Why the Chimney Starter Is Better Than the Usual Charcoal Igniter

The Chimney starter is a hardy, rough-as-the wild way to light a charcoal grill. It’s like it was made for cowboys out in prairies. It is a metal cylinder with a grate set inside to hold charcoal and a bottom designed to start a fire from just about anything. It works fine with either briquettes or lumps charcoal. If you were a real cowboy, you would probably use twigs or dry leaves. Or anything else that nobody needs anymore and can catch fire without releasing a smell that might mess the aroma of a good BBQ.

For a backyard BBQ, a bunch of old newspapers works just fine.

What you do is roll a bunch of newspapers into a donut shape – so that there is space for air to flow in – and place them in the space at the bottom of the chimney starter. It’s easier to do that with the starter upside down. Then you turn the thing right side up, place whatever amount of charcoal you want and light a match. The newspapers burn easy and the smoke will immediately find its way through the charcoal. In no time, the charcoal will catch fire and you will be in business.

You can use sawdust instead of the old newspapers. And if you are not in the real outdoors – meaning you still can access cooking spray or liquid gel starters – you can spray a little of it on the newspapers or sawdust to make them burn more intensely for longer.

Why the chimney starter beats the usual charcoal lighter

The usual, post-wild-west way of lighting a charcoal grill is to soak the charcoal with lighter fluid and set it ablaze. It works. The charcoal catches fire fairly quickly. But it is an inefficient way to get charcoal going. The charcoal burns from the top, leaving the rest of the pile just there. It means you have to spread and mix the top layer of hot coal with the rest of the charcoal, possibly using a pair of tongs.

And, of course, that means not placing all the charcoal you need in the grill in the first place – and ending up with a BBQ that takes longer to cook.

The beauty of the chimney starter is that it burns charcoal from the bottom going up. Actually, that’s why it’s called a chimney starter. It works like a chimney. The charcoal or briquettes catch fire from the underside, making it unnecessary to mess about with the charcoal with tongs.

The chimney starter also saves on charcoal. By burning from the bottom going up, it rides on the natural tendency of fire to spread upwards with the smoke. The effect is that a chimney starter will not only spread fire naturally to the upper layers of charcoal, but also use less charcoal to do the job.

But maybe the best thing about the chimney starter is that it is simply the proper way to start a BBQ. It’s a no-frills, straight to the point and all natural way to get meat grilled. Like a cowboy would have done it.

Jonah, Guest Blogger