charcoal starter???

[smokindragon]

ok good idea or bad idea i am not a coffee drinker and the ones i know are folgers fanatics so i have no means to get a coffee can lol. no money to buy a charcoal starter and to lazy to sit and nurse everything minute by minute with newspaper. here was my bright idea:*? maybe: lol

ok i took bout 7-10 briquettes and put them in my gas grill turned it on low gas and clicked my electric starter and poof instant constant flame. few minutes later kingsfords best are nice and white i take my handy tons and place them one by one in a metal bucket and haul them to the awaiting barrel or bullet style grill still new dont know difference yet lol
and been going bout 40 minutes not so far so good.

any feed back as to doing this might be dangerouse or might give a gas flavor to my ribs ??

thanks
SmokinDragon

 

[meateater]

If your just starting the bricks on a propane or natural gas cooker and transfering them to a charcoal smoker I dont see a problem.

 

[smokindragon]

thanks thought starting them on there would be ok just not sure if there might be chemical reaction with the gas and the charcoal but i guess if there would have been i wouldnt be here typin lol

 

[gnubee]

No problem at all. Lots of us have been doing something like that for years with no problems.

I see the charcoal chimneys at yard sales all the time. They Usually go for under a buck. Most the time the sellor hasn't a clue what they are.

 

[smokindragon]

thats how i got my smoker 15 bucks was used once acording to the lady who sold me it she said it didnt smoke like her husband thought it should when i looked at it it did look pretty new and looked like he was trying to put the wood chips in the water pan with just charcoal below. but i wasnt telling her that lol .

now the charcoal chimney ill have to look for one of those seemin it is coming up on garage sale season here lol

 

[smokindragon]

woohoo my pic worked too

 

[davidmcg]

That won't hurt a thing to get them started that way. But in the absense of a store bought chimney starter and no coffee can, would ya happen to have any black wood stove pipe or maybe a neighbor. I make my own chimney starters out of it. had to make one just today as a matter of fact. The one from last year got ran over by the tractor when we were moving snow. If ya make one out of stove pipe they'll last a few years, longer than the store bought anyhow. At our lumber yard 6" stove pipe is 4 bucks and at Wal-Mart a chimney starter is about 8 or 9 bucks. So all ya need to do is put some type of grate down in that pipe, make a few air holes, put a couple of crumpled of newspaper pages under it, add charcoal, light and in 20 minutes ya got good coals.

Works for me. But, I prefer to make stuff myself than buy the same thing. If I make it, it is usually made from better materials and last longer. Not to mention, wasting time and gas driving to town.