In 2006 Kingsford redesigned its charcoal to incorporate a pair of grooves on the backside. The grooves increased the surface area of the briquette so that it would light easier and faster. While these grooves decreased the weight of each briquette by about 10% it made them burn hotter (with more surface area the briquettes contact more oxygen, making them burn hotter and faster). For grilling this meant less time waiting for the charcoal to be ready to cook over and a higher heat output for better performance. For low and slow smoking the briquettes, in an oxygen deprived environment burned just as long.
Now Kingsford is preparing to roll out an even more "improved" briquettes. These newly designed charcoal chunks have deeper, diagonal grooves further increasing the surface area. Now of course I know what you cynics are going to say. These new briquettes are 7 1/2% lighter than the current ones, which are about 10% lighter than the only traditional charcoal, hence the old 15 pound bag will not weight about 11 pounds (you get the same number of briquettes per bag that you would have gotten 5 years ago). Well I've been hanging out with the fine folks at Kingsford R&D for the past couple of days, I've looked over the data, and I've seen the new briquettes in action. What I believe is that most people are not going to notice a difference.
Now I know that those of you who use Kingsford for traditional low and slow barbecue are going to be skeptical. We all were 4 years ago when they changed them last time. Well I was helping Chris Lilly load up a very large Jedmaster smoker last night for a Pork Butt demonstration. In went 4 big blue bags of kingsford charcoal, the same amount of briquettes as always though a few pounds lighter by weight. With the vents shut down to hold a 225 degree smoking temperature everything appeared completely normal. Had I not known that we were using the new charcoal I wouldn't have suspected anything was different. As of this morning, after about 10 hours of smoking time, the smoker was performing just as you would expect. The temperature held through the night and the long charcoal trough was burning end to end with plenty of charcoal left to keep it going for a few more hours.
Probably the more important change here isn't the mass of the briquette as much as the composition. What has been removed here is more coal than char. Now char is the the wood portion and coal is, well, actually coal. This means a cleaner charcoal that produces less ash. This is particularly important for the barbecue purists putting charcoal in their smokers. You will get less ash build up to block air flow so in fact this charcoal does seem to perform better.
I suggest before anyone panics that you give the new charcoal a try. I know I will. These new briquettes will be shipping to stores in January, but you may no see them for a few months. All flavors of types of Kingsford charcoal will be affected by the new design from the traditional blue bag to the matchlight, competition, hickory, and mesquite.
Photo: 2009 Regarding BBQ
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