By Dylan Clay
Charcoal is primarily elemental carbon. Meaning it won’t “go bad” or “expire.
BUT if your charcoal is coated with additives like petroleum solvents for lighting – these can evaporate.
Even if it does – it will still work.
To prove this, I took two Kingsford Original briquettes and put them in a bowl of water.
Within 20 minutes, the briquettes sunk and were allowed to soak for the remaining 1 hour and 40 minutes of this test.
I also simulated a more “realistic” humid environment by putting a little bit of water into a Ziploc bag.
I then placed four briquettes in the bag and laid it flat on my deck with the sun beating directly on it.
After two hours, I took the charcoal out of the water and the bag and placed them in my charcoal chimney.
The result: The charcoal still lit; Shocker!
There was definitely a lot of “white smoke” as the water from the surface and inside the charcoal vaporized, but it still lit.
The resulting temperature from these five briquettes was 150F – pictured below on the lid thermometer.
Is there likely an amount of time where there is too much moisture?
I’d wager to say, to a point.
However, even in this case where you’ve submerged the charcoal (a very rare occurrence) you could simply let the charcoal dry out – problem solved.
Lighter fluids for charcoal are either petroleum or alcohol based (methanol or ethanol). These substances can be applied to briquettes to create “Match-light” charcoal.
The reason Kingsford tells you to “close tightly after use” is because these substances can and will evaporate; By closing the bag, you prevent this from happening.
A patent by GreenFlame Products LLC investigated alternatives to “match-light” substances. In the patent they discussed putting Kingsford Match-light Briquettes inside a Ziploc bag – similar to my experiemnt
The result was that the charcoal was no longer cable of being “match-lit.”
“The Kingsford® Matchlight® charcoal was very effective if lit immediately after removing from the commercial packaging, but storage in the Ziploc® bags for even one day rendered the Matchlight® charcoal ineffective (see Table 2).”
David E Moe, Reed E Oshel – 7/21/2015
However, that’s not to say that the charcoal no longer “works” or that it went “bad.”
It’ll still light.
To completely answer this question, I reached out to four brands of Charcoal that I regularly use:
To each brand I asked:
“This might sound like a silly question but what is the shelf life (if any) of your charcoal? Could it be kept for long term storage?”
Royal Oak’s Response:
Kingsford’s Response:
FOGO Charcoal’s Response:
Jealous Devil:
All of these brands responded with the same sort of answers; Charcoal has an indefinite shelf-life so long as it’s stored in a cool dry place and you avoid moisture.
As part of Kingsford’s questioning, I also added:
“Do things like the chemicals in the match-light charcoal affect shelf-life?”
Which Kaitlyn noted above that Kingsford’s Match Light charcoal does have a shelf-life of 1-2 years.
