Charcoal Chimney BBQ Fire Starter

With it coming into BBQ season (southern hemisphere) I found that my Charcoal Chimney is nearly rusted out. This is the second one that has rusted out. Due to the combination of heat and thin steel, they just don't last very long.

At that moment, I remembered that I had a large piece of stainless steel pipe in the shed. I picked it up for $5 at a recycling centre a few months ago, figuring it was too good to pass up and I'd find a use for it.

1. Large Pipe
2. Old BBQ Grill handle
3. 5mm Stainless Rod

Since I still had my old Charcoal Chimney I just copied off the old measurements. I was concerned that I get the correct amount of ventilation so wanted to drill the same amount.

I didn't have a drill bit large enough for this so I just worked out the total area of the original vents and then divided that by the area of the largest drill bit I had to work out how many holes I needed. I needed to drill twelve 25mm holes spaced equally around the pipe.

Mark the first line for the air vents 55mm from the bottom of the pipe and the second line of the grill 85mm from the bottom.

For the vents you need to mark out 12 evenly spaced points around the pipe, to do that just work out the circumference of the outside of the pipe and divide that by 12 then measure that off around the outside.

For the grill you need to mark out another 12 points, but one set needs to be 5mm higher so the rods overlay the first set.

Once the points are marked out use a centre punch to mark them.

Also once you have measured the pipe to the final length you can cut it with an angle grinder.

As always you will need to drill a pilot hole, now drill out the larger size hole for the vents. I forgot how hard stainless steel is and had to slowly work through a series of larger drill bits until I got to the final size. I also had to sharpen my drill bits a few times.

This is a pretty easy step, you just need to drill a series of 5mm holes. The only catch is that you need to align the holes in the direction of the rod used to make the grate.

I just quickly chopped a few pieces of stainless steel rod, this was the only thing I needed to buy for this project as everything else was on hand.

Once all the holes were drilled I gave everything a quick clean-up with a flap disk and it's ready for welding.

Each rod should be welded onto the pipe at each end. I then used a cut-off disc on my angle grinder to trim the rods and swapped to a flap disc to polish everything smooth.

Normally the handle would be fixed, but I find it gets in the way and the heat shield for the handle doesn't work that well. This is why I opted for a detachable handle, so you can pick up the Charcoal Chimney when needed and then just remove the handle when you don't. This will also keep the handle cool and safe to touch.

I had a cast iron handle that came with my old BBQ, the casting wasn't that great and I needed to smooth the ridge from the molding. To do this I just held the handle in the vice and polished it with a flap disc.

I drilled a hole at the top of the chimney and filed it into a rectangle shape. You can test that the handle fits snuggly while also still being easy to remove.

The Charcoal Chimney is now ready to use.

To use the chimney you need to fill it with charcoal and place it over a flame.

You can just use a few firelighters under the chimney to light the charcoal, I sometimes light a small fire and place it on top of that.

Once the charcoal is going you can put the handle back on and carefully lift up the chimney, then just tip the hot coals out onto the bbq and you are ready to cook.

In the photos above I didn't use much as I was only testing it out.