I've fallen in love with the briquettes. They're extremely dense, extruded charcoal with a hollow core. They're not easy to light - it's best to line your grate with them and then drop some lit lump on top - but once they're going they burn hot and long.
I ran a load in my big brick smoker last weekend, along with some massive oak chunks. With regular charcoal and logs the big smoker needs quite regular fire tending, especially when the heat gets in the bricks and you need to reduce the fire size to stop the temps running away, but the briquettes have such a long slow burn that you can stack up the grate and they give out a perfect controlled heat.
Here's a picture of the briquettes. This was the first time I tried lighting them - the tiny glow you can see was after 15 mins in a chimney starter. That was before I hit on the method of dumping lit lump on top of them.
