Charcoal powered barbecues
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The most popular type of barbecue, and simplicity itself. Typically contains a metal drum with air vents to hold the charcoal, legs attached to the drum, a chrome plated grill, and sometimes a lid with air vents. The metal drum comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, perhaps the most traditional and widespread is the 'kettle' drum (bottom,left) .
A serviceable barbecue can be purchased from your local supermarket for under twenty pounds. Whilst they may look ok, the legs are usually flimsy and poorly attached. Disposable charcoal barbecues are also available, costing as little as £9.99 for a pack of five, and consisting of a foil tray, metal grill and treated charcoal.
Charcoal is produced by heating a combination of sugar, wood, and bone char. Therefore it's base material is wood. Some popular woods used to produce charcoal are, hickory, guava, cherry, pecan, and oak. Charcoal is basically pure carbon, and it's the reason why so little smoke is produced when burning it. Whilst cooking with wood chips is uncommon in the UK, it can provide a more smokey flavour than charcoal alone. If you can't find a bag of charcoal with lumps of wood, then you can light the charcoal as normal, and add a few lumps of wood chips (hickory etc.) later.
Charcoal products have recently come in for criticism. Due to being produced from wood sourced from endangered tropical rain forests. This has led to some manufacturers producing eco-friendly charcoal, sourced from sustainable woodlands. The solvents added to improve the ignition of charcoal has also raised carbon footprint implications.
Charcoal options
The problem with stereotyping charcoal products, is the varying facets of charcoal produced by different manufacturers. Therefore, it can be misleading to suggest briquettes will always burn longer than lump charcoal etc. However, a general description is provided below. What's safe to say is that charcoal will burn at varying heat and speed. But, general speaking, lumps will take 45 minutes to be hot enough, whereas, briquettes will take around 30 minutes to be hot enough.
