Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/20/weber-rapid-fire-chimney-start.html
…
3 Likes
At first glance, I read that as rapid-chimney-fire-starter.
9 Likes
That reminds me when I was a kid - one of our neighbors must have never cleaned his chimney ever. They were having a fire in the evening one weekend and it caught fire looking like a blowtorch shooting out of the top.
As for this thing - yea, it’s the easiest and best way to start your coals. Since I always keep a bag of both lump mesquite and Kingsford around, I drop a couple pieces of lump at the bottom and the fire starts even quicker.
I can always tell when there is an amateur grilling in the neighborhood - the smell of lighter fluid.
7 Likes
100% of all charcoal starts since I got one of these has required on two sheets of news paper, double paged. And no more then two matches to start depending on the wind.
100%
These are the Very best things EVER
6 Likes
They look like something similar in concept to rocket cookers campers use. Pretty neat.
I’d like to get one of those for camping. A camp fire is nice, but would be cool to have the rocket cooker for pots.
1 Like
We take a Weber chimney starter and a small bag of charcoal when camping. A few lit coals spread around the wood in the firepit gets a great fire going almost instantly.
1 Like
Thanks for the tip, sounds like it would get the smoke flowing over the meat quicker, too.
These things kick so much ass.
5 Likes
I’ve got a 10-15 year old non-branded version of same, half the price at the local hardware store, still working fine.
2 Likes
Yea. My standard thing is to get red hot coals of both kinds (mostly Kingsford) in the chimney, then after I dump the coals out on one side of my Weber, I throw some more lump on top for flavor and to have the fire last longer.
Note, for those that haven’t used mesquite - it will spark A LOT sometimes.
Also, your local Mexican market is the best place to find bags of this.
1 Like
I like to use little paraffin cubes for these since I don’t get the paper.
1 Like
Rapid
about 30-40 minutes
2 Likes
Our neighbor was using one of these the other day. So much smoke was blowing into our yard and house we thought our fire alarms were going to go off. I thought about whether a reciprocal effect could be managed with our garden hose.
Bigger than the cheaper versions which makes it nice for lump charcoal.
It doesn’t really take that long.
More like 15 or 20.
5 Likes
You can speed that up by putting it on top of a propane fueled turkey fryer base.
1 Like
I’ve been using an old coffee can for longer than I care to admit. It cost me nothing. Reduce REUSE (repeat 100s of times) recycle
3 Likes
A smaller grate on top of this makes an awesome “blow torch” cooker if you want to sear something very very fast. The grate will get red hot…
I have a second one modified with big holes on top to use as a wok burner. It’s a little unstable but it really cooks!
3 Likes
Yeah, this is why I stopped using mine. Houses in my neighborhood are too close together. For a while I switched to an electric starter… now I just use a propane grill.
