Light your BBQ fire in half the time


 
Benji Chong

Benji Chong

TVWBB Super Fan
http://www.postcrescent.com/story/life/food/2016/05/09/light-your-bbq-fire-half-time/82979678/

Saw this article today and thought it was an interesting method to try out. Anyone else try this yet?

"If you take a used core from your paper towel, which we all have these and most people will just recycle them, if you put that in the middle and then you put your charcoal around that, when you light it from underneath you have a natural chimney there that starts fluing up you might say, or the air and fire goes right up the middle and it gets it going, literally about twice as fast," Igel said.
Click to expand...
 
Have to give that a try. Toilet paper cores would probably work for the Weber compact chimney. Only downside I can see is you're reducing the charcoal capacity of your chimney.
 
I like that! I usually toss them to my GS Heidi to play with and chew on, but I'll save one and try it.

Tim
 
What's the hurry? I enjoy the 15 to 20 minutes it takes to enjoy a brew, prep the meal, etc. Some things I want to last. Grilling/BBQing is one of them.
 
If you are really in a hurry and have a gasser with a side burner just sit the chimney full of charcoal on the burner and light it.
Roaring inferno in no time at all.
 
The video is not working when I try it, but from the photo below and the description it looks like it would be fun to try.
Yes, I am easily amused.
 
I like the slow approach to lighting charcoal, which is why I usually only cook on coals on the weekend. If you're in such a hurry, just bust out the gasser.
 
Yea, by the time I find a tube I could have lit the coals the normal way and have hot coals already. Thats because if I'm looking for something, I can't find it to save my life.
 
I like the option of trying something different, and if that happens to be something that is tossed in the trash, then I'm all for it.:)

Tim
 
I'm with you, Tim. Also about 10% of the time I fire up a chimney with newspaper it doesn't start for whatever reason and jamming some more newspaper underneath a full chimney is far from ideal. A cardboard tube in the midst of the coals is likely to catch even if the lower coals don't initially, possibly cutting down on that 10% failure rate.
 
Charles H. said:
If you are really in a hurry and have a gasser with a side burner just sit the chimney full of charcoal on the burner and light it.
Roaring inferno in no time at all.
Click to expand...

I got a Performer Platinum a couple of years ago that has the gas assist starter. Glad I did. Using the side burner works, too. Here's a tip if you use gas to start chimneys: Pop out the cone-shaped insert in the chimney, flip it over and reinstall it so that the cone points down. It gets the coals closer to the gas flame and lights in about half the time.
 
I tried this technique using a toilet paper roll and 2/3 a chimney of KBB. It did shave about 3-4 min off the usual lighting time, but filling the lower part of the chimney by hand, in order to keep the centered TP roll upright, made it hardly worth the extra effort. Next time I'll try putting the cardboard tube on the side of the chimney wedging it between the outer rungs of the lower grate, then dumping all the charcoal straight from the charcoal caddy.
 
2 bacon grease soaked paper towels works fast enough for me. You get a pretty good initial flame though the bottom half of a full chimney.
 
I could see a real advantage. If the chimney lights faster the bottom coals won't be nearly as spent as they are normally. If I light a whole chimney with one lighter cube by the time the top is ashed over the bottom coals are almost burnt up!
 
I tried this on my Weber compact chimney with lump charcoal, and although I didn't measure the lighting time, it was noticeably faster. Instead of using a toilet paper roll, I used a cardboard roll from an empty roll of aluminum foil which I cut to the same length as a toilet paper roll. The aluminum foil roll seemed to work pretty well because (1) it's about half the diameter of a paper towel roll so it takes up less real estate in the chimney starter, and (2) its cardboard is about twice as thick as the paper towel roll so it might not burn up as quickly. All that being said, normally I do prefer to let my charcoal ignite at its own natural pace whenever I'm not under any time pressure to get dinner on the table, but this trick could come in handy in a pinch whenever I need get my coals lit faster instead of resorting to my gasser to grill our food. Cool technique...not bad at all. For me personally, saving a few minutes can make all the difference in the world when it comes to preventing my family from complaining why dinner isn't ready yet ;).
 
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