snowmonkey
Well-known member
Our subject today is lighting charcoal grills. Two of our favorite
charcoal grill lighters are named Mark Luetger, and Joe Jared,
(really!!), a couple of computer programmers in the Fidonet 1:103
engineering department.
Each year, Mark and Joe hold a picnic in Mile Square Park, Fountain
Valley, Ca. for Region 10 SoCal Fidonet engineers. There they cook
hamburgers and hotdogs on a big grill, for the Region 10 Fidonet
engineers and their friends and families.
Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to speed up
the charcoal-lighting process as the newspaper + match had failed to
do the expected job in a reasonable time. Mark and Joe put their
heads to the task of speeding up the process of infighting the
charcoal...
"We started by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer," Mark told me
about last years picnic. He said,"Joe borrowed his mates five speed
Sassoon cordless hair blower". He continued, "Then we figured out
that it would light charcoal faster if we used a vacuum cleaner with
the hose in the air exhaust port."
If you know anything about (1) engineers and (2) Computer nerds in
general, who have their head in a computer or software for it, you
already know what is going to happened: A couple of beers later 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 Mark and Joe 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, in Fidonet's infancy, (or somewhere
along those lines). I think it was way back when George Peace was
the Fido IC. The Egyptian pyramids were still one of the eight
wonders of the world.
By this point, Mark and Joe were having a pretty good time. But in
the world of competitive charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not
cut the mustard. Thus, Mark and Joe hit upon the idea of using -
get ready for this *** 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 hand grenade into a 50 gallon vat of
150 proof White Lightening.
What followed was the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever
seen, featuring a large fireball that, according to Joe, reached
10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in, *
this has to be a world record *, 3 seconds.
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 NEXT summer as we plan the R10
SoCal picnic!
Basically, the grill vaporized," said Mark. "We were thinking of
using Ol'WDB's Gas BBQ next year... it has wheels and we may get it
up to speed in as little as 3 - 4 minutes with automatic lighter,
and water sprayer to cool the fast ignition of the meats".
charcoal grill lighters are named Mark Luetger, and Joe Jared,
(really!!), a couple of computer programmers in the Fidonet 1:103
engineering department.
Each year, Mark and Joe hold a picnic in Mile Square Park, Fountain
Valley, Ca. for Region 10 SoCal Fidonet engineers. There they cook
hamburgers and hotdogs on a big grill, for the Region 10 Fidonet
engineers and their friends and families.
Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to speed up
the charcoal-lighting process as the newspaper + match had failed to
do the expected job in a reasonable time. Mark and Joe put their
heads to the task of speeding up the process of infighting the
charcoal...
"We started by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer," Mark told me
about last years picnic. He said,"Joe borrowed his mates five speed
Sassoon cordless hair blower". He continued, "Then we figured out
that it would light charcoal faster if we used a vacuum cleaner with
the hose in the air exhaust port."
If you know anything about (1) engineers and (2) Computer nerds in
general, who have their head in a computer or software for it, you
already know what is going to happened: A couple of beers later 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 Mark and Joe 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, in Fidonet's infancy, (or somewhere
along those lines). I think it was way back when George Peace was
the Fido IC. The Egyptian pyramids were still one of the eight
wonders of the world.
By this point, Mark and Joe were having a pretty good time. But in
the world of competitive charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not
cut the mustard. Thus, Mark and Joe hit upon the idea of using -
get ready for this *** 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 hand grenade into a 50 gallon vat of
150 proof White Lightening.
What followed was the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever
seen, featuring a large fireball that, according to Joe, reached
10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in, *
this has to be a world record *, 3 seconds.
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 NEXT summer as we plan the R10
SoCal picnic!
Basically, the grill vaporized," said Mark. "We were thinking of
using Ol'WDB's Gas BBQ next year... it has wheels and we may get it
up to speed in as little as 3 - 4 minutes with automatic lighter,
and water sprayer to cool the fast ignition of the meats".
