Gas or Charcoal

Never gas, always lump (!), never fluid (!!).

Starter chimney is a good tool, but lately I tend to use a propane weed burner -- though much smaller than the one in the vid Trelja links to! Small ones that screw on a plumber's propane tank can be readily found for 30 bucks or so. Great for starting (less messy and faster than chimney), and also for perking up coals that have died down (handy for me, since I often do larger cuts with indirect heat, and that takes time). Recommended, but observe all safety precautions!

Digital only, and solid state except for tubes in CDP. Guess my purism is local to grilling.

John

Trelja:

You can go a couple of ways: pile the coals in grill, or use your starter can. Faster with starter can, easier in grill. Takes a minute or two of torching, and then ten minutes or so to burn down, depending on how much torching you do. Somewhat faster than newspaper method -- perhaps not "dramatically" -- but much more reliable. A nice thing about the torch is that you can hurry the coals along at any point if you need to. If I recall, my unit is 30k BTU -- presumably higher BTU units faster. But I've never found mine to be too slow, and the price is right.

Slipnot1:

I've seen permanent installations off natural gas; very convenient, and probably not much of a hassle to do, though I'm not familiar with details. One could also have a "hybrid" set up, with a gas jet to start your wood or coals. I think some nice smokers, like the Big Green Egg, are easy to configure this way.

Now, for a turkey frying thread!

John