BBQ Basics - Using the charcoal chimney

If your like me a couple of years ago I did not know what to do with this piece of equipment.  This will show you how to get away from using lighter fluid.  Even though a 10 foot high ball of fire is pretty cool, it is also pretty wasteful.

First you will need 1-2 paper towels and some cheap vegetable oil.  Don't use your expensive extra virgin olive oil.  I keep a bottle of this in the garage for lighting charcoal.




Crumple up the paper towel and then pour some veggie oil on it.  Just enough to soak it, you don't need full coverage.





Fill your chimney with charcoal and light the paper towel.  Place the chimney over the lit paper towel.




When the charcoal at top of chimney has a bit of ash on the coals the chimney is ready to be dumped out.




You can use crumpled newspaper to light as well. The advantage to using a oil soaked paper towel is it does not produce a lot of ash.