Hacking a Charcoal Chimney Starter

Image by Robert S. DonovanOver the weekend of the 4th, I was down at my brother's lake house in South Carolina with my family. It is a gorgeous place. His house looks out over Lake Wateree (a lake with a VERY ORIGINAL name). We watched an osprey catch fish. (It did better than my father.) There were fireworks out over the lake. There was, of course, grilling.

Unfortunately, while my brother's lake house is very nice, his grill is old and poorly designed. The coals sit on a metal plate without air holes. Without a good oxygen source, the coals burn cold, if at all. When I lamented the lack of a chimney starter to his friends who live in the area, they laughed, saying that they keep meaning to pick one up because they can never get the coals hot on the grill.

Since the local grocery store didn't seem to carry them, I decided to make my own. I looked around at what I had to work with. I found a plethora of empty boxes for holding 12-packs of carbonated beverages (the long, rectangular kind).

I grabbed an empty Orange Crush box and tore small holes near the bottom of the closed end. Then I opened up part of the bottom - not enough for the charcoal to fall out, but enough for air to get sucked up into it. I propped the box up so that it wasn't sitting directly on the flat metal plate (letting air get up under it) and filled it with charcoal. I used a bit of a paper towel (newspaper would work) as a wick, running it up through one of the holes in the bottom and out underneath.

I lit the wick and... well... fire happened. The box was gradually consumed. By the time it fell apart (nicely scattering the coals across the grill), the coals were nice and hot.

Even apart from the contrast with the previous day's weak coals, these coals were beautiful.