Briquettes

Man and charcoal go back a long way - many tens of thousands of years in fact. The link between man and compressed charcoal briquettes has been somewhat shorter - try the early 1920s. It was around then that Henry Ford Mark 1 decided to recycle the sawdust left over from making Model T body frames as fuel for his forges. As history has so clearly shown - there were no flies on Mr Ford when it came to boosting the bottom line. Before long, excess briquettes were being sold through Ford dealerships to backyard barbeques.

With the kettle barbecue boom of the 1970s and 80s, briquettes started to appear in Australian supermarkets and hardware shops. Some manufacturers have always made a genuine attempt to offer a safe, high quality product and they clearly list the ingredients on the packaging. But others do not and the reason is customers could be turned off to read that they contain an interesting ingredient first used by Henry Ford in his briquettes - dust from coal bins.

When buying briquettes look for a brand that has a high carbon percentage (70% is good) and an 'other' category that is as low as possible (say around 5 %). If they don't list the ingredients and their percentages, they don't deserve your business.

It's worth the effort to carefully read labels as ingredients such as mineral coal do not do a great deal for the taste or health aspects of food. Neither do adulterants such as clay or limestone or the various nitrates used to help make the entire cocktail combust. When these are teamed with fire starters containing substances such as hydrocarbon solvents, you have the opportunity to bring a little taste of Chernobyl right into your own backyard.

You can minimise any health issues by buying products from reputable manufacturers (I use Australian-made Heat Beads© BBQ Fuel when I can't get my hands on pure charcoal). Just make sure you are very patient when you use them. Don't be tempted to put food on the grilling surface until every briquette is an even white or grey colour. If you're in a hurry, move them around with tongs to see that they heat up evenly. Never, ever be tempted to boot up your fire by using fresh (unheated) briquettes.

When you light the firestarters, particularly in a kettle barbecue, hold your breath. No, I am not kidding. If you must breathe in - turn your face as far away as possible from the barbecue.

Lump charcoal

If you want to enjoy your 80th birthday in the nursing home with some of your wits intact and most body bits functioning, this is the best stuff to use. It is completely natural being the solid, porous remains of hardwood that has been super-heated with a minimum of oxygen. What is left is mainly carbon (around 90%).

Because it's natural, lump charcoal is not as user-friendly as the briquettes (and that's why it is not stocked by most retailers). For a start, it comes in lumps - not identical smooth-edged little pucks - so it tends to burn faster because of a greater surface area. For the same reason, it also generates more heat than briquettes (around twice as much in some instances). A big advantage is that extra lumps can be added straight to the fire without the need for pre-heating.

These, of course, are generalisations. I have had some lump charcoal that has lasted longer than any briquette and I have used other stuff that has burned so quickly it resulted in chickens that have been beautifully browned on the outside and red-bleeding-raw inside. The message is that you have to experiment a bit with lump charcoal to find out how much to use in your barbecue.

Using chemical firestarters for a lump charcoal fire defeats the purpose. What you need is a charcoal chimney. These can be either purchased or home-made and are metal cylinders with holes punched in the base and sides to create an updraft. Simply put some newspaper in the bottom, pile on the charcoal, light it and you are in business. It usually takes just 20 minutes from go to glow.

In kettle barbecues, the charcoal lumps should be arranged directly on top of newspaper leaving plenty of room for air circulation. I roll up newspaper pages and then twist them into rounds (like doughnuts ) so that there is an air space in the middle for better combustion.

A tip to remember when you use lump charcoal is the need to protect the sides of kettle barbecues from the more intense heat generated. If you have a painted kettle barbecue, don't worry because it probably looks a mess anyway. If it is coated with porcelain (as they all should be), fold a square of aluminium foil into three or four thicknesses and place it behind each pile of charcoal to reflect the heat away from the wall (shiny side out).

Another important thing to realize is that lump charcoal can throw sparks - sometimes lots of them and for quite a distance. Fight the temptation to grill, roast or slow smoke in your rayon taffeta ball gown, nylon nightie or lycra cycling pants. An unfortunate choice of outfit has the potential to drastically lower your self-immolation (look it up) threshold. Depending on your age/sex, it could also throw local property values into an irreversible tailspin.

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