How to light a charcoal grill without lighter fluid
To use or not to use? Lighter fluids have both its benefits and its flaws. Benefit-wise, it enables you to start your charcoal grill pretty quickly (and easily). However, the downside of using lighter fluid is that it tends to add undesirable flavors to your food (especially if you are a beginner) and you have to go purchase the lighter fluid frequently, well only if you barbeque regularly. If you do not care then read our tutorial on how to easily light a charcoal grill with lighter fluid. Anyhow, this walk-through will attempt to help you light a charcoal grill without lighter fluid. Is it even possible? Read on to find out.
To prepare for your charcoal grill, you will need the following equipments and products.
Charcoal grill
Chimney starter
newspaper
lighters (preferable long)
Oven mitt (for safety)
Step 1: Preparations
First off, clean your charcoal grill so there is no stain of any past charcoal activity. Cleaning your charcoal grill will also improve the overall quality of your barbecued food.
Step 2: Preparing the charcoal chimney starter
Get your Chimney starter and fill it with charcoal. You need to put enough charcoal so that you can create a layer of it in the charcoal grill. When that is done, stuff newspaper into the bottom of the Chimney starter.
Step 3: Burning the charcoal
Now comes the fun part! Light up the newspaper (do this above a non flammable surface) and leave the chimney as it is. What you will be hoping is that the newspaper will start burning the closest layer of charcoal around it. Wait until you see fire coming out from the top of the Chimney starter. By then, all the charcoal in the chimney starter should be burning.
Step 4: Transferring the charcoal
Before you dump the charcoal, check if there are any white ashes on the top layer of charcoal. Why? It is just best to dump charcoal when it gets a layer of white ash. When you are ready, put the charcoal into the grill and spread it out evenly. Any non-flammable tool should do the job. Once you have spread the charcoal out, wait until all the charcoal have some white layer of ash and you are ready to go and cook.