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Barbecuing is an integral part of the culinary culture of the West. Barbecues unite friends and families. Hence it’s not just about food anymore, and it’s more than that. Barbecuing is an art, and that’s why people often debate over the various aspects of this art. One of them is whether to use lump charcoal or not. Lump charcoal vs. charcoal briquettes is an eternal debate among the barbecue enthusiasts. If you are new to barbecuing and don’t know what is Lump Charcoal used for ? then you are at the right place. We walk you through the details of this fuel type. 

What’s Lump Charcoal? 

Lump charcoal is a type of charcoal that’s prepared by burning the wood chops without the interference of oxygen. The process takes moisture, fluids, chemicals and other stuff out of wood, making it harmless to our health and environment. The benefits are it leaves the little amount of ash and dust post burning, it’s way hotter than briquettes and easy to ignite. 

If you have a grill with adjustable air vents, you can control the heat level of this lump charcoal. Without the additives, it becomes one of the cleanest fuel for the cooking. It burns faster than charcoal briquettes and is hotter when it comes to temperature. 

Lump Charcoal Benefits:

● No additives

● Heat level adjustments

● Leaves little to no ash

● Hotter than briquette

● Easy to ignite

Lump Charcoal Drawbacks:

● Uneven sized charcoal lumps can irritate you while cooking, hence you need to break the lumps into small chunks

● Expensive

● Burns quickly

What’s Better Lump Charcoal or Briquettes?

Now that we’ve seen lump charcoal, we should know what’s charcoal briquette. Briquettes are prepared the same way as the lump charcoals are. However, the charcoal briquettes are made with sawdust and low-quality woods. Besides additives are used to make briquettes. Lump charcoal is prepared with pure wood only.   

Since charcoal briquettes are made with sawdust and burnt wood, additives and chemicals are used in it to make it easier for burning. However, the additives have been infamous for ruining the meat with their smell and even taste as well. Cooks complain that chemicals affect the taste and smell of the food. Hence most BBQ enthusiasts prefer lump charcoal over briquettes since it has no additives, making it pure organic. However, the lump charcoal burns hotter and quicker than briquettes. If your cooking session is going to last for several hours, you either need to switch to briquettes or get dense, thick lump charcoal made from hickory or oak as they burn slowly. However, not everyone is into food purity, so if you get quality briquettes from the market, you can get a great cooking experience without lump charcoal. 

Which Lump Charcoal is Best? 

Many people have asked us which is the best lump charcoal brand according to us, and we pitch Fogo Lump Charcoal without hesitation. You must be wondering, is Fogo Lump Charcoal best? and our answer is yes. Fogo Fogo Super Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal is one of the reputed brands of the market. It’s made from Central American Hardwood. The lump charcoal pieces of this brand are hand-picked; each bag contains the pieces with similar sizes and performs excellently. It barely takes 15 minutes to catch up the fire, and the bag contains larger lump charcoal pieces compared to what other brands offer. The benefit of large pieces is that they are perfect for longer cooking sessions. The leftover coal chunks can be used again next time. So we definitely recommend this Fogo Lump Charcoal to our readers. 

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