Lighting performer


 
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Pat Barnes

TVWBB Pro
While waiting(anxiously) for my Performer to arrive I looked at the manual at Weber.com.
The instructions for lighting say to fill the two baskets with charcoal,push them together over the burner and light. Is this the way most owners do it or do they use a chimney.
 
Fill the baskets and center them over the jets. Turn the knob 360 degrees counterclockwise. Push the ignitor button. That's it. Turn off the gas after about 10 minutes. The coals should be completely covered in ash about 10 minutes after that.

I never use the chimney anymore for lighting the kettle. The gas ignition is one of the biggest pluses of owning a Performer.
 
Congrats on your performer. Thats what I do If Im grilling a small amount. If Im cooking a lot, or a few large Items I load the chimney and forget about the baskets. If Im going to cook a whole brisket or pork shoulder, a few lit, over the unlit for the minion method, usually use firebricks
 
I havent used my baskets yet, I always use my chiminey. Depending on what Im cooking, I'll fill the chiminey half or all the way full and light it with the performer.
 
It all depends on how much lit charcoal you want. When lighting just a little bit, I place the coal right on the grate. Sometimes I use the baskets and other occasions the chimney. When you need a lot of lit, I find the chimney is the most efficient at it. You're gonna love that Performer!
 
If I'm using indirect heat I put the baskets over the flame. Anything else I use the chimney. As far as the ignitor I just use a Bic or Benzomatic for lighting. Mine has been kaput on my Performer for over a year now.
 
Probubly a stupid question but when you use the chimney on the performer.....do you or do you NOT use newspaper under the chimney.

Bob J
 
No you don't need paper under the chimney. I use the propane starter just like Andy does, and it works like a champ.
 
Now that I've used the Perf a few times I can say that I really like the convience of the propane assit starter with the igniter. Last night I did some frilled veggies atover deirct heat then put on a couple of meat loafs at indirect hlower heat. Loaded the baskets,lit the fire and left them together for the direct cook. After the veggies,I pushed them to the sided,put the MLs in hte middle an d finished with indirect heat. Wunnerful.
 
I have had mine for 6 months and i just love it. I use a chimney starter to start mine. I still use the baskets also. The chimney starter seems to make it easier. I would not trade my performer for anything. Good luck with the new grill congrats!!!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Andy Erickson:
I always use a chimney over the burner, even if I'm lighting coals for my WSM. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>x2 I hardly ever pull the baskets out.
 
How long do you guys leave the gas on when lighting using a chimney? I saw that someone said to leave the gas on for 10 minutes when using the baskets but I didn't know if it would be different when using the chimney. Thanks.

Wayne
 
Hi everyone.

I know this will be a dumb question but I'm new here and trying to learn as much as I can...

Is there an advantage of using a chimney over the baskets? I mean flavor will be the same, right? If so, why are so many big on using chimney?
 
Yeah Raf, it'll all taste the same.

I think the main difference of the chimney over the baskets is that sometimes you might want all your fire to be spread into a 2 or 3 level heat range on one side of the kettle so that you have very hot on the fireside of the kettle, then a cooler heat towards the middle then nothing on the opposite side as that's where you want your seared meat to indirect heated.
This is much easier to organise with a chimney becuase you can pour the hot charcoal where you want it to be where as the baskets you can just slide them around where you want and are good for when you want the balanced Hot fire placed on eitherside and the meat in the middle.
I think the chimney heats up the coals alot quicker but not by that much in my experience, it's just the convenience.
The best thing with a chimney is,you can have hot coals on demand by lighting up more when needed, in fact you never really need to be without ready hot coals and cook all day by keeping the chimney stoked up.
Weber usually includes the baskets with most of it's kettle ranges these days and it's good to have them because they are useful for working on even balanced fires for calculated cooking.

cheers

Davo
 
I use my chimney over the gas burner on my performer and only need to leave the gas on for about a minute to get the coals started and i let the chimney work its magic!...it doesn't take long at all for the charcoal to get going really good.
 
I just got my performer and havent used the baskets, I just light a chimney over the propane starter (usually a half chimney). I only leave the propane on for 5 muntes. I just bank all of the charcoal on one side of the grill. I dump the new stuff right on top of the old stuff. I love the performer!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Andy Erickson:
I always use a chimney over the burner, even if I'm lighting coals for my WSM. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ditto, haven't used the coal baskets much at all after the first couple times. I don't even use them for holding charcoal much at all. I'm always using lump though, so that might have something to do with it.
 
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