The Flare-Up That Sent Me to the Hardware Store for a Chimney Starter

I have been cooking on a 22-inch Weber kettle for eleven years, and for most of that time I lit it the lazy way. I would stack the charcoal, squirt lighter fluid over the pile, stand back, and toss in a match. It worked, most of the time. Then one Saturday eight summers ago it did not work, and the fire came looking for me.

The grill was on the concrete patio behind our ranch house on the northeast side of Grand Rapids. Marlene was inside setting out plates, and the neighbors were due in about an hour. I had a full chimney's worth of briquettes mounded in the kettle, and I gave them a generous soak. Too generous, as it turned out. The fluid pooled in the bottom of the bowl and ran down the vent, and when I struck the match the whole thing went up at once. A column of flame came roaring out of the kettle, higher than my head, and a ball of burning liquid rolled off the charcoal and landed on the patio at my feet.

I jumped back, grabbed the garden hose, and put the little fire out before it got anywhere. The briquettes were ruined, the patio had a black scorch mark the size of a dinner plate, and my heart was still pounding ten minutes later. Marlene came out, took one look at the mark, and said, "That's it. Go to the hardware store and buy a chimney starter." She is a smart woman, and I am not in the habit of arguing with her when she is right.

So I went. The hardware store had a Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter on the shelf, and I bought it on the spot. It is a plain steel cylinder with a wire handle, a smaller handle on the side, and a grate inside to hold the charcoal up off the newspaper. Nothing complicated. I took it home, stuffed a few sheets of crumpled newspaper underneath, filled the top with briquettes, and lit the paper. Ten minutes later I had a chimney full of evenly glowing charcoal with no fluid, no flare-up, and no scorch marks. I have used that same chimney starter every cook since, and I have not bought a bottle of lighter fluid in eight years.

Ten minutes later I had a chimney full of evenly glowing charcoal with no fluid, no flare-up, and no scorch marks.

The first thing I noticed was how even the burn was. With lighter fluid, I always had a few briquettes that were ready and a few that were still black, which meant hot spots and cold spots across the grate. The chimney starter fixes that because the air comes up from the bottom and every briquette gets the same draft. When I dump the coals into the kettle, they are all the same color and all putting out the same heat. That alone changed how my chicken thighs cooked, because I could finally set up a proper two-zone fire and trust it.

The second thing I noticed was the taste. Lighter fluid leaves a smell on the meat, especially in the first few minutes of the cook. I had always told myself it burned off, and maybe it mostly did, but the first time I cooked with the chimney starter I could taste the difference. The charcoal just tasted like charcoal, and the chicken tasted like smoke and salt and nothing else. Marlene noticed it too, and she did not know I had changed anything.

The handle matters to me more than it might to some people. Thirty years of machine work left my fingers stiff in cold weather, and the Rapidfire has a long wire handle with a wooden grip that I can get a solid hold on even with a heavy load of lit coals. The smaller handle on the side lets me lift it one-handed when I need to, which I did not expect to use as much as I do. I have dumped a full chimney into the kettle one-handed more times than I can count, and I have never come close to dropping it.

It is not a perfect tool, and I will not pretend it is. The paint on the outside has flaked off in a few places after years of sitting out in the rain and snow, though the steel underneath is still solid. The wooden grip gets hot if you leave the chimney sitting too long after the coals are ready, so I keep a pair of gloves by the grill. And it holds about a hundred briquettes, which is plenty for the kettle but not enough if you are trying to fill a big smoker. For my setup, it is exactly right.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you came over and asked me whether you need a chimney starter, I would tell you this. If you use lighter fluid, you are spending money on something that makes your food worse and occasionally tries to set your patio on fire. A chimney starter costs about the same as a few bottles of fluid, it lasts for years, and it lights charcoal faster than the fluid ever did. I would also tell you that you do not need the most expensive one on the shelf. The Weber Rapidfire is the one I bought, and it has earned its place, but the important thing is the design, not the brand name. Get a chimney starter that holds a full load of charcoal, has a handle you can grip with one hand, and is made of steel thick enough to survive a Michigan winter. Then use it every time, and put the lighter fluid in the back of the garage where it belongs.