Never thought about using oil... thanks for the tip! I need to season an SnS cold steel plancha this weekend, so I'm gonna give it a try. I was thinking about maybe even putting a twisted up piece of newspaper (also soaked in oil) down the middle of the coals to see if that helps speed things up. It takes about 20 - 30 minutes on average for my full chimney to get all the coals cherry red and I just hate waiting that long. If I could get the entire thing red in 10 minutes I'd be a happy camper.
@BBQExperiments just an FYI. You used the looft lighter wrong. I can have my coals ripping in less than 3 mins. You keep the torch on it for a min ,pullback a few inches and than wait for flame than pullback a bit more and it rips
Charcoal chimney, newspaper and oil. Fill chimney with charcoal, spray oil on newspaper. It makes the paper burn longer and hotter. Paper usually works better over tumbleweed because though it won’t burn as long, it burns a larger surface area. I sometimes just B&b char longs and they’re hard to light, even in a chimney. Instead I put a couple inches of lump in the bottom and fill with my char logs.
I have a looflighter, you can use it in the 60 seconds mark to light a small area, then leave it, it will get everything going , to me its the clear winner
Thanks Mick, great point - which chimney do you use? I've got a Weber chimney which has been great but starting to bend out of shape from the heat. I've been thinking about upgrading to a BBQDragon chimney which has a slot for the billows fan to go in to supercharge it which is pretty smart.
@@BBQExperiments I started with a cheapie that never seem to actually work, a friend suggested a Weber one and it has served me well….i have needed to make a few repairs but does the job. I would be interested in your thoughts on others tho
@@mick9371 Yea those Weber ones are decent and reasonably priced - I haven't heard of any better options other than possibly the chimney of insanity by BBQDragon but I haven't personally tried it.
I find it varies on the weather and charcoal. In the summer using lumpwood it takes barely anything to get going, but to light binchotan briquettes in the winter is a different story!
OK, here's a quick easy technique for you to try. I see a Weber gas 310 or something right behind you. I have the same and it has a side burner on it. Fill your charcoal chimney and put it on the side burner and turn on high... 5 min and your coals with be cherry red.
Just curious as to what type of briquettes you used for this? I use 1 tumbleweed only and I have never had an issue with getting the charcoal lit and hot. Granted it takes 15 minutes or so. Not sure how 7 of them didn’t light that small amount of charcoal.
What if you used the tumble weed/Firestarter with some kindling to keep the ambers going till the charcoal catches? I think that would be a good contender as well.
Could the methods be combined? To find an even faster method? That said the chimney’s more passive approach seems like a winner Can you use the chimney with the automatic bellows/fan thing you were trying to order?
Definitely! I looked into a few other options and saw there’s a “chimney of insanity” that has a hole in the bottom for a fan and claims to take ~3 minutes to light. My guess is it’d be a little longer than that but under 6 minutes. Only downside is it costs about £100 all up.
A good practice for the Looftlighter is to hold it against the charcoal & when you start to see a good amount of sparks pull it away a couple of centimetres, as the charcoal gets going a little more you need to raise it up again to finish off around 10-15 cm away from the charcoal. It’s a simple thing but if you don’t you will burn out your Looftlighter.
Did you read the manual for the looftlighter? You can get it done way faster if you use it according to the instructions by slowly increasing the distance between the lighter and the coals as soon as you see sparks. Try it out and you'll see the big difference it makes. You're basically supposed to use it the same way as you used the hair dryer after the first coals starts to glow.
That makes sense. I remember reading that it shouldn't directly touch the coals as that leads to the inevitable melted end but it seemed to take forever trying to light the coals from even an inch away so I didn't read much beyond that! Starting close and moving away makes a lot more sense though.
I generally use a chimney and a couple of tumble weeds to light my charcoal but hate the white heavy smoke. Does the blow torch and looftlighter avoid that heavy smoke stage?
Yea it's nasty. I still get a bit of white smoke initially with the Looftlighter/torch - I think it's a combination of water evaporating + the charcoal combusting incompletely at that initial stage as there's not enough o2/heat rather than the lighting method - but at least with the chimney starter you can leave it alone and come back to it when you've got that nice blue smoke.
