Commonly, charcoal briquettes user test their briquette quality with a drop test. Because they can see how strong the product is and also can analyze how much ash that dropped.
To do this, you can burn the briquettes first and wait until the briquettes start to glowing red, it takes about 6-8 minutes if you lighten up directly with fire, but if you have a steel plate or any other steel layer as a surface, then it just takes 2-3 minutes until the product glows red And then take the products out and you can drop them directly, or maybe can rest the product for about 5-10 minutes so the briquettes start to become white.
And then you can be prepared to use a steel plate for the drop test for optimal checking. It’s okay if you do not have a steel plate, you can drop it to the ground. But the best to do it is by having a steel plate so that you can see the ash drop accurately.
Drop it about 2-3 times, you can drop it in high height.
Good briquettes drop little ash in the first drop and do not drop ash anymore in the second and third attempts. Also, good products are not cracked.
While bad briquettes drop high ash, also still drop ash in the second and third attempts.
You also can see their ash color, there are 3 colors of ash:
1. White cream/white yellow
2. White Silver
3. Snow white
The best is white silver, but if you are likely to identify more about ash color, you can read our article here: The Meaning of Ash Colors in Coconut Charcoal Briquettes
If the product has a smell, then it can be from the products. But there is also a chance of smell that comes from the steel plate or the fire, so you can smell the briquettes at a closer distance.
If coconut charcoal briquettes, the products contain no smoke, you need to check them at a far distance and also a close distance. If you already see the smoke in the far distance, then the quality is not that good.
And if you see smoke in a short distance, if the smoke is still little then the quality is still good, but the best is to contain no smoke at all.
You can see after you take your briquettes to rest for 3 minutes, the longer is, the briquette should glow and expand it evenly.
You can see also how light they are, if the glowing is just dark red, then it still has high ash or maybe high moisture.
If the briquettes glowing expands evenly, and gets more light and consistent, then the briquettes is good because it contains low ash.
You can also give air by swinging soft paper to the briquettes, so you can see where the glowing spots are more accurately.
Briquette duration depends on the size, but commonly, good briquette duration time is about 1.5 to 2 hours long. If your briquettes are big it can be more than 2 hours.
Protect the briquettes from strong wind, and just put stay the products until they vanished or break.
