---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: jgearhar@oboe.aix.calpoly.edu > | Nuclear Picnic > | > | by Dave Barry > | > | The Boston Globe Magazine > | June 25, 1995 > | > | > | Today's culinary topic is: how to light a charcoal fire. Everybody > | loves a backyard barbecue. For some reason, food just seems to taste > | better when it has been cooked outdoors, where flies can lay eggs on > | it. But there's nothing worse than trying to set fire to a pile of > | balky charcoal. > | > | The average back-yard chef, wishing to cook hamburgers, tries to ignite > | the charcoal via the squirt, light, and wait method, wherein you squirt > | lighter fluid on a pile of briquettes, light the pile, then wait until > | they have turned a uniform gray color. When I say "they have turned a > | uniform gray color," I am referring to the hamburgers. The briquettes > | will remain as cold and lifeless as Leonard Nimoy. The backyard chef > | will keep this up - squirting, lighting, waiting; squirting, lighting, > | waiting - until the bacterial level in the side dishes has reached the > | point where the potato salad rises up from its bowl, Bloblike, and > | attempts to mate with the corn. This is the signal that it's time to > | order Chinese food. > | > | The problem is that modern charcoal, manufactured under strict consum- > | er-safety guidelines, is one of the least-flammable substances on > | Earth. On more than one occasion, quick-thinking individuals have ex- > | tinguished a raging house fire by throwing charcoal on it. Your back- > | yard chef would be just as successful trying to ignite a pile of rocks. > | > | Is there a solution? Yes. There happens to be a technique that is > | guaranteed to get your charcoal burning very, very quickly, although > | you should not attempt this technique unless you meet the following > | criterion: You are a complete idiot. > | > | I found out about this technique from alert reader George Rasko, who > | sent me a letter describing something he came across on the World Wide > | Web, a computer network that you should definitely learn more about, > | because as you read these words, your 11-year-old is downloading > | pornography from it. > | > | By hooking into the World Wide Web, you can look at a variety of > | electronic "pages," consisting of documents, pictures, and videos > | created by people all over the world. One of these is a guy named > | (really) George Goble, 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 (1) 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 the cosine to form 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 equiva- > | lent of throwing a live squirrel into a room containing 50 million > | Labrador retrievers. On Gobel'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 10-foot-long wooden handle to > | dump 3 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 10,000 > | degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in - this has > | to be a world record - 3 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 vapor- > | ized," 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 takes > | for guys in less-advanced nations, such as France, to spit. > | > | Will the 3-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.