Charcoal BBQs

What Is A Charcoal BBQ?

A charcoal BBQ or grill is a type of barbecue that uses charcoal as its source of fuel for cooking your food. It will require you to do a lot more than work than you would with a gas BBQ as you have to manually start the heating up and cooking process, controlling the heat can also be more tricky, and then cleaning up afterwards! However, there are many benefits to having a charcoal BBQ, which you can read more about below!

Is A Charcoal BBQ Safe?

Using a charcoal BBQ is completely safe, as long as you use it properly, and don't worry because we're here to make sure you know exactly how to use your barbecue! Here's a couple of tips for using your charcoal BBQ safely:

• Make sure you set your barbecue up in an open space.
• Buy yourself some good charcoal to use on the BBQ.
• Arrange your charcoal in a stack and then put your lighter fluid. Never add lighter fluid to charcoal briquettes that are already warm or hot.
• If you need to cook different foods at different levels of heat then move your charcoal over to one side of the BBQ leaving an empty space for cooler temperatures.
• You'll need to learn how to tell if your charcoal is ready to cook with. If they're glowing white with red centres, your barbecue is ready to cook your food with direct heat or one temperature. When the charcoal is more of an ash white, but still very hot they're ready to cook with indirect heat, perfect if you want to keep food warm for a while before people help themselves to seconds!
• You can use a thermometer to tell when your food is cooked.

What Can You BBQ On Charcoal?

On most BBQs you can pretty much cook or grill whatever you want to, but there are a couple of foods and meats that are said to taste better after being grilled on charcoal! We've heard that chicken and seafood paella and beef brisket tastes pretty good from a charcoal BBQ, and we're off to try it, why not give it a go with yours? Of course, like any BBQ you will have to cook different meats and foods at varying temperatures, but with direct and indirect heat, you shouldn't find this a problem!

What Is The Difference Between A Charcoal BBQ & A Gas BBQ?

The main difference between a charcoal BBQ and a gas BBQ is that generally, charcoal BBQs are a lot easier to transport and move around if need be. You can get smaller versions of them which you can take with you to the beach or the park, but gas BBQs are difficult to move around once you have them in the desired place in your garden. Also, controlling heat and temperature on a gas BBQ is arguably a little bit easier as you controls that you can adjust, but with a charcoal BBQ, you don't have any controls and have to operate using your knowledge of direct and indirect heat. Overall, both can make great options for your barbecue at home, but it depends on what you want to use it for, and how confident of a chef or cook you are!