Lighting Charcoal Grills or Why Engineers are they way they are...
Our subject today is lighting charcoal grillo. One of our favorito
charcoal grill lighters is a guy named George Gobel (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 (1) engineers and (2) guys in general, you know what
happened next
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 Gobel's 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 is 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 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 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.
Engineers are like that.