Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

When you're using a charcoal chimney put some dried orange peel on the bottom of the chimney. The citrus oil burns longer than the balled up newspaper. I read this a few weeks ago, dried some peels and have been using them ever since. With the cheapie chimney I have right now I had frequent failures where the paper goes out before any coals get lit. Only one failure in about ten tries since I started using the orange peels.

Tom

Good tip, but are you trying to get me starting to eat oranges.

That should improve the smell quite a bit too.

If you're out of orange peel, use a little veggie oil on the newspaper.

best way to start briquets a torch

Hi Tom,

Good tip about the orange peels. I go through a lot of charcoal and eat a lot of oranges, so it sounds like a good match for me. I have an orange in my lunch bag today so I'll keep the peel and try it this weekend.

I never use charcoal starter when I fire up the grill or the smoker since the flavor of food can be effected by the petrochemicals in the starter. When I'm DO cooking I regularly use charcoal lighter since the food is contained inside the ovens. Fire starter makes it much easier.

Here are a couple of more tips for starting charcoal.

Pour some cooking oil on the newspaper before using it in the chimney starter. The oil will burn off causing the newspaper to burn longer.

Initially start about 10 to 15 coals. After they are going well then fill up the chimney with your coals. It's much more difficult to get a full chimney started than it is just a few.

When DO cooking, leave a few coals in the chimney so you can start the next batch of coals. (see above)

If you have two chimneys, stack them one on top of the other. Use the bottom one for starting the charcoal and leave the top one empty so it will act as a chimney to create a good updraft. My friend Kelly started doing this and it's amazing how much faster the charcoal starts.

Those are my tips and I look forward to reading others.

Joanne

I'm basically lazy, and buy the match start charcoal, start it in the chimney with a match, and let it burn for a while to burn off the petro smell.

I use the charcoal bag to start my chimney. Once I fill the chimney I tear the paper off the bag leving just enough to roll down and close the bag, about two hand fulls of wadded paper. I'll even seperate the layers of paper to give a little more surface area. I never have a problem with this method and when all the charcoal is used I only have a small amount of the bag left to throw away.

I usually fill my chimney up to the top then put it on my turkey fryer burner. If I'm in a real hurry, I get the leaf blower and put it underneath the chimney starter. Can you say, blast furnace? The only down side is that it gets so hot that it can deform the chimney starter. Oh yeah, there is something about hot sparks getting thrown all over tha plece too.

Matt,

I see you and I have the same ideas about starting charcoal.

I love my weed burner.

Tom

Have bacon in the AM and save the grease for evening fires.????? Just an idea.

southpennrailroad wrote:Have bacon in the AM and save the grease for evening fires.????? Just an idea.

If you can keep the ants from finding it. I throw it in the fire pit anyway. They will find it and swarm all over the grease. Later that night, I light the fire on top of them.