What Is Restaurant Grade Charcoal and Why It Matters for Your BBQ

Most people buying charcoal from a supermarket have never thought about what restaurants actually use. The bag on the shelf with the cartoon chef on it isn't what's going into a professional kitchen. Not even close.

EverBurning started supplying restaurants. That was the whole point. Kitchens that run charcoal grills through a full service need fuel that lights reliably, burns hot and steady, and doesn't die halfway through the night. Supermarket charcoal doesn't cut it. The pieces are small, they burn fast, and you're constantly feeding the grill just to maintain temperature. For a restaurant that's dead time and dead money.

So what actually makes charcoal restaurant grade?

Size and density

Walk up to a bag of supermarket charcoal and shake it. You'll hear a lot of small, lightweight pieces rattling around. Some of it is practically dust. Small pieces mean more surface area, which means they burn faster and hotter for a short period -- then they're gone.

Restaurant grade charcoal is bigger and denser. Bigger pieces take longer to fully ignite, but once they're going they hold heat consistently for hours. Our charcoal burns for 5 hours or more. A busy restaurant service runs 3-4 hours. The maths works. You light it once, you cook your whole service, you're done.

What this means for home BBQ

When we started getting asked by home cooks whether they could buy the same charcoal we supply to restaurants, the answer was yes -- because there's no reason you should be cooking on inferior fuel just because you're in your back garden.

The difference you notice first is the cook time. You're not babysitting the grill, adding fuel, or watching the temperature drop while your guests are waiting. You light it, it gets up to temperature, and it stays there. Low and slow pulled pork, a long afternoon of ribs, a proper brisket -- none of that is realistic on charcoal that burns out in an hour.

The second thing you notice is the taste. Hardwood lump charcoal with no additives or binders burns clean. There's no chemical aftertaste. What you taste is the food and the smoke, which is the whole point of cooking over charcoal in the first place.

Why most people settle for less

Supermarket charcoal is cheap and it's everywhere. Most people don't know there's a better option because nobody's told them. If your only reference point is a bag of instant-light briquettes that smell like lighter fluid, you don't know what you're missing.

Restaurant grade charcoal costs more per bag. It also lasts two to three times longer per cook. Work that out per hour of cooking and it's not the expensive option -- it's the sensible one.

This is what restaurants figured out a long time ago. Now you know too.