Another handy hint, those cheap cordless vacuum cleaners (£20 ISH) have a blow function and come with some nozzles to, very handy and no mains power needed, although for grilling (bed of coals) a fast wrist and piece of cardboard takes some beating, stoking the flames😎
I found newspaper leaves quite a lot of ash and doesn't always burn long enough to light briquettes but usually fine on lump charcoal. Easier and a bit cheaper than going through kindling though.
Don’t use EVOO! Organic Truffle Oil is always the way to go for charcoal.🎩 (Soaking some paper towel in the cheapest cooking oil you have is great to get the chimney lit😉)
Don’t use EVOO! Organic Truffle Oil is always the way to go for charcoal.🎩 (The cheapest cooking oil you have works just fine to get your chimney lit😉)
I use a chimney but I soak newspaper with cooking oil. It's a lot faster because you aren't waiting for the kindling to light.
And you'd save a lot of money on kindling, good idea!
And your food tastes better because there's no chemicals or gas to contaminate it
Never thought about using oil... thanks for the tip! I need to season an SnS cold steel plancha this weekend, so I'm gonna give it a try. I was thinking about maybe even putting a twisted up piece of newspaper (also soaked in oil) down the middle of the coals to see if that helps speed things up. It takes about 20 - 30 minutes on average for my full chimney to get all the coals cherry red and I just hate waiting that long. If I could get the entire thing red in 10 minutes I'd be a happy camper.
@BBQExperiments just an FYI. You used the looft lighter wrong. I can have my coals ripping in less than 3 mins. You keep the torch on it for a min ,pullback a few inches and than wait for flame than pullback a bit more and it rips
Good on you for decisively picking a winner while also giving props to the other methods and discussing how they could be useful.
Thanks Stephen! 🙌
Charcoal chimney, newspaper and oil.
Fill chimney with charcoal, spray oil on newspaper. It makes the paper burn longer and hotter.
Paper usually works better over tumbleweed because though it won’t burn as long, it burns a larger surface area.
I sometimes just B&b char longs and they’re hard to light, even in a chimney. Instead I put a couple inches of lump in the bottom and fill with my char logs.
I have a looflighter, you can use it in the 60 seconds mark to light a small area, then leave it, it will get everything going , to me its the clear winner
We got an electric weed burner from aldi and it works better than the 70$ hairblower haha
Genius!
Put one tumbleweed under a full chimney starter and in 25 minutes you'll have a full chimney starter full of ready to go charcoal
Great experiment….chimney starters vary too in size ect
I’ve found that it’s worth buying the bigger stronger chimneys
Thanks Mick, great point - which chimney do you use? I've got a Weber chimney which has been great but starting to bend out of shape from the heat. I've been thinking about upgrading to a BBQDragon chimney which has a slot for the billows fan to go in to supercharge it which is pretty smart.
@@BBQExperiments I started with a cheapie that never seem to actually work, a friend suggested a Weber one and it has served me well….i have needed to make a few repairs but does the job. I would be interested in your thoughts on others tho
@@mick9371 Yea those Weber ones are decent and reasonably priced - I haven't heard of any better options other than possibly the chimney of insanity by BBQDragon but I haven't personally tried it.
All you need is one tumbleweed to light the chimney starter
I find it varies on the weather and charcoal. In the summer using lumpwood it takes barely anything to get going, but to light binchotan briquettes in the winter is a different story!
As a canadian i nearly dropped my phone when you said it was February. Your right tho cold weather makes it that much tougher
We were lucky it was quite a mild winter - a few years ago I would've been starting this video de-icing my blowtorch! 😅
OK, here's a quick easy technique for you to try. I see a Weber gas 310 or something right behind you. I have the same and it has a side burner on it. Fill your charcoal chimney and put it on the side burner and turn on high... 5 min and your coals with be cherry red.
Just curious as to what type of briquettes you used for this? I use 1 tumbleweed only and I have never had an issue with getting the charcoal lit and hot. Granted it takes 15 minutes or so. Not sure how 7 of them didn’t light that small amount of charcoal.
What if you used the tumble weed/Firestarter with some kindling to keep the ambers going till the charcoal catches? I think that would be a good contender as well.
