by Joanne » Mon May 21, 2007 9:44 am
Hi Tom,
Good tip about the orange peels. I go through a lot of charcoal and eat a lot of oranges, so it sounds like a good match for me. I have an orange in my lunch bag today so I'll keep the peel and try it this weekend.
I never use charcoal starter when I fire up the grill or the smoker since the flavor of food can be effected by the petrochemicals in the starter. When I'm DO cooking I regularly use charcoal lighter since the food is contained inside the ovens. Fire starter makes it much easier.
Here are a couple of more tips for starting charcoal.
Pour some cooking oil on the newspaper before using it in the chimney starter. The oil will burn off causing the newspaper to burn longer.
Initially start about 10 to 15 coals. After they are going well then fill up the chimney with your coals. It's much more difficult to get a full chimney started than it is just a few.
When DO cooking, leave a few coals in the chimney so you can start the next batch of coals. (see above)
If you have two chimneys, stack them one on top of the other. Use the bottom one for starting the charcoal and leave the top one empty so it will act as a chimney to create a good updraft. My friend Kelly started doing this and it's amazing how much faster the charcoal starts.
Those are my tips and I look forward to reading others.
Joanne