British BBQ Society Forums

Anyone come across these before? I found them in my local Morrisons (harwood) at £4.00 for 3kg. the claim on the bag is they burn long and hotter, longer than 2 hours, well we've all made that claim!!! I am trying to find a fuel that suits me and its restaurant charcoal next but these "diamonds" are interesting me.

As you seem to be the only one who has found them, it looks like the review is down to you old chum

Thats my local too. I haven't seen the diamonds but I had noticed they had Big K lumpwood charcoal at the front of the petrol station not seen the price though.

daz

Fair enough Keith, I was going to use LWP rest lump for the weekend but I will have a go with Diamonds instead. Luckily my BBQ pit (the place where my excel is located !) is undercover, because I built it to withstand the North West weather.Can't tell what I will be cooking yet, havn't discussed it with my lovely wife yet - although I can already hear the muttering of "not another bloody BBQ, the house smells of smoke, you smell of smoke, it's worse than when you were a fireman"' or similar endearments.
More to follow.

Tis only with perseverance that we discover new things, besides you get to eat well at the end of it

As it was pointed out to me, you find - you review, here it is:-

prepared the day before, a pork shoulder joint,4lbs, standard dry rub, the excel - approx 4kg Diamonds, 1/2 chimney starter diamonds, I was to use the excel with 2 stackers the meat on the top griddle and a maverick device, using a clay saucer not water.
The aim was to get to working temp 240/245, maintain it till internal temp had reached 190, foiling at mid point of the expected 8 to 9 hour cook (from the smoking meat calculator). Set the alarm for 0530, simple!

0630 chimney lit using my firelighter and offcut timber method
0650 transfer hot diamonds to fire grate, assemble excel, install maverick, leave for temp to reach 290 ish
0730 temp 290 (impressive) meat in the excel internal temp 68, lost a lot of heat though due to my slowness (parkinsons) Q temp down to around 220
0800 temp 245 meat still 68
1000 temp 250 meat now 126 close bottom vents by 1/3
1045 temp 223 meat now 133 reopen vents fully
1100 temp 264 meat now 136 close vents slightly
1130 temp 219 meat now 134 get meat out for foiling, check on fire grate and find only ash remains, no fire left!!!

So between putting the lit coals in the grate and fire out roughly 3.5 hours, the claim was "over 2 hour burn" so sucess, but heat beads claim 3 hour burn, and doing the same procedures I got the full cook time of 8 hours. In normal circumstances I would have struggled the hot excel in bits and restocked with fuel, relit and continued but once the meat was in the oven I hit the wine. It was 1215 !!!!

conclusion - heat diamonds, bought from Morrisons, £4 for 3kg, got up to working temperature quickly, mantained this temp for roughly 3 hours, burn completely to grey ash, no unpleasant smells or taste.

personal opinion - these are a good product for most uses, no waste, clean, effective, fair price, small bag for easy handling, but---they are no good for most low and slow cooking, 3.5 hours at most cook time, they need a fair amount of controlling to keep in temperature range, and they are not comparable to other types of fuel such as heat beads.

Great review.... Now go and find something else, we need great reviewers like you

Keith are you using Paulfire as your personal reviewer

If so can you ask him to review the Asda BBQ range

As if I would, or could