My uncle laughed at my charcoal chimney setup, then showed up with a hair dryer

So my uncle Bob, who thinks he's the grill king, told me last summer I was wasting my time with a chimney starter. He said to just use a hair dryer on the coals for 5 minutes. I tried it on a $40 brisket for Father's Day and ended up with half the coals ash before they lit evenly. The brisket came out tough and took 3 extra hours. Has anyone else fallen for a family member's weird bbq shortcut and regretted it?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper15d ago

and honestly, that hair dryer trick sounds like it would just blow all the heat away instead of getting the coals going evenly. my uncle tried something similar with a leaf blower once and it just made a mess of ash everywhere. sometimes the old ways with a chimney and newspaper might take a few more minutes but at least you know the cook is gonna be consistent.

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the_keith15d ago

My dad used a hair dryer on the chimney starter for years and it worked fine as long as you kept it a few inches away from the bottom vents. The trick is not to blast it right into the coals, but to aim it at the air intake holes to feed the fire oxygen. You're right about leaf blowers though, those are way too much air for a charcoal setup.