Wood Brick Fuel – first thoughts

Doug S • April 21, 2025

In a previous post, I wrote about my conundrum for having firewood for fires – in short, due to bugs and pests, transporting it isn’t an option; the camp store firewood is too expensive and I’ve had hit or miss luck just buying it near the campground. I came across a product called Wood Brick Fuel by US Recycled Wood Products that seemed like it would be a likely candidate.

  1. It’s ingredients list is just wood- there is no filler, no paraffin holding it together, nothing.
  2. Because it’s just wood, it is food safe (received confirmation from the company that they are food safe)
  3. It was available for sale just up the road from me at a hardware store.
  4. It wasn’t grossly expensive.

I bought a bundle of 20 blocks. They are 2 pounds per block. It cost me right about $9.

My Review

Longest story short: I’ll keep buying and using them in addition to real wood, when that’s available.

The Pros

Easy to transport – being bricks, I put them into totes because water destroys them. This gave me 3 handy boxes to carry around.

Easy to light – they caught very quickly with just a simple 3 block teepee and some cardboard and a paper towel rolled up inside of it. I caught the paper towel on fire, that lit the cardboard and the whole thing was up and burning with no fuss.

Safe to transport – this was the biggest thing. There are no restrictions on travelling with them – I can take them 1,000 miles away if I wanted to.

Even heat for cooking – once these got hot, they were a nice even and steady heat for cooking. We cooked burgers on my Amazing Grill and it made it pretty easy because it was a consistent heat.

Inexpensive ( compared to camp store wood ) – these definitely lasted longer then $6-worth of the camp store wood that I typically am stuck with.

The Cons

Need Protected from Water – as I mentioned before, these deteriorate when exposed to water.

Smokey start up – I didn’t compare these against real wood, but the first three and then later 4 or 5 more were pretty smokey until they got red hot. However, I didn’t compare this against an equivalent amount of wood.

The fire didn’t feel “alive” – once they got hot, there was little flame. Basically it made good embers, but there wasn’t any pizzazz or life to the fire. I kept throwing twigs and small branches on to have some yellow to look at and love. You also couldn’t “play” with the fire – the bricks, once red hot, would break down if poked at with a stick. Truth be told, this was probably my single biggest issue with these.

Expensive (compared to a cord of wood delivered to home) – locally, I can get a cord of wood for (rarely) $150 to (more commonly) $200. A 1,000-brick pallet (weighing 2,000 pounds) would cost me $300.

Final Verdict

I’ll buy and use these again with the plan on augmenting them with wood from the camp store or from a local seller. It should give me a nice combination of less expensive “wood” that is easy to transport and find and the “life” that I’m looking for in a fire.

Pictures

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