Does anyone have much experience with these? Academy had them on sale for 12.99 for a 30lb bag so I picked up a couple. Just wondering if I should use a full bed of these or mix with briquettes?
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B&B Char-logs
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Club Member
- Jul 2017
- 1408
- Southeast Illinois
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Cookers I have:
Weber S-335 gas grill
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Those look great. I have not used them, but they say the are solid charcoal with no additives, so they will be like any very good charcoal like Stubbs, etc. You might want to open the bag and see how many full pieces, broken pieces and dust you have. Then just burn it like regular charcoal, that gets hotter than BBB.
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I just finished up my first bag and will be ordering more through my local Ace Hardware. The one thing I noticed is they take just a little bit longer to take off, but once they do they will burn for a long time. Yesterday I smoked 3 racks of STL ribs and 4.5 lbs. of pork belly burnt ends on the 22.k" Weber with SnS on one load of the char-logs. Temps ranged from 275-300 and ran for 8 hours without having to reload. Once everything was done, people were hungry and I neglected to "turn off" the grill. By the time I had remembered, it had been another 3 hours when I went back outside. To my amazement the charcoal was still burning and the grill temp had only dropped to 225. The charcoal was pretty well spent, but it definitely beat the snot out of KBB and Kingsford Professional when put in the same situation. What I liked about this particular charcoal is the fact there is very little, if any, dirty smoke when you first fire it up. There have been times where I have lit the charcoal with my torch, went back in side and came out 15 minutes later thinking the fire went out because there was no heavy white smoke like what I'm used to with the Kingsford products. Much to my surprise the charcoal was burning and burning HOT!
Now to your question, I mixed with regular briquettes when I was doing quick cooks on the 26.75" Weber. I probably didn't need to, but it was just easier to grab and dump the regular briquettes instead of breaking up the big logs so they would take off faster. There's just something about the square briquettes where the edges seem catch quicker than the char-logs.
$12.99 is a great price for a 30 lbs. bag of charcoal, especially for charcoal of this quality (I paid $19.99, but I'm just happy B&B is being sold in my area). It might take a little practice to get used to its little idiosyncrasies. For long cooks I will be using this more in the future. Hopefully this helps.
~CraigarLast edited by Craigar; August 12, 2019, 07:20 AM. Reason: EDIT: I neglected to mention we received 2.10" of rain yesterday morning, so it was very muggy all day with very little wind.
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Good to hear you like it, I’ve been enjoying the B&B briqs but never can pull the trigger on the logs. The only knock I’ve heard on the logs is they produce excessive ash. Has this been your experience?
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Ash - A little more than the regular B&B briquettes, but still less than any Kingsford product. Maybe because they are logs and will hold their shape after they have been used it seems like they produce more ash. All I know is it is quite a bit less than Kingsford...in my humble opinion.
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Club Member
- Jul 2017
- 1408
- Southeast Illinois
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Cookers I have:
Weber S-335 gas grill
Weber 26†kettle
Weber 22†kettle
Camp Chef XL Smoke Vault
Camp Chef 3 Burner cook top
Camp Chef Woodwind 36 Pellet grill with sidekick burner
PBC
Accessories:
SnS XL
SnS standard
Vortex
Weber Rotisserie for 22†Kettle
1st gen FireBoard
2nd gen FireBoard
Griddle for Camp Chef cooktop
Several Thermoworks items
Set of Grill Grates
Craigar Great information thanks! Happy to hear you feel it makes less ash than KBB. IMO KBB is making more ash than ever.
I use RO briquettes for hot and fast cooks with great results and when I can find Weber briquettes I use those instead of KBB. I like B&B lump so I’m hoping their briquettes and char-logs will be just as good.
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According to their website. Our local ACE hardware store carries this product. I'll be picking up a bag this week.
H/T to Craigar for mentioning ACE.
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Lucky you! But, be careful as I went to one of the many local stores in this area because the web site said it was in stock. I get there and they had never heard of it. Hence why I ordered it and had it delivered to the store.Last edited by Craigar; August 12, 2019, 01:18 PM.
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I really like them. I’ve tested them and found they can produce equivalent heat for equal period of time with far less product.
They are not however, IMO a general replacement for all situations. They take way too long to get going & go for too long for a quick hotdogs/hamburgers or reverse seared chicken breasts on a weekday. (Overkill & not worth the effort basically)
Below is a cross-post of my testing in the PBC. The pictures make it very obvious how effective Char-logs are for the volume used.
PROS1. All hardwood charcoal with no filler, not a huge deal for me but many care about this.2. Consistency - they burned very consistently for a long period of time, the thickness reduced the surface area of the charcoal compared to a standard briquette3. Heat to volume ratio - As you can see in the picture below, I filled the PBC basket with a single layer of the Char-logs and added 40 KBB briquettes. This was a disconcertingly small amount of charcoal, when compared to KBB/RO filled level with the rim. But produced equal or better results. This becomes more significant when there are greater space limitations than we have to deal with in the PBC. More applicable for us is the opportunity to really get the heat high for crisping poultry skin.3b. Price - @ ~$14.5 per 30lb bag at Academy = ~$0.48 per lb, whereas KBB is selling for ~$25 for 36.75lbs at Lowe's = ~$0.68 per lb. While using significantly less product per cook.4. Smell/taste - It smells clean when lighting and produces very little smoke when compared to KBB/RO, as in I had to pick up the chimney and check to make sure it was actually started.
CONS1. Not as easy to light as standard briquettes.2. It's burn profile is different from what most are used to and will necessitate a learning curve3. Ash produced: to quote Chernobyl "Not great but not terrible", I'm stretching a bit here to say this is truly a con as it's no worse than KBB. And in fact is quite a bit better. But if this is a big factor for you such as BGE owners, then it's certainly not better than lump.
Picture of the Basket:
Picture of full basket of KBB for comparison:
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Founding Member & Pit Barrel Cooker Queen
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Great reports, Craigar and TNPIGBBQ . I've used B&B lump in my WSCGC kamado but never the B&B briquettes or logs. Just ordered the briquettes, and based on your all's comments, I may look into getting some of the logs in the future whenever my supply of Weber briquettes gets low.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Weber and the B&B logs are similar--slower to start, clean burn, long lasting, but a bit more ash than I may like, especially for the PBC which acts like it wants to choke when too much ash accumulates below the basket. I experience that at times when I overfill the basket for looooong cooks.
KathrynLast edited by fzxdoc; October 14, 2019, 02:12 PM.
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Hi Kathryn, The logs are extruded like the coconut charcoal that is out there, if you have ever used it. The logs do produce more ash than the B&B briquettes, but IMO no more than KBB. Yes they can be more difficult to light, so what I do is fire up some regular briquettes to get the party started. What is really nice about the logs is the lack of heavy smoke. I have no problem tossing the meat on the grill when it is still coming up to temp as the acrid, heavy white smoke is non-existent.
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I’d say the briquettes Weber & B&B are exactly the same. Large size, double KBB. Zero fillers. All hardwood.
The logs are slightly harder to light due to the shape but burn longer as they’re larger.
But other than that yes, I think you’re spot on. I’m looking forward to your review as I passed on buying Weber due to my thoughts above. And B&B is $8.99 per 17.6lb and Weber is 14.99 per 20lbs.
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