Tastes_of_Chocolate:
Get yourself a charcoal chimney . You place a smaller amount of briquettes in it, and light them. The chimney holds them close together, so they light faster. Then dump the now lit briquettes on top of the rest of your charcoal. The link has a pretty good walk through on how to use them. Around here, you can buy them at pretty much all hardware stores.
If you can, I suggest avoiding lighter fluid. It can leave a nasty taste on the food.
Chimneys are great, but the grills I’ve seen in parks usually don’t have enough clearance for them. If that’s the issue, try the pretzel method:
Roll up two or three sheets of newspaper and tie them into an loose overhand knot.
Put them in the grill.
Find kindling. Any small sticks will do.
Put them on top of the newspapers.
Add the charcoal. You may want to add just a portion of what you expect to use; you can add more as the coals start to light.
Light the ends of the newspaper pretzels.
D_Odds
July 17, 2017, 5:15pm
22
araminty:
Updating to say: it all went well! I did two chimneys-full, which was about 2/3 the area of the grill. My FIL “helped” distribute the coals, and he piled them up rather more than I would have done. So the grill was hotter and the hot surface was smaller than I would have ideally preferred. A few sausages burst and burnt, but that’s kind of traditional anyway
Fantastic. Welcome to the world of charcoal cooking. As someone with lots of experience grilling, I always love all the friendly advice from those whose exposure is only from the Food Network.
Actually, what’s the opposite of love. I think that is what I was meaning to say.