When I was in college, I invited a girl over for a date. It was a glorious spring day, and I thought it would be the perfect time to fire up the unused barbecue that had been sitting on my patio all school year. I prepped all the food, chilled all the beer, and then I realized I had no way of lighting the coals for the barbecue.
To continue getting the enjoyment out of your fireplace you should inspect it regularly. Check the condition of the mortar in the firebox. If it is loose, missing, or crumbling it needs to be professionally repaired. Look for black deposits inside of the chimney or flue using a flashlight; presence of black deposits inside of the chimney or flue indicates the need for a licensed Chimney Sweep to clean the chimney in order to prevent a chimney fire. The chimney should be free of obstructions t...
From nowhere, you produce billows of smoke out of your mouth...it's like you've manufactured smoke in your lungs! Here all you need is a match and some strong lungs.
This video shows you how to light your charcoal using a a charcoal chimney.
A chimney cap is absolutely a must, but measuring for a multi-flue chimney cap can seem a little tricky. This how to video takes the confusion out of measuring your chimney. Watch this home improvement tutorial and you will be installing a multi-flue chimney cap in no time.
YouTube's hardwarehelper teaches you how to repair a chimney cap on your home. At worst, you'll have to caulk the edges, but this is a nice, fairly permanent solution to capping a chimney.
All you've got to do is a some simple wiring and a little digging in the garden.
John Kass from the Chicago Tribune and Gary Wiviott, author of Low & Slow, demonstrate how to make perfect ribs. The first step is to run them under cool water and rinse them with cider vinegar to clean them off. Second, coat them with mustard. This holds the rub on the rib. By holding the rub on, you will get more bark (the spicy, smokey, crusty exterior) on your rib. Gary's rub is a mix of 7 different toasted Mexican peppers, paprika, salt, black pepper. Make sure to place a good layer of r...
A rocket stove is a "rocket" combustion approach to preparing meals, which provides high combustion efficiency and efficient heat transfer to the cooking pot. Research suggests (through practical experience) that by using a rocket stove, you could save at least 50% of fuelwood, which is a significant savings for anyone's financial situation.
"Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Some mice will be stirring this holiday in your house when you make these adorable Hershey's Kisses candy mice. Bite-sized and really damn cute, don't be surprised if none are there for Santa when he comes swooping down the chimney.
Learn how to build the perfect barbeque fire. Build the perfect blazing barbeque fire and experience a feeling of primal backyard pride long before the rib-eyes are done.
Build a fire with a Duraflame firestarter. This video is going to show you how to do this. Crystal Whole from Duraflame is demonstrating the process in this video. First get your chimney cleaned and inspected. Keep all inflammable material at least 3 feet away from the hearth. Use dry wood that has been seasoned for at least six months. Or you can use stax logs in lieu of wood. Three stax logs are sufficient to keep the fire burning all evening. Open the flue of the chimney, put two stax logs...
Longing for the coziness of a fire? Follow these tips for a safe and successful experience. You Will Need
This video demonstrates how to prepare Grilled Savory Pork Roast, prepared with indirect heat. For this, you will need newspaper, charcoal, a charcoal chimney, pepper, garlic, 3 lbs pork roast, a pan filled with water, and onion.
There are a number of things that users must check on their roof to insure safety and prevent any leaking. For example, users should check that the roof vent is fastened and ensure that there are washers or caulk under the nails. On the chimney, make sure the flashing is fastened tightly and downwards. Users should also inspect the condition of the chimney. Remove any tree branches and clean the roof. This video will benefit those viewers who want to learn how to secure their roof from proble...
This is a familiar scenario: you light up the grill, get cooking, eat the fruits of your labor, then clean up every trace of your barbecuing once you're finished — except maybe the hot charcoal, which usually gets dumped right before the next cookout.
So you want to give your new bricks more character. This is something that is easy to do. Watch this video tutorial for a five minute fix and your new bricks will look just like your old bricks in no time.
Watch this video to learn how to grill hamburgers with Cajun cook Beryl Stokes. This is a great grilled hamburger recipe with step-by-step preparation and grilling directions. Consider using a charcoal chimney. These Baton Rouge style hamburger will keep people asking for more.
