HOWTO: Light Up Your Grill with Charcoal Chimneys
4 Comments Grilled on by gm January 26th, 2006 in HOWTO
I had no idea this technique even existed until Mike from the Cigar Intelligence Agency, who left a comment on my Carnival of the Vanities submission post on starting a charcoal fire, clued me in on the idea of a charcoal chimney.
So basically you use a charcoal chimney (the one pictured above is a Weber 87886 Charcoal Chimney, you can pick one up for like $10.99 from Amazon but I suggest you just swing by a Home Depot or Lowes) to heat up the coals instead of spraying lighter fluid on a pyramid of briquettes.
You start up by grabbing some newspaper (I imagine if you were filling up a chimney with as much charcoal as is pictured, you would need quite a bit of newspaper) and rolling it up, crumpling too, and then curl it around so it looks like a ring. Then you just line the bottom of the chimney on the side with the holes. Set the thing down, onto your grill if you want, and light the paper. Once it lights up, add in the charcoal and the fire from the newspaper will begin heating up the briquettes, funneling the heat up the chimney.
I’ve never tried this but everywhere on the net says that this is a great way to start a fire without lighter fluid, making it both safer and perhaps tastier (if you put on the meat before all the fluid is burned off).
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4 Responses to “HOWTO: Light Up Your Grill with Charcoal Chimneys”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 6th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Actually, it doesn’t require much paper at all. I fill my chimney with about four pounds of charcoal, wad a SINGLE SHEET of newspaper up in the bottom of the grill, light the paper and set the chimney down over it. Coals are ready to use in about 15 minutes. I usually add a bit more charcoal to the fire after dumping the coals.
A single sheet? Do the charcoal briquettes already have fluid on them? Does this chimney perform magic? I don’t see how a single sheet is enough heat to get the coals going… but what do I know. hahaha
I didn’t believe it either, but trust me, it works. The single sheet of paper gets the briquets in the very bottom of the chimney to start smoldering, and the rising heat draws air in through the holes in the bottom of the chimney to keep the process going.
Within five minutes, the air rising through the chimeny is too hot to comfortably hold your hand over, even though the charcoal on top isn’t lit yet.
Within 8-10 minutes visible flames are coming out the top of the chimney, and the charcoal is ready to use in about 15 minutes.
From a single sheet of newspaper.