Good idea, will try that out next time!
Could the methods be combined? To find an even faster method?
That said the chimney’s more passive approach seems like a winner
Can you use the chimney with the automatic bellows/fan thing you were trying to order?
Definitely! I looked into a few other options and saw there’s a “chimney of insanity” that has a hole in the bottom for a fan and claims to take ~3 minutes to light. My guess is it’d be a little longer than that but under 6 minutes. Only downside is it costs about £100 all up.
A good practice for the Looftlighter is to hold it against the charcoal & when you start to see a good amount of sparks pull it away a couple of centimetres, as the charcoal gets going a little more you need to raise it up again to finish off around 10-15 cm away from the charcoal. It’s a simple thing but if you don’t you will burn out your Looftlighter.
Good tip -I learned this the hard way and mine now has a slightly melted end!
I'm with the other guys, Chimney, Newspaper and a lil old cooking oil. Works like a charm.
I use propane torch….It’s what I got and it works.
Did you read the manual for the looftlighter? You can get it done way faster if you use it according to the instructions by slowly increasing the distance between the lighter and the coals as soon as you see sparks. Try it out and you'll see the big difference it makes. You're basically supposed to use it the same way as you used the hair dryer after the first coals starts to glow.
That makes sense. I remember reading that it shouldn't directly touch the coals as that leads to the inevitable melted end but it seemed to take forever trying to light the coals from even an inch away so I didn't read much beyond that! Starting close and moving away makes a lot more sense though.
I generally use a chimney and a couple of tumble weeds to light my charcoal but hate the white heavy smoke. Does the blow torch and looftlighter avoid that heavy smoke stage?
Yea it's nasty. I still get a bit of white smoke initially with the Looftlighter/torch - I think it's a combination of water evaporating + the charcoal combusting incompletely at that initial stage as there's not enough o2/heat rather than the lighting method - but at least with the chimney starter you can leave it alone and come back to it when you've got that nice blue smoke.
I use tumbleweeds and a leaf blower if using charcoal😁. Most of my smoker fires are wood only though cos offset.
Really hope it’s one of those massive ghostbuster style backpack leaf blowers!
@@BBQExperiments yup, well almost...
I'm a sub not many uk bbq channels with tired and tested videos great content thanks
Thanks! 🙏
Another handy hint, those cheap cordless vacuum cleaners (£20 ISH) have a blow function and come with some nozzles to, very handy and no mains power needed, although for grilling (bed of coals) a fast wrist and piece of cardboard takes some beating, stoking the flames😎
I hear they also make great ash vacuums providing the ash isn't wet!
Good recommendation. I use chimney in combination with weed torch. It is super fast if you don't mind scaring the lady next door with the noise LOL
... it's hard to resist also shouting "FLAAAME THROWER" with those things which understandably adds to the fear 😆
Well done sir.
🙏
Newspaper with chimney is easy leave it & go prep the food
I found newspaper leaves quite a lot of ash and doesn't always burn long enough to light briquettes but usually fine on lump charcoal. Easier and a bit cheaper than going through kindling though.
@@BBQExperiments
Scrunchie the new paper first pack out the bottom fill the chimney the. Light it take about 30 mins red hot charcoal…..
Tumbleweed and BBQ Dragon with its clip on feature is best!
I think this might have been all the encouragement I needed to order it 😆
Don’t use EVOO! Organic Truffle Oil is always the way to go for charcoal.🎩
(Soaking some paper towel in the cheapest cooking oil you have is great to get the chimney lit😉)
Love that you call the little wax lighters 'tumbleweeds' 😅had no idea they were called that!
It's a great name for them!
Combination of oil hairdryer and chimney.
Who add food when the barbecue lighter fluid still burning?
Fans of petrochemicals? 🤷♂
Don’t use EVOO! Organic Truffle Oil is always the way to go for charcoal.🎩
(The cheapest cooking oil you have works just fine to get your chimney lit😉)
combine he Chimney and the hair dryer. on the next test.
Good idea, will do!
Doritos work well (nice slow burn) if you don't want any chemical adjuvants.....
Can't wait to try this!