Shopvac Afterburner

I like using a charcoal grill. The food tastes better, plus it's a great excuse to play with fire.

I use a charcoal chimney starter. Thanks to Lurker for introducing this device to me. I think Sherry wants to thank you too...but she has trouble being nice to people.

"This environmentally safe chimney starter lights a charcoal grill quickly and easily without lighter fluid. Food tastes better and the charcoal lighter fluid odor doesn’t permeate your picnic--or the environment."

It's pretty simple to use. Fill the top part with charcoal and the bottom part with a sheet of newspaper. Light the newspaper and wait 20 minutes. 20 minutes. That simply doesn't cut it for the have-it-right-now generation.

Here's a method I use for lighting my charcoal in 2 minutes. 2 gloriously fun and surprisingly educational minutes.

Warning: This is pretty dangerous. Before you start, make sure your kids and pets are indoors (My oldest son was with me only because I needed someone to take pictures, and Sherry was too busy watching football...err...screaming at the TV.) Choose an area that is free of dry grass and/or leaves. Wear a hat (I wore a cotton baseball hat) and eye protection (normal glasses for me).

Light the newspaper just like before, but after the newspaper is finished burning, pick up the chimney and carry it to an open area...free of combustible items.

Turn your shopvac to 'blow.'

Hold your lit chimney as far away as possible. Tilt the top slightly away from your head.

Slowly bring the blowing end of the shopvac tube to the bottom of your chimney. It's important to do it slowly because a large amount of loose ash blows out initially. The first time I did this, I realized that my hair might ignite. It was quite a precarious situation. I was holding a chimney of hot coals in one hand, a shopvac hose in the other and little pieces of hot ash where landing on my head. This is what the bottom of the chimney looks like.

At full throttle, the charcoal begins to super-heat. It puts out a staggering amount of energy. It only takes 90-120 seconds of full after-burner to light all of the coals.

You'll see the sides of your chimney start to glow red. That's a good indication that it's time to stop. ...Or...you can keep going and see how hot it can really get. Eventually, if you aren't wearing gloves, which I wasn't, the heat will become unbearable.

Turn off the shopvac and let the flames die down. At this point you'll be kicking yourself for using up all your arm strength on the prior step. You really can't move around that much during this step, and dumping the coals in to the grill is out of the question. Dig deep and find the strength to hold the chimney for a few more seconds and enjoy the two foot flames.

Finally, dump your hot glowing coals into your grill. These coals run a little hotter than coals lit using the normal method for lighting, so you'll need to adjust your cooking time. Sherry, remember the last time I did this and the hamburgers caught on fire? God that funny. Good times...good times.

One For The Hope Chest

Well, here is the head for the hope chest. As you can see, it is only half burnt. There was masking tape that saved his beautiful face. Thank you Uncle Gary, "The Enabler", for letting me borrow your digital camera.

Burning Man

My son had a G.I. Joe that was missing a few limbs. He asked me if he could burn him at the stake.

me (in my head):My 9 year-old son wants to burn his G.I. Joe. Hummm...Do I need to be worried about his mental stability? Well, as far as I know, he isn't killing and/or torturing animals... No problems here.
me:O.K. Let's do it.

Site Preparation

I didn't want to damage our yard, so I used a 24"x24" piece of 26-gauge sheet metal I had lying around.

I used a small piece of wood and and dowel to create a stand to which we would tape Joe.

For the accelerant, we used a a rag soaked in gasoline. We wrapped the gasoline soaked rag around Joe's feet and and legs.

As a final precautionary measure, we got the garden hose ready.

Ignition

Wow. The gasoline rag was good idea. It was really cool looking. It reminded me of an anal bum cover. The kids cheered as Joe fueled a three foot intensely hot flame. Sherry started to get nervous when a column of dark black smoke rose from our backyard. The kids continued to cheer as they danced around our sacrificial flame.

A few minutes into our experiment, Joe's flame engulfed head fell off and rolled onto the sheet metal. This event caused the kids to cheer even louder. The remainder of Joe's body started to melt onto the wooden stand. This is when we (Sherry and I) decided to put out the flame. The kids really liked the sizzling sound the water made when it came in contact with the "protective sheet metal". It was then that I realized that the sheet metal probably didn't do what I'd hoped it would do. We all stood around the steaming black corpse, formerly known as G.I. Joe. The kids were quiet now and grinning ear to ear.

Cleanup

me:OK, let's throw this mess out.
sherry:Wait! Lets save his head.
me:You want to save a burnt G.I. Joe head?
sherry:Yeah. I want to but it in our hope chest.
me (in my head):My wife wants to save a burnt G.I. Joe in our hope chest. Hummm...do I need to be worried about her mental stabililty? No problems here.
me:OK, I'll get a plastic bag.

After we cleaned up the site, I realized that maybe using highly conductive sheet metal wasn't the best choice for protecting our grass. We now have a 24"x24" patch of brown grass in our backyard.

The Fallout

Two days later at "Back to School" night, some teachers were questioning me about the G.I. Joe incident. I guess Sherry told them. They wanted to know if we tried to burn anything else. Perhpas they were worried that my kids would try to burn things on their own. I don't think they were too pleased.

The neighbor kids asked if they could bring over some action figures to burn. I think they may have seen our smoke signals. I said no. I gotta draw the line somewhere.