Our subject today is lighting charcoal grills.

----- Begin NetScrap(TM) -----

Our subject today is lighting charcoal grills.


Our subject today is lighting charcoal grills.  One of our favorite
charcoal grill lighters is a guy named George Goble (really!!), a
computer person in the Purdue University engineering department.

Each year, Goble and a bunch of other engineers hold a picnic in
West  Lafayette, Indiana, at which they cook hamburgers on a big
grill.  Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to
speed up the charcoal-lighting process. "We started by blowing the
charcoal with a hair dryer," Goble told me in a telephone interview.
"Then we figured out that it would light faster if we used a vacuum
cleaner."

If you know anything about () engineers and (2) guys in general,
you know what happened:  The purpose of the charcoal-lighting shifted
from cooking hamburgers to seeing how fast they could light the
charcoal.

From the vacuum cleaner, they escalated to using a propane torch,
then an acetylene torch.  Then Goble started using compressed pure
oxygen, which caused the charcoal to burn much faster, because as you
recall from chemistry class, fire is essentially the rapid
combination of oxygen with a reducing agent (the charcoal).  We
discovered that a long time ago, somewhere in the valley between the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers (or something along those lines).

By this point, Goble was getting pretty good times.  But in the world
of competitive charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not cut the
mustard. Thus, Goble hit upon the idea of using - get ready - liquid
oxygen. This is the form of oxygen used in rocket engines; it's 295
degrees below zero and 600 times as dense as regular oxygen.  In
terms of releasing energy, pouring liquid oxygen on charcoal is the
equivalent of throwing a live squirrel into a room containing 50
million Labrador retrievers.  On Goble's World Wide Web page (the
address is http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/), you can see actual
photographs and a video of Goble using a bucket attached to a
0-foot-long wooden handle to dump gallons of liquid oxygen (not
sold in stores) onto a grill containing 60 pounds of charcoal and a
lit cigarette for ignition.

What follows is the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever
seen, featuring a large fireball that according to Goble, reached
0,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  The charcoal was ready for cooking in -
this has to be a world record - seconds.

There's also a photo of what happened when Goble used the same
technique on a flimsy $2.88 discount-store grill.  All that's left
is a circle of charcoal with a few shreds of metal in it.
"Basically, the grill vaporized," said Goble.  "We were thinking of
returning it to the store for a refund."

Looking at Goble's video and photos, I became, as an American, all
choked up with gratitude at the fact that I do not live anywhere near
the engineers' picnic site.  But also, I was proud of my country for
producing guys who can be ready to barbecue in less time than it
take for guys in less-advanced nations, such as France, to spit.

Will the-second barrier ever be broken?  Will engineers come up
with a new, more powerful charcoal-lighting technology?  It's
something for all of us to ponder this summer as we sit outside,
chewing our hamburgers, every now and then glancing in the direction
of West Lafayette, Indiana, looking for a mushroom cloud.


Goble's World Wide Web page

----- End NetScrap(TM) -----