We love standing around a barbecue with an icy cold beverage in hand, enjoying the delicious smell of smoky food and chit-chatting with pals. Grilling season — it's our favorite time of the year.
While the pope himself may not be Steampunk, you might be amazed at what is: the coronation stove. For those who don't know, it's been a tradition for a very long time to signal the election of a new pope (or the lack of a new pope) via colored smoke. More specifically, once the cardinals have all voted for the new pope during the conclave, the ballots are burned in a special stove in the Sistine Chapel, and the smoke is visible in St. Peter's square.
Indian food is amazing. One of the things that makes it so great and exotic is the cooking methods used. Among the best of these methods is the use of the tandoori oven, a cylindrical oven used to primarily cook skewered meat and various flatbreads with heats upwards of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Regrettably, such heat and taste is hard to replicate in the average home kitchen.
Santa Claus has to visit a lot of houses in very little time. When the reindeers are on break (Rudolph really likes his "egg nog", Santa sometimes needs to do a little traveling on his own. In a city or crowded neighborhood parkour can actually be pretty useful and obviously pretty bad ass.
It is a beautiful, yet scorching day here in Los Angeles, and the only reason I would ever step outside from my air-conditioned castle would be to grill out by the pool. There's just one problem: backyards are few and far between here in The City of Angels.
There's something primal about the smell of smoking food. Somewhere deep in the recesses of our souls, we remember a time when humans only ate by the fire. Or perhaps that's just something I tell myself. Either way, it's hard to smell smoke and food and not feel like you should be eating. And, as chef Edi Frauneder said in a recent Saveur article, "Grilling is convivial. There's something about this act of coming together over an open flame that just says vacation."
This is a whole new level of "Paleo," guys. Seriously: there's nothing more primal than a giant hunk of meat cooked in direct flame. Fancy grills and grill masters be damned—this method of cooking your meat is both the past and the future.
Barbecue season: it's the perfect time to play with fire, produce your best burger ever (until next year, that is), and find even more ways to make beer a part of your daily life. However, even a grilling badass occasionally gets stumped by minor BBQ problems. No worries: We've got solutions!
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive.
In this how to video series, learn how to make birdhouses from birdhouse construction expert Bob Olsen. Bob will demonstrate important tips for making birdhouses including how to cut wood to make a birdhouse, how to cut walls for a birdhouse, how to attach the walls and roof of a birdhouse, how to make and attach a chimney to a birdhouse, how to drill a door for a birdhouse, and finally how to decorate a birdhouse.
Fire. It’s everywhere— always has been. From the Ordovician Period where the first fossil record of fire appears to the present day everyday uses of the Holocene. Today, we abundantly create flames (intentionally or unintentionally) in power plants, extractive metallurgy, incendiary bombs, combustion engines, controlled burns, wildfires, fireplaces, campfires, grills, candles, gas stoves and ovens, matches, cigarettes, and the list goes on... Yet with our societies' prodigal use of fire, t...
This origami video tutorial will show you how to make an origami paper bird and tree. First, fold the square piece of paper in half diagonally. Then fold the paper in half again. Now, fold it in half and open the last fold back up. The flap that is unfolded now is the one that you open slightly and flatten. Flip the paper over and do the same thing you just did to the other side, as well. Now that the paper is a small square, you take one of the bottom corners (the open ones) and you fold it ...
Last week, I did a short tutorial on three main types of flooring for your Minecraft builds. This week, I will be focusing on just one of those—inset floors. This was the first of the three types I briefly covered, and the example I used was an inset fireplace. Here, I will be going over 5 types of inset floors. I did not light the fireplaces, because the building I was using kept burning down.
Warning If you don't trust that these steps are safe or that they won't work, than have your computer/laptop backed up so you can restore it if necessary.
Why settle on just pork chops or ribs when you can string up the entire pig? Serious Eats posts an great slide show on roasting a whole pig, from materials to the process to the perfect pig roastin' sauce.
Hey everybody, here is my entry for the medieval building contest. I don't actually care if I win, it was just fun to think about.
