How To Light a Grill the Right Way

I think a lot of people,

when they use lighter fluid,

they want to douse everything and

they want a big flaming inferno and they think

that's the only way to get these things going.

But that's really not the case, it's kind of

dangerous, it smells bad, and it's crazy.

And I've actually singed my beard before,

which is not cool.

How you doing, my name is J Pereira.

I'm your neighborhood grill enthusiast.

I'm gonna show you how to properly light a charcoal

grill without any lighter fluid or any tricks or

anything like that.

First thing you want to do is you want to get

down below your charcoal grate, so you get down to

the bottom of your grill here.

So, I'm gonna take a couple of sheets

from the local paper.

I like to wad them up, not too tight,

not too loose, just a good ball around cuz you

need some air flowing to keep that stuff going.

Now, I'm gonna create another little pile

of paper here on top.

Add some twigs.

You just wanna about three or four inches,

just some dry twigs are fine around the yard.

You don't have to be fancy about it.

Today, we're gonna be using standard

charcoal briquettes.

I like to kind of surround my fire

with a good amount of briquettes,

kind of creating a little bit of a pyramid, but

you don't wanna smother it cuz you still wanna

get some air in there.

Once you get everything in place, you want to

light the paper that's underneath first.

I like to light around a couple spots,

make sure you get a good going.

This is a pretty healthy fire.

It's good to have the flames come up

above the charcoal because then you know

you're definitely getting good contact.

Again, you just want a couple of these things to

start getting ignited, start heating up, and

once that happens, the rest will follow suit.

I don't know the science behind all this stuff,

but I know that it works.

So that's science enough for me.

I think one of the biggest mistakes a lot of

people have, and why a lot of people like to use

lighter fluid is cuz they don't have patience.

But even with lighter fluid, it still takes 15,

20 minutes to get these charcoals going.

At this point you can see we have

really hot fire going on right in the middle.

This is where I'm going to rearrange these guys.

Some of these ones on the outside that

aren't going as well.

I'm going to start putting

them in the middle.

Please use tongs or something.

A gloved hand.

Don't grab these things.

I see some people do some dumb shit.

If you feel like you're gonna need more

briquettes, now's a good time to actually

add some, as well.

That's a hot ass looking fire.

It takes, generally, about 20 minutes before

you have a good cook fire going.

That's when all these briquettes

are gray and ashy.

No, we're in a good place here.

This is gonna be a great fire for cooking.

Just gonna move these guys aside,

kind of divide it down the middle.

And put the top grid back on.

So there you go, that's how you properly start

a charcoal grill with no lighter fluid and

just stuff you got around the house.

I just became that guy like,

whenever I went places,

nobody knew how to light a grill,

nobody knew that shit, so

I always ended up going to parties, and

the next thing you know,

I'm just hanging out by the fucking grill.