Bottom up lighting

I'm interested in the replies here. I've got nothing to add though (I'm only 2 weeks deep with mine).

I have had good luck doing this for higher heat cooks but didn't like it for sub 300* cooks.

RRP said:

I used to advocate that for anyone using a small. I coined a silly term of "light it low for high and light it high for low" meaning a fire started underneath seemed to develop a better high temp fire since it created a natural updraft via the bottom vent and lit the lump above. Conversely a fire started on top had to burn downward to get really rolling and therefore a low and slow cook benefited for starting on "high".

I like it!  It definitely makes sense.  

I use the oil and paper towel trick and light from the bottom vent every time. Works for me.

SmokeyPitt said:

Although that is a phrase, not a term :-B :P

Aye Aye, Sir! I stand corrected! The one thing I forgot to add was starting from below definitely consumes more lump if any body cares to know that!

I do what @Lit said...  At first I was opening the bottom draft door and placing a weber wax cube in there, and that worked great.  You get a very tall flame, and it easily goes up thru the fire grate.  But then I changed my technique and tried burrowing down thru the remaining lump all the way to the grate, and placing the cube directly on the grate.  You get great airflow to the cube this way.  I light it and wait a few seconds for it to really get going, then pour new lump around and on top of it.  Then I will take the ash tool and kinda open up the charcoal abit over the cube, so I can see the flame come thru the top of the lump pile.

with the mini vision kub i light from below with papertowel and oil. sometimes light from below when doing hot cooks with the large, but have had problems developing color and bark on some cooks with low and slows on the large so have gone back to lighting on top with low and slows on the large

When I bought my first egg the dealer told me to stick newspaper in the lower vent. I did that a few times and realised that I was burning way more lump than I should have. If you fill an egg to the top of the fire ring and do a short cook, then remove the lump that has been ignited, you will find most of the lump has not been on fire at all.

If you light it from the top, like a candle, the lump (say you have an 8" deep pile of lump) below is out of the hot effluent from the fire.  Most VOC driven out by heat from the lump below the fire goes through the active fire and burns, getting consumed.

@Lit . I concur (!) with @nolaegghead. The VOCs are burned off by the heat above, effectively sucking them out of the firebox, to burn cleanly as the fire gets lower.

Lit, it goes up.   Think about a candle made with sawdust and wax what would happen if you light the top versus invert it. 

I dunno.  But I don't want unburning wax above this with all the wax fumes going into my food.  The VOCs (wax) are going up into the flame and being burned.  Turn that upside down and you get smokey wax fumes because the heat travels further than the fire. 

Some guy who used to post here named 'stike' once said "the VOCs aren't remnants of the fire we are cooking with, but actually from the process of making charcoal in the first place. it's a minor difference, but it explains why there are VOCs in the charcoal even if your fire isn't lit. and it explains why your fire (which is heat, plus a draft) can help drive out the VOCs early in a cook, so that your unburnt charcoal isn't still laden with VOCs later at the end of a cook, or as the fire ignites new charcoal to be ultra picky, "volatile" doesn't necessarily mean "flammable", just that they readily evaporate. " Not sure who he is but I had this bookmarked.

@SenacaThe Younger must be estivating at camp. He would have a treatise on this (or any other) subject.