How do you start your charcoal chimney?

[frigate]

A year ago when I began smoking I did a lot of reading. I tried everything they said from rolling newspaper to fire starters from FOGO. They all failed. Then one day I while cleaning my at the time COS with paper towels. I saw the paper towels full of drippings and thought maybe this will work.

Oh yes, the drippings are just enough accelerant to get the paper towels to burning hotter and longer to get the charcoal going .

How do you get your charcoal chimney started?

[Oakgrovebacon]

Propane burner. Works great. 5 min and you are ready to cook

[Dewesq55]

Side burner on my gas grill.

[Thunder77]

+1 on the side burner

[Dr. Pepper]

Crumpled newspaper

[Draznnl]

Same. Crumpled newspaper has worked every time for me.

[Murdy]

Me too

[DJ DeSpain]

Royal Oak tumbleweeds.

[hoovarmin]

Same. They are crazy expensive but super easy and clean.

[MsTwiggy]

Me too, tumbleweeds are my favorite by far. I set a single tumbleweed on my weber smokey joe, light it, and set my chimney of coals over the tumbleweed. Coals ready in 15 minutes. I used to use newspaper but it's very smokey for my close by neighbors and I don't always have some around.

[Panhead John]

+3 for tumbleweeds. I like em a lot better than the wax cubes.

[hogdog6]

Small amount of 91% rubbing alcohol in a tuna fish can light it set the chimney on it full of charcoal and no blowing around left over char'd paper.

[hoovarmin]

That's a nifty idea

[Huskee]

Homemade Sterno can. Love it!

[Alan Brice]

This is a prime example of why I am here.
That is ingenious Thanks. hogdog6

[grantgallagher]

I use the weber starter cubes after being chastised here for being a dinosaur that still used starter fluid, lol

[surfdog]

Same here...I have a container full of them. (Yeah, I remove them from the package all at once.)
A couple friends thought they were pointless/silly...they have since become converts as well.

[Razor]

For the money/convenience hard to beat the Weber cubes. Although I do like hogdog6 idea of rubbing alcohol in a tuna can.

[Murdy]

I use the cubes to light my outdoor wood burner, just use newspaper for my chimney.

[tmelosi]

A couple pieces of paper from the local shoppers review

[mrteddyprincess]

I can't believe that they give away charcoal chimney starters for free at the grocery store!

[Loren]

Newspaper, brown packing paper, brown paper bags, lighter cubes (I usually reserve those for lighting a few briquettes in the SNS though), local mailed adds (if it's newsprint and non colored ink - call my superstitious )

Pretty much anything flammable, and all with good results - no odd flavors or failure to light.

[JoeSousa]

I generally use Weber lighter cubes. I bought a 50 pack of the Quickfire starters a couple months back when someone posted a deal on them and they work great too. Just throw one or two of either of those those below a chimney of charcoal and it lights up without any problems.

[Jared49]

Yup, what he said about both staters, love ‘em.

[JCGrill]

Newspaper.

[Attjack]

Weber cubes.

[Red Man]

I use the starter cubes my grocery store carries. They’re biomass cubes...whatever that means.

[texastweeter]

newspaper or charcoal bags.

[Dr. Pepper]

Although I have to agree that my newspaper ash does make quite a local mess!

[Attjack]

Yeah, I got sick of the ash.