How to light a charcoal BBQ

It’s summer. You’re ready to get your BBQ out and get grilling. But, you might ask, how should you light your charcoal BBQ? Maybe you’ve only used a gas BBQ before. Maybe you only got to grill one day last year because that’s all the British summer has left you. Well, we’ve done the research and run the tests to see the best way to get your BBQ going.

1. Start with quality charcoal

2. Use a chimney

3. Place the charcoal in your BBQ

4. Maintain your fire

Start with quality charcoal

No matter what you do to start your BBQ, if you’ve used bad quality charcoal, it could all be in vain. First, make sure your charcoal has been stored in a cool, dry place. If your charcoal contains moisture, it will be much harder to light and create a lot of smoke when you do light it! 

We recommend a quality hardwood charcoal, ideally in larger pieces. Hardwood charcoal will both produce less smoke and burn for much longer than lower-quality charcoal. We opt for larger pieces because they’ll burn for longer and be less likely to fall between the grates in your grill.

Something like our restaurant-grade charcoal is ideal for this.

Use a Chimney

For best results, we recommend picking up a BBQ chimney. A chimney allows you to light your charcoal in a confined cylinder, making it much quicker to get all the coal lit and protecting your charcoal against the wind.

To use your chimney, pour your desired amount of charcoal into the top. Place your chimney on top of 2 firelighters, and light the firelighters. The heat from these will transfer up, and light coals above.

If you don’t have firelighters, crumpled-up newspaper will also do the trick. 

Leave to heat up, usually, after 15 to 20 minutes, you will have fully lit charcoal. If you’re not sure, you can use this quick colour guide to see if your coals are ready:

• Black or grey with flames: Your charcoal’s not yet ready.

• Glowing white hot with red centres (blow very gently to check): Ready for direct heat.

• Ashy white but still very hot: Ready for indirect heat or cooking in the coals.

Place in your BBQ

Where you place your lit charcoal will depend on the style of BBQ you have and your method of cooking. 

For indirect cooking (something like a whole chicken) in a kettle-style BBQ, place the charcoal in the partitions on either side.

For direct cooking (think sausages and burgers), partition your grill into high-heat and low-heat zones for 2-zone cooking. This allows you to get a lovely grill on one side, and use the cooler zone to cook food through in the centre without burning the outside.

To achieve this, pile all your charcoal on one side of the BBQ, leaving the other clear for indirect cooking.

Maintaining your fire

Once your BBQ is lit, you need to keep your fire maintained at a consistent temperature to allow you to control how cooked your food is. Aside from choosing quality charcoal, here are a few extra tips for maintaining your fire.

To keep your fire burning for a longer period of time, pour lit charcoal onto a small bed of unlit charcoal. As the hot chimney coals die off, the ones below will start burning, keeping your fire going.

You can also slowly add unlit charcoal over time. Every 30 or so minutes, drop 5 to 6 extra pieces on top to keep your fire burning.

If your temperature drops, light a second chimney and pour hot, lit charcoal on the fire. Be careful, you may have to remove the whole cooking grate for a few seconds.

Charcoal is one of the two sources of fuel for your fire. The other is Oxygen. Make sure you control the air going to your grill by opening the vents. If your fire is burning too hot, close your vents slightly to help lower the oxygen supply.