very quickly. but as mentioned above, get yourself restaurant grade lumpwood charcoal. bigger pieces and longer burn time so it actually works out better value. oh and thanks for the tip on ocado nabby. that works out a great price in the offer when its on. be sure to post a deal when its back on :-)

The Ocado Big K 15kg box at 3-for-2 is back on offer:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/ocado-big-k-15kg-box-restaurant-grade-lumpwood-charcoal-3-for-2-49-98-for-45kg-2485690