# Big K Restaurant Grade Charcoal 15kg  Multi Buy Box Offer @ Ocado



## sotv (May 25, 2017)

Hopefully may be of use to someone, as seems pretty good value to me for a well reviewed brand of charcoal.

Ocado selling it for £25,99 a box on a 3 for 2 offer till 13/6 https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Big-K-Restaurant-Grade-Charcoal/266898011?  so basically it is £51.98 for 45kg delivered if you have the free delivery pass asan exisiting Ocado customer. Which is still pretty good value in its own right.

If you haven't used them before then you can get 25% of your first order plus a free years delivery pass at the moment. The current offer runs out tomorrow, but is usually renewed afterwards.

So if a new customer you could get 90kg of Big K restaurant charcoal ( 6 x 15kg boxes) for around £76 delivered. I think you would expect to pay around £130+ normally for this sort of quantity? happy to be corrected if it can be got cheaper though.

There are many Ocado vouchers about on the net £20 of £80 first shop but this 25% off first orders and a free years delivery pass works very well if you want the full 6 boxes as it will knock £25 off your order up to £100. But as it stands the code runs out tomorrow.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/ocado

Also I don't think Ocado covers all parts of the Uk yet?

HTH


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## sotv (May 27, 2017)

New code off Ocado that is valid for the rest of the BIG K Promotion £25 off £100 first shop plus free delivery

https://www.ocado.com/webshop/getStaticContent.do?siteId=64256

Had 3 boxes of it delivered yesterday. Good big chunks. Using up some old charcoal today, but will try it out and report if any good on my next cook


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## sotv (Jun 1, 2017)

Cooked a chicken with this charcoal for the first time today. Very impressed with the cleanliness of the charcoal (no dust) burns really well and not too much needed

I put 12 pieces of this in the basket and added half a chimney of white hot small coals over it. I was interested to see how high I could get the internal temperature as I have a pizza stone for my ProQ which I have yet to use. But wasn't sure how high I could get the internal temp. 

As I was cooking a chicken without any water in the waterpan I thought it was an ideal opportunity to see what sort of temp this could reach. After 30 minutes it  had reached 425F and still climbing in a 2 tier set up and lid and the Maverick probe was in the top tier. I stopped at this point as I only wanted 290F for my chicken, and wasn't sure how long it would take too cool down. But it has left me very hopeful that close to 500F could be reached either with the pizza stone on the bottom base or even with just one tier.

It took about 20 minutes with the 2 of the vents closed to come down to 288F and maintained that temp with a +/- 2 F difference for the 2.5 hour cook and is still going at this temp 90 minutes later. Although my first cook with it. I am feeling much more comfortable with keeping a constant temp than I have with the Aussie heat beads. But cooking 8 racks of ribs with the waterpan in use on Saturday, so I will be able to form a more fuller opinion after this.













IMG_20170601_142051758.jpg



__ sotv
__ Jun 1, 2017


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## smokin monkey (Jun 2, 2017)

Sounds like it's good stuff. 

I know Wade swears by Aussie Heat Beads, I have used them but still undecided.

I have started to use my Gravity Feed Smoker a lot now, and not sure how those charcoal sticks would feed down the chute.

How long are they?


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## sotv (Jun 3, 2017)

They are all pretty uniform in size as per picture and just measured one it came out at 9 inches long and approx 5 inches in diameter. Without counting them individually, I would estimate there is at least 200+ pieces in a box

Some of them can be snapped smaller by hand, as just tried it, Charcoal is a messy business when handled, so I would wear some latex gloves personally if I needed to do this.

Going to start a 7-8 hour cook shortly. I have put 15 pieces in the the basket and will update how many I used in the total cook overall later if I remember


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## sotv (Jun 4, 2017)

Overall very pleased with them.Added another 22 pieces to the initial 15 I started with, over what was a 9 hour cook of 7 full racks of spare ribs. I added 4 x 5 pieces and 2 at the end and it maintained 222F +/- 2F for the all of the cook and if dropped below 220 I would then add 5 pieces Took about 15 minutes to catch when added and hovered around the 222F all the time.

I didn't have to separate the bullet smoker to add the charcoal to the bottom basket as they were long and thin enough to chuck through the door individually, so no great big heat loss occurred by having to separate the stack to add half a chimney of chunky lumpwood/beads as I normally would.

I left the 3 vents open fully the whole cook and never had to adjust them once. Which is the first time I have been able to do that with my ProQ since buying it.. I haven't got some of those cool monitoring devices that people have on here. But i felt from a personal point of view, I had a much more controlled cook using these uniform pieces of Lumpwood charcoal sticks, than I have managed to get with the Aussie Heatbeads so far, which I can struggle to get past 200F on my ProQ and even maintain that temperature for more than 90 minutes. I know a lot of people have great success with them, but I have seemed to struggle with them. These Big K seems to suit me much better.


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## rich111 (Jun 11, 2017)

Thanks for the tip SOTV. I just ordered a load and got the extra £20 off on top. Came in at under £1 a kg.


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## sotv (Jun 12, 2017)

Look like you got your order in, just in time, runs out tomorrow. Hope you have as much success with it as I have.


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