Don't Throw Away Your Egg Cartons – Use Them To Fire Up Your Grill Hassle-Free

Lighting a charcoal grill without a chimney starter is a bit of a hassle, but the real problem is generating enough consistent heat to reliably light all of your coals. Plain paper often burns too quickly, and if you don't have lighter fluid, it can be hard to keep the heat consistent. However, if you have some cardboard egg cartons, you've got everything you need to get the fire going.

Cardboard is flammable and largely food-safe, lacking many of the toxic chemicals that can taint food prepared over it. While Styrofoam and plastic are perfectly capable of holding fire-starting material, under no circumstances should you use them to start a grill fire unless you want to release tons of poisonous fumes. The real value of this trick comes from the shape of the carton itself, which essentially acts as a toss-in tinderbox that generates a surprising amount of heat, depending on what you stick in it. You can even preload your cartons and store them away, tearing off sections as needed for a convenient DIY option.

The key to getting the most out of your carton is to maximize your briquettes' contact with the cardboard. Typically, this means building a pyramid or dome around the egg carton so that, once lit, it radiates heat to each charcoal briquette at roughly the same rate. If you're inconsistent here, you'll end up with a grill full of hot spots where newly lit coals are far hotter than older ones.

Just because something flames up well doesn't mean you should put it in your egg cartons. You need to ensure that anything you use is food-safe, free of synthetic chemicals, or completely burns away before cooking.

Your best bet for building an egg carton starter is the same charcoal you cook with. Not only is it guaranteed to be food-safe, but it also retains a great amount of heat to spread to the rest of the pile. Alton Brown's hack is to incorporate a bit of cooking oil to get that initial flame going strong, ensuring that the first coal catches properly so it can get the rest going. Much like grilling with lighter fluid, these combustibles burn down completely before your food ever touches the grate, so there should be no safety concerns.

It never hurts to load your carton up with some extra material, and you can use just about any organic detritus from around your yard, such as leaves and sticks. However, there's one piece of super tinder you may have never considered: dryer lint. Made up of fine threads and guaranteed to be bone dry, there's a reason you should always clean your lint trap. This stuff is about as flammable as it gets, and you can pack each carton to the brim for a guaranteed great start for your grill — though if you use dryer lint, stick strictly to 100% natural fibers like cotton or linen, as synthetic fibers melt and release toxic fumes.