Sean T: What stick burning are you using??
Briquets or lump is always a big debate. I use Royal Oak Lump in my stick burner (Lang 36) due to it's excellent rating on
www.nakedwhiz.com. Here's why I prefer lump over briquets. Briquets begin as sawdust and chips from mixed woods. It's cooked down to 25% of it's original weight, then crushed and mixed with starch, sodium nitrate, limestone, borax and sawdust. This mix is then formed into a briquet. As a result of the mix they produce more ash than lump due to all the junk that's added during manufacture BUT they are very consistent bag to bag as compared to lump and the consistency translate to an even burn rate. I think a better choice for briquets is COMPETITION BRIQUETS which only contain starch and a little Borax as a binder. It's less chemical and they produce less ash.
LUMP Charcoal, in my opinion, is the next best thing to cooking with hardwood. Lump is made from hardwood scrapes from saw mills, which is carbonized into irregular size pieces. Lump leaves little ash but more importantly (to me) there aren't the BINDERS you find in briquets but because of their irregular shape you don't get the consistency per bag that you get with briquets. Some reviews saw lump burns hotter than briquets due to their irregular shape but i think they both burn at the same rate.
I fill my charcoal basket with lump and then add a couple of pieces of fast burning CAMP FIRE wood and ignite it with a brush burner (harbor freight). Once I establish a bed of coals I might add some more lump to get my cooker to about 250* and then i add the meat. Then I add hardwood chips for a smoke flavor. I only add hardwood up to 145* internal because the product won't take any more smoke after that. I add lump as needed to maintain about 250* to 275* and control my temp using the damper & pinwheels.
My bottom line is I don't use briquets because of all the crap they use as binders and the high ash content but that's just me. I know a lot of guys that swear briquets are the best. For more info than you'll ever want to know about charcoal go to
www.amazingribs.com and check out " the zen of charcoal".