Charcoal lighters

Another way of lighting your charcoal, is using charcoal lighters.
These are little cubes, containing different materials that are easy to light and burn for a long time.

Using them is very simple:

1. Buy them :P
2. Build up a charcoal pyramide and place multiple charcoal lighters at spots you can reach.
3. Light them

That's it and that's the reason why they are so popular.
In difference to lighter fluid, it is easy to control the amount of lighter you want to use, because it is cut into several small pieces.
In addition, you ain't gonna cause a darting flame.
You can use charcoal lighters in combination with the chimney aswell.

Pros of charcoal lighters:

-Easy usage
-Fast
-Save
-Cheap

Cons of charcoal lighters:

-Depending on the materials used, they can provide a chemical taste

Electric charcoal starter

Electric charcoal starter

A kind of new way to light your charcoal is using an electric charcoal starter.

To ensure a proper use, you should arrange a charcoal pyramid.
Afterwards you plug your electric charcoal starter into power supply and hold it into your charcoal pyramid. After a few minutes, your charcoals should start burning and glowing.
When they do so, you can take out the electric charcoal starter and wait until the charcoal is covered with white ashes.
Using an electrical charcoal starter is combinable with using a chimney.

Pros of using an electric charcoal starter:

-Easy in use
-No chemicals
-No smoke

Cons of using an electric charcoal starter:

-With ~100US$, they are expensive
-Not suitable for outdoor BBQs because of the need of power

Wood

Wood

A lot of people swear  that lighting your charcoal with wood is the best of all ways.

To do this, you need to place some newspaper on the bottom of your BBQ.

Afterwards you need some very dry and small pieces of wood arranged on top of the newspapers.

When you’ve done that, a charcoal pyramid is placed above the wood.

Next step is to light the newspaper, watch it burn the wood, causing the charcoal to glow.

Pros of using wood:

-Most original way

-No chemistry

-Original taste

Cons of using wood:

-If you buy the wood, it’s expensive

-It takes some time

-Wet wood can cause a lot of smoke

Lighter fluid

Lighter fluid

A way of lighting your charcoal is using lighter fluid.

First of all I want to mention that this method is dangerous and about ~5000 people hurt themselves by using lighter fluid.

It is highly flammable and needs to be kept away from children.

To use it right, build a pyramid with your charcoal. Cover every single piece of charcoal with lighter fluid and give it at least 5 minutes to soak into the charcoal.

When these 5 minutes have passed, light a newspaper and use it to ignite the charcoal.

Once it starts burning, you can’t use the lighter fluid again, because even hot charcoals can cause the lighter fluid to burn/explode, what is very dangerous.

Pros of lighter fluid:

-Fast

Cons of lighterfluid:

-Bad taste

-Very dangerous

-A lot of smoke

Chimney

The Chimney

A chminey is used to ignite charcoal. In my opinion, they are very useful, because they are very easy and save in usage, ignite charcoal quick and ensure an uniform and equally heating of the coal.

You simply put the charcoal into the chimney and place some lightened papers below it.

Afterwards you can grab a beer, chat with your guests and after about 10 minutes, your charcoal is ready.
Flip over the chimney, arrange the charcoal and put on the meat ;)

Pros of the chimney:

-Easy and save in use

-No chemistry

-No additional smoke

Cons of the chimney:

-Takes some time

-You need a chimney

Gas barbecue

The Gas-BBQ

The Gas-BBQ is the easy way of doing a barbecue.

It is runned with liquid gas like butane- or propanegas.

It’s called the easy way of BBQ, because there are no delays or queue times. You can start the second you ignite the gas.

There are different types of Gas barbecues.

A lot of them use lavastones or ceramics that get heated. They are porous to catch the fat the meat loses inside your BBQ.

When buying a BBQ, it is important to have a water bowl below your lavastone to make sure the fat is caught somewhere. 

Another important point is the positioning of the gasburners.

The best place for them is on the sides of your BBQ, so they won’t ignite the dropping fat.

To flavor your meat, get some wood chips packed in aluminium foil and use a fork to place holes in it and put it onto your BBQ. The taste will spill around and affect your meat.

Pros of a Gas-BBQ

-No preheating

-Amount of heat is controllable by amount of gas flowing

-Easy to clean

-No annoying smoke

-You can use them on a balcony

Cons of a Gas-BBQ

-They are big, heavy and hard to move

-Meat won’t have the typical charcoal taste

-You need Gas

-Expensive

Charcoal barbecue

Charcoal Barbecue

Im going to start with most romantic and original way of barbcue: the charcoal barbecue!

To a lot of BBQ-Fans, charcoal BBQ is the only BBQ allowed. Charcoal barbecues are available in many different sizes, forms and materials. I would suggest one made of stainless steel, because you are outside every time you do a barbecue.

If you want to have a charcoal barbecue, make sure to light the coal 30 minutes before your guests arrive to avoid queue time.

You should also make sure that the heated area of your charcoal is bigger than the area occupied by meat. You can check if your charcoal is ready, by checking if there is a white ash layer on top of them. After blowing away the ashes, you are good to go!

If you want to eat lean meat, oiling the charcoal grate is a good idea.

Try to only flip over your meat ONCE! By doing so multiple times, it will dry out and you won’t get a nice BBQ look.

Another important point is that you shouldn’t overload the barbecue.

Place a few pieces of meat on it and try to give them enough space.

In addition, it is very important to use salt and pepper AFTER the meat is finished.

Using salt to early will cause dry meat and the pepper will burn up, leaving a bad taste.

When your meat is finally done, give it five minutes to rest.

After you had a nice BBQ-Party, don’t forget to clean up your charcoal grate, so the next party can come J

Pros of a charcoal BBQ:

-You will get the typical BBQ-Taste

-Open fire, nice heat and the true BBQ-Flair

Cons of a charcoal BBQ

-A lot of cleaning work

-Smoke can annoy your neighbours and guests

-Winds can cause ashes to fly around

-Open fire can be dangerous to children

Electric grill

Electric BBQ

To start off with, an electric barbecue is no real barbecue.

This comes along with its lack of fire and the need of power.  An electric grill is using energy out of an electrical socket to heat a plate to throw your meat on.

There are a lot of different types of electric barbecues and they are used for different purposes, but all of them got one thing in common: You will get very little heat meaning you will have a hard time getting a good steak!

Pros of an electric BBQ

-Easy to transport

-No need of gas or charcoal

-Easy to clean

-No smoke

-Very save in usage

Cons of an electric BBQ

-Very little heat

-No real BBQ-Taste