The worst part of cooking with a charcoal grill or by campfire is getting the fire lit. A good fire starter material (combined with a charcoal chimney) can make it effortless to get your grill going. While you can buy fire starter material, it's really cheap and easy to make your own from scratch. In fact the total project should cost less than $5 and take less than 15 minutes from start to finish.
Materials:
- Candle or paraffin wax
- Cotton balls or other natural fiber (sawdust, hamster bedding, dryer lint*)
- Cardboard egg carton or other suitable mold
The wax won’t burn by itself and the cotton will burn to fast to light charcoal, but together they will create a full surface candle. To get the wax, I went to a national chain arts and crafts store and bought 1lb of premium candle wax for about $3.50 and then stopped by the local drug store and picked up a bag of 300 cotton balls for about $1.50 which was way more than I needed.
Melt the candle wax. The fastest way is to use a double boiler, which can be made by filling a pot with water and putting a smaller pot inside of it. This will keep the wax from burning or even catching on fire. Cut your wax into chunks to help it melt more quickly.
Prepare the egg carton mold by filling it to the top with the cotton or other material. You need a high cotton-to-wax ratio to burn properly, so be generous. I found about 5-7 cotton balls worked well, I also pulled the cotton apart to fill the space completely.
When the wax is melted, fill each egg cup about 2/3-3/4 full. Let the filled egg carton sit overnight or toss it in the freezer for an hour or two and you have ready-to-use fire starters. 1lb of wax will make about 24 egg sized fire starters, which should be plenty for a good grilling season.
To use, place one or two under you charcoal chimney or wherever you need them and light!
References: http://www.outdoorcook.com/article1065.php (This was the inspiration for this HOW TO and has plenty more great tips)
*If you use dryer lint make sure it’s only from cotton clothing, especially if you are going to be using it to start a fire for cooking. Non-cotton clothing, polyester, rayon, spandex, Lycra, etc can release dangerous chemicals when burned.