Kingsford Original Briquettes


 
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Davo

TVWBB Super Fan
Merry Xmas & Happy Holidays to those mates in the States......from the land down under:greenperformer:

So I cooked on my two Kettles for Christmas feasting just for my wife and I to have over 3 days and used a new bag of Kingsford Original Briquettes I bought from Costco about 12 Months ago. The bag was kept in a plastic garbage bag tied up at the top so they wouldn't get damp or anything until it was time to use them.

I was very disappointed in the performance of this fuel and have had a lot of mixed results with Kingsford BBQ fuel for some time but when it's on sale at Costco, I just at the chance to get some but I don't think I will anymore, irrespective of the price per bag.

They burnt out way too fast, they wouldn't hold a decent heat, they weren't damp or anything, just like any other briquette i've used. I had 2 bags of Kingsford i bought at that time and the first bag was very good yet the 2nd bag were very underperforming yet they were all from the same Pallett. It's happened before and their performance in my opinion are not consistent. Our own renown briquettes called Heat beads are a bigger briquette, more consistent and last a lot longer than the smaller Kingsford, a lot longer than their size difference would suggest. The Heat Beads tend to be more reliable for longer cooks but i think the Kingsford's get hotter at first but die down too quickly but are much quicker and easier to light up.

Has anyone else here in this forum found that Kingsford's are not consistent from cook to cook? I don't have a WSM anymore, but I fail to see how the Kingsford's would last much longer than 6 Hours with a full ring of coals by the way they were exhausted in my Kettle BBQ. The cooking I did was only about 3.5 hours maximum and it was all burnt down.

I Think at this point that Costco has stopped shipping Kingsford Briquettes over to Australia atm, not sure why, maybe not popular enough but even if they do come back, I may just walk on by and stick with our locals BBQ fuels such as Heat Beads.

Hope you all have a fantastic BBQ New Year.

Davo
 
Happy holiday to you and a great New Year.
Anymore it seems to me that the briquettes are kind of hit and miss. I've used Kingsford for long time, in fact they're made not far from my house. But like everything else they've got smaller filled with additives I don't know what to tell you except maybe move to lump. It really makes me sad that smoking and grilling has become so popular that finding quality materials has become harder and harder.
 
Randy said:
Happy holiday to you and a great New Year.
Anymore it seems to me that the briquettes are kind of hit and miss. I've used Kingsford for long time, in fact they're made not far from my house. But like everything else they've got smaller filled with additives I don't know what to tell you except maybe move to lump. It really makes me sad that smoking and grilling has become so popular that finding quality materials has become harder and harder.
Click to expand...
Yeah Randy, Lump is great for grilling but due to it's irregular shape and size per piece seems a bit hit n miss for indirect cooking as that's what most of my cooking is. We don't have the range of lump as you get in the states but there are a few here that are worth getting. Gidgee Root, it's a very dense charcoal, tough to light but lasts a long time, the same goes for River Redgum charcoal, being a Eucalypt wood, it's dense and very hot to burn. During severe bush fires in Australia, the Eucalyptus trees can get so hot, they produce fire balls that are many thousands of degrees Celsius.
However we do have our well known Heatbead Charcoal that have been around since the early 70's when Weber first appeared in our backyards although I'd never seen one til the late 80's. .https://heatbeads.com.au/product/heat-beads-bbq-briquettes/?lang=en-gb

I think i might use the quicker lighting Kingsfords as a wick for the Heat beads. Once the Heatbeads get hot, they are really hot. I used Heatbeads only in my WSM when I had it and i could get an easy 10-12hour session from a load of heat Beads using the Minion Method.

Davo
 
I used Kingsford for many years but switched to Cowboy and B&B briquettes a few years back when I noticed that I wasn't getting consistent results from Kingsford.
About the only time i use lump is to establish a coal bed when open fire cooking. Still got a 30# bag of Royal Oak that's 4 or 5 years old. It's been my go-to for as long as I can remember.
 
Davo said:
Has anyone else here in this forum found that Kingsford's are not consistent from cook to cook? I don't have a WSM anymore, but I fail to see how the Kingsford's would last much longer than 6 Hours with a full ring of coals by the way they were exhausted in my Kettle BBQ. The cooking I did was only about 3.5 hours maximum and it was all burnt down.

Davo
Click to expand...
I reside in the States and have a couple bags of pre-COVID KBB stashed in my basement. I’ve been away from KBB for a few years and plan on buying some soon (with the hope of) getting back to longer burn times than Royal Oak All Natural briquettes, but your experience concerns me.

I’ll grab a bag or two of KBB and compare it to the 2018-19 coals in the basement. If the new is as disappointing for me as it was for you then I’ll try Cowboy. I’m getting to the point where I’m just about done with briquettes.
 
Our Heat Beads products here in Australia is a pretty consistent fuel but it does take a much longer time to light up and ash over compared to Kingsford and they are a much larger pillow shape briquette than Kingsford but i thought they would last longer considering I've seen many American cook-ups on WSMs and other smokers using Kingsford and many swear by them but I can't see if they are continuously adding more coals over a short period or not because i can't get a long burn at all, not even in a Kettle.
https://heatbeads.com.au/the-snake-method/

Not sure if you can view this video from the US.....if not, i'm sorry. But if you can, you'll see the general size difference of the Heat Beads briquette compared to the Kingsford.

I need about 50% more Kingsford than I do Heatbeads for the same cook because the Kingsfords are much smaller, they also are quicker to prepare but the heat beads, while they take some time to get ashed over, they pretty much last 50% longer overall than the Kingsford. Not exact measurements, just by what i've experienced. oh yeah, when starting up in a chimney, the Kingsfords really throw out a lot more black smoke at start I've found.

Cheers

Davo
 
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