Little Black Briquette

Saucy, what are charcoal briquettes and how do they differ from charcoal – Grillentino

Charcoal is fuel made by igniting wood– wood, bone or other organic matter (here organic means carbon-based not vegetable-based from Whole Foods) in the absence of air, so it doesn’t actually burn. This tempering process drives out sap, resin and other impurities, leaving a blackened lump of porous carbon. The advantage of burning charcoal over straight wood is consistent predictable heat.

Briquettes are made from sawdust, coal and/or charcoal dust, wood scraps and binding agents. On one hand, this process uses leftovers from the pulping process in the best reduce, reuse, recycle tree hugger type of way, except for pulping wood and hugging trees might not be compatible activities. Also on the same hand, briquettes were invented here in Oregon – props for the home state innovation. On the other hand is the presence of the intentionally vague sounding binding agents. This could mean Borax, industrial salts/sodas, limestone, graphite, petroleum products and/or unpronounceable additives – at least the addition of Borax explains why my fire burns so white and clean.

Charcoal is a universal absorbent. While it is not ground up briquettes in your water filtration system, gas mask or your home’s air filter, it is still charcoal, which has an ability to soak up odors of all kinds. Meat drippings might be just type of odor you would like the charcoal to absorb, recycling meat flavor into the smoke. Lighter fluid, a petroleum liquid somewhere between straight-out-of-the-ground-crude and the gasoline that fuels your auto, soaks into the charcoal and never leaves, which helps explain why some cookouts smell a little more fine, actually refinery than others.

For grilling the game is heat and controlling said heat. Briquettes, because of their uniform size and manufacturing standards, produce an even more consistent predictable heat. Lump charcoal is lighter, denser, burns longer and produces fewer toxic emissions than wood. Gas burns cleaner than either lump or briquette charcoal. In the States 70% of all so called barbeques, which are actually high heat, quick burning grills, are gas (natural or propane) powered, so the decision about briquette v. lump really isn’t much of an issue.

As for the rest of the world, charcoal and wood are still primary sources for fuel for everyday cooking. The United States is 71st in world charcoal consumption, immediately trailing Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Morocco, Haiti and Laos. We are ahead of the ‘throw a shrimp on the barbie’ Australians, and predictably use more charcoal per capita than the Dutch, Norwegians/Swedes, Brits and Iranians but only use half as much charcoal as the North Koreans, only because they might not have food to cook and we only burn about 1/20 of what the top ten charcoal using nations go through in a year. Put that in your Weber and smoke it or something to think about when you are picking up your charcoal for your holiday cookout this weekend.