Lighting Charcoal

One of my biggest concerns after moving from a propane fired smoker to a wood/charcoal fired pit was the lighting of charcoal. After all I had not used charcoal for grilling or smoking for over 25 years. I knew I did not want to use lighter fluid as my past experience with both lighting and eating food cooked on a grill/pit that was started with lighter fluid had shown my that you could tasted the lighter fluid in the food. I do not care what some of you say this is an indisputable fact and if you say you cannot taste the fluid in the meat, then you have no taste buds left.

I started doing research in advance of my new pit purchase and decided to use a charcoal chimney. Needless to say I was very nervous the day I first fired up my pit, however as you will see here I had absolutely no reason to be concerned.

I choose a large chimney (Weber Brand) and was not sure I really needed one this large, but later I was glad I did.

To light the charcoal in the chimney I followed these steps

Placed three paper towels (you can also use newspaper) in the bottom of the chimney and added a few drops of olive oil. Note: I am doing this in my firebox, however you can also do this in a gravel area, which I typically do for my second batch.

Turn the chimney up right and fill with charcoal. I try to only fill about 75 percent of the chimney.

Then ignite the paper towels in the bottom of the chimney

In a matter of seconds you will have smoke coming out of the top of your chimney

and in no time you will have glowing charcoals. (about 15 minutes average depending on ventilation and draft)

You can then pour the coals in to your fire box and let your pit begin to heat up.

Notice I am using a pit glove for safety and also have both a water hose and fire extinguisher at my disposal.

I can normally get a 250 degree smoker box for around 4 hours out of one chimney full.

As you can see this process is not that difficult and I now really enjoy both grilling and smoking with charcoal.

Cheers
Randy