Every BBQ lover has his or her own opinion on the best fuel to use on a charcoal grill. If you haven’t given much thought to your fuel choices, you should. The fuel you use can make a big difference to the quality of your grilled meal. 

The three fuel options are wood, charcoal, and briquettes. In this article, we’ll look at each of them in turn, and then make some suggestions on the best way to use them on a charcoal grill.   

Wood

Many grill veterans prefer to use wood on their grill. The reason is not difficult to understand. Burning wood releases natural substances that give the food the most wonderful taste. These substances are lost if the same wood is converted into charcoal.

The really interesting fact about these flavoring substances is that they vary from one type of wood to another. So if you grill the same food on hardwoods like oak, beech, and hickory, you’re likely to notice that each wood tastes very differently. 

Briquettes

Charcoal briquettes appeared on the market after Henry Ford discovered an opportunity to make charcoal briquettes using wood waste produced in automobile manufacturing. He does this by utilizing a previously patented technology to produce a “fuel briquette”. This technique involves a special process for combining granulated charcoal (created from his waste wood) with borax (used to aid the manufacturing process) and petroleum products (used to bind wood chips together and aid in ignition) ) mixture is combined and compressed.

Henry Ford is definitely a good thing. He made a lot of money selling briquettes for the country’s charcoal grills. There are many different varieties and brands of briquettes on the market today, some of which do not contain unpleasant petroleum products. However, even if you can avoid buying briquettes that contain petroleum products, it’s a good idea to let them burn on your charcoal grill for a while before you start grilling your food to make sure you’re getting rid of any other substances that might affect the taste and smell of your food.  

Charcoal

Humans have been making charcoal for thousands of years, and probably almost used it for cooking. Charcoal is made by burning wood in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere, and as it burns, the water and other volatile components in the wood evaporate. The charcoal produced is used as fuel instead of wood. It’s good for cooking food because it burns longer than wood and doesn’t impart any particular flavor (good or bad) to the cooked food. Flavor can be created by adding wood chips to burning charcoal (which we’ll discuss later).

In general, the best wood for fire burning is also the best wood for charcoal production. But a lot of times when you buy lump charcoal for grilling, you’re not told what wood to use to make it, but if you do have a choice, choose a hardwood made of oak, hickory, or mesquite made of charcoal. Avoid low-quality charcoal produced from wood scraps. 

What is the best fuel for BBQ?

Each of the three barbecue fuels has advantages and disadvantages. Briquettes are very popular and widely used. We’ve pointed out some of their limitations, but one of the great things about briquettes is that they’re easy to handle and transport, and when they’re burning, they can hold consistently high temperatures (600 degrees Fahrenheit or higher) for long periods of time. Certain types of hardwood charcoal blocks will also provide high temperatures, but natural charcoal typically does not hold a specific temperature for long.

Wood can reach higher temperatures than briquettes or natural charcoal, but maintaining those temperatures is not easy. If maintaining a consistent high heat with wood is important, you may need to replenish the grill with fresh wood during cooking.

A very important point is that if you are using wood on your charcoal grill, remember to keep the grill turned on. If you don’t, your food will end up being too smoky — maybe even inedible. 

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