Lump or Briquette? What is the Difference?

Which is better briquette or lump charcoal? Pellets or Stick burners? Offset or Drum? Kettle or Kamado??  Questions like these have been the topic of great discussion amongst my friends and co-workers at FireBoard Labs. These spirited yet good-natured discussions are often left with no definitive agreement on which is best. 

Chimneys loaded with two different types of charcoal to conduct a taste test of which is best.

This has inspired me to create a series of posts that investigates the most common decisions facing consumers in the barbecue marketplace.   The primary interest is to record some honest reactions to the variety of cooking methods consumers are faced with. Then passing the results along to assist in some decision-making.   At FireBoard Labs we are lucky enough to have at our disposal a variety of popular smokers, and an award-winning competition smoker/BBQ rest.  Two key elements to running a test such as this.

The goal of this test is to illuminate differences and preferences for those interested in improving their smoking capabilities.  Participating in this taste test are professionals in the Barbecue industry, my co-workers at FireBoard Labs!  We are a company founded on BBQ and staffed with lovers of BBQ.  Not to mention we are headquartered in a city where BBQ is quite popular.  

Testing Method

Color-coded toothpicks were used to tell the difference between the two test samples. Briquette was multicolor and Lump was regular toothpicks.

Today we performed a head-to-head blind taste test, comparing two different varieties of charcoal: lump and briquette.  Two identical Weber Kettle Grills with  Weber Char-Baskets were used to slow-cook fresh, never been frozen boneless-skinless chicken thighs.  To regulate temperature, both grills were outfitted with FireBoard 2 Drive and Blower fans, with a set temperature of 300ºF.  Both pans of chicken were lightly seasoned with the same rub.  The chicken was cooked to an internal temp of 165ºF, and then cut into sample sizes susers of  to be able to report to our users what the best course of action is for our customers the best tasting. 

Hannah took our taste test of lump vs. briquette charcoal VERY seriously.

Results

After my co-workers decided which sample they preferred, the would drop the tooth pic of their choice into a cup. Once everyone had a chance to test the chicken the pics were tallied up.

In this informal taste test briquettes were chosen by more of my co-workers 10-6 over lump charcoal.  The common response was that the chicken thigh cooked with briquettes had a more desirable balance between smoke and flavor.

Some End Notes

With briquettes being the popular choice of our group, a key takeaway would be that the lump had a smoke level that interfered with the seasoning.  Results will vary depending on the amount of seasoning and of course the choice of protein.  Aside from flavor, it is also worth mentioning that some of my co-workers had other reasons to use one over the other.  First is the price, which varies but for this test, I paid $0.56/lb for Kingsford briquettes and $0.83/lb for Frontier lump charcoal, so the briquettes were slightly less in price, barely worth mentioning but a difference nonetheless.  Another comment was how much less ash lump charcoal generates over briquettes, which makes for easier cleanup.   If the nominal difference in price and the flavor wasn’t essential, I could see how this would be an important factor in selecting your regular charcoal.   

Graphs from the FireBoard App testing Lump vs. Briquette charcoal, with a green dot marking the start of cook time. Both fuels appear to show similar efficiency results. However, it is worth mentioning that the Weber Char-Basket is a small volume, and that given a larger firebox the irregular sizes of lump charcoal would reflect greater variations in a graph such as this.

Consider chicken for any taste test your may be thinking about conducting yourself.  FireBoard’s test comparing lump and briquette charcoal used boneless-skinless chicken thighs for the light tissue of the protein.  Maybe more importantly the regular consistency of this meat serves as a fantastic blank canvas for subtle flavor variations. It will most likely be our go-to protein for any future taste tests that we conduct…briquette vs. pellet smoker??