Charcoal advice please

[FlashGordon]

Does anyone not use the restaurant grade you can can from makro? 10quid for a bag. Buy three and you get it for 8.99 a bag?
This stuff ok? Comes in the green/blue bag?

[Steve]

The Makro stuff comes from Rectella (Bar-be-quick) plenty of people on here are using it, even if they didn't buy it from Makro.

There were a few problems last year that affected the charcoal from most of the wholesalers. I certainly saw a decrease in quality in what was coming out of the blue bags

Not attempted to restock this year yet so who knows...

[FlashGordon]

Is it the same stuff that comes from liverpool docks? same bag etc

[Swindon_Ed]

Or is it the same as the stuff that comes from Booker???

[JEC]

Not had the stuff from Makro but the Booker and LVP that I've used was the same

[Steve]

Booker stuff comes from Fuel Express. Bags are usually the same and to be fair the charcoal is likely from the same suppliers. Different importer, that much I know.

[KamadoSimon]

I don't know what wood it is - would be interested to find out.

I bought two 10kg bags as an experiment after seeing the recommendations on here from a few people. Want to know if it is better than the restaurant lump (blue bags stuff) iv'e been using previously.

Let me know what it's like, disappointed with the current blue bag lump with spitting and more ash than normal, my locally sourced charcoal is more ash than oak and takes ages to start burning clean which is a problem for those foods you don't want smoke flavour in,

Hi JEC,

Have done two grills with Big K lump now - it burns well, lasts well & produces a reasonably small amount of ash. So definitely better than the restaurant lump I had been using. I have two other brands I want to try before settling on any one make, the bags from Macro & a local company (Pang Valley). But for the next month or so at least I'll be using Big K. Hope that helps - suggest it is worth a try if they will deliver to your neck of the woods.

Simon

[JEC]

Thanks Simon, ordered 2 bags yesterday so will see what it's like for myself, hopefully I'll get the same results as you've seen

[thebarbecuemaster]

i would just use what fits regularly in your chimmney with the smaller pieces

[Saucy Pig]

Having recently snagged myself a booker card thought Id give the 12kg blue bag a try. Have to say I'm really not impressed. Full basket, with a lit chimney on top seems to have lasted no more than 3 hours on my excel 20. Vents were set up as usual and Id normally see 6+ hours from my cocoshell. This cant be normal right?
Ive seen some people sort their lumps, could this have been the cause, too many spaces? although it seemed pretty tight in there.
Bad batch maybe? Has anyone used the fuel express 5kg bags from Booker instead?

Now that cocoshell is no more, is BigK the only alternative?