Charcoal lighting and the Guru Golf Club


 
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Nate Brown

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Do any of you wish you could get your charcoal started even faster than the standard method of lighting it the chimney? Well I know I do. I am a professional firefighter so I know I can figure out a way to get my charcoal going quick! My first idea was to weld up a weed burner to a stand that I could set the chimney on and light it. It was working well, but I just couldn't leave well enough alone so I had to see just how far I could turn up the propane on the 500,000 BTU burner. Well I turned up high enough that the flame started bouncing back down on my hand, which caused me to jerk it away, which caused me to accidently knock over the entire contraption onto my wooden deck. I have a nice charred spot now that I cover up with my drip pan. Thank goodness no one saw me do it and called the FD. I don't think I would ever live that one down. So I guess I would have to say that the weed burner worked great it was just a bit to dangerous even for a trained professional like me.

Continuing on my quest to light charcoal faster I got the Golf Club from BBQ Guru. My initial thought is that it seems a lot safer and user friendly than the weed burner. Upon using it I think it works OK. You have to keep the propane turned way down otherwise it will blow out the flame. My solution to that was to drill out all the burner holes to 5/64". Now I can turn up the gas all the way. Again, I should point out I am a train professional /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif. The other modification I have made is to drill a hold in the side near the bottom of my Weber chimney to insert the golf club in order to light the charcoal from the bottom. This doesn't work real well because in this configuration the burner holes point down. I plan on contacting the BBQ Guru and seeing if I could get a club with the bend going the opposite way to fix this. I will post some pics of my mods if I can get the results I want. Have fun Q'ing.
 
Sounds like a lotta work to improve on how fast I can get coals going. I understand building a pulse jet motor is pretty easy, have you thought about just hanging a basket behind one /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif. Seriously, I have a friend (and a fellow TVWB member, Jeff Lowe) who turned me on to this trick. He has a $20 small propane burner that uses canned propane. He fills his Weber chimney and sets it on that. Gets those coals toasty fast!!!
 
I often use my turkey fryer (propane burner) to start my coals. I actually started to trun DOWN the flame becasue the briqs in the bottom of the chimney were burning up completely before the top coals started to light.

I start the chimney on the burner and by the time the WSM is set up the coals are ready for cooking.
 
I put the chimney on the side burner of my gasser.

I am slso a trained professonsl, but I am trained in something other than firefighting
 
Ah, the quest to do something better, different, faster, smarter . . . It's great to read the discussion. This one however, I just don't understand. I use MM. I light the required couple of sheets of news paper under about 10-20 coals. In all seriousness, I really can't get the rest of the wsm set up (loading charcoal, puting a fresh sheet of foil over the sand and inserting the pan in the wsm, getting the grates wiped off and sprayed with oil, getting the meat on the grate and the temp probs set up . . .) before the coals are more than ready.

Maybe instead of figuring out how to light coals faster, I need to move my *** faster, but right now, getting the coals ready is not the bottle neck.

But hey - a bond fire on the deck - that's big time fun /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
 
Instead of drilling the holes bigger, tape up the air intake on the torch head to reduce the air to fuel ratio. I had to close off about 70% of the intake to get club working.


William.
 
For me the prep is part of the fun. I like setting up all my gear, food, etc. Lighting the coals is is like starting the game and eating is the end.

Now if someone could devise some way to clean up super fast I'd be interested!
 
I saw an artice on the web from some university, that (fully) started 20# of charcoal in 3 seconds.

It was a physics class, that poured liquid oxygen right on the recently lit coals!

I cant find the site anymore, but I remember seeing the pictures...20# of charcoal...fully ashed, with red hot centers...3 seconds... /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
 
A page referencing it appears here. The original site, complete with video clips was removed upon the request of Purdue University-- where it was hosted-- because it caused too much traffic. For more info, Google "George Goble" and "liquid oxygen".
 
Needless to say my experiment didn't look quite as spectacular as that pic. I always tell people that a great deal of the fun of BBQ'ing is the time spent more or less relaxing. I've determined that I don't really NEED to get the coals going so fast.

I guess I was just having fun mixing a little garage engineering, metal fab, and Q'ing. I have found that the Golf Club with MAPP gas works just about as well as anything. Also my torch head doesn't have adjustable air intake so I had to enlarge the burner holes to get it to burn more.

BTW cooked some pretty mean beer can chickens on Sunday. I let the BBQ Guru do all the heavy lifting. Remember "Be Cool about Fire Saftey" /infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif
 
I've been trying to figure out a solution to the Weber Chimney/ Golf Club combo also......I can't wait to see your results.

I remember someone (BGE forum) was using a MAPP torch to light his extruded charcoal and he noted that this type of gas will burn well "upside down"...whatever that meant! Go figure......
 
I think the newpaper/ charcoal chimney works just fine IMHO, and I am not known for patience. It is fun to play with fire though. In the words of the immortal sage Beavis "Fire! Fire! Fire is cool!"

I recommend all you kids play with fire under the supervision of your parents, or in the case of us "older children", your wife /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
 
To be honest...I've tried many (crazy) ideas on lighting a good fire. The best one yet has been the simplest.
Under a weber charcoal chimney I place an elevated can of "Safe Heat"...6-hour chafing dish fuel (Not Sterno, Safe Heat has a wick). I buy them by the case at Sam's club. I sometimes add a couple of starter pieces within the charcoal. This gives me a roaring fire in good time. I dont' know why..I've never had much luck with newspaper.
 
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