Weber® Charcoal Lighter Cubes, 96 Count

There I was...cold...wet...freezing...and near death... Ok, maybe not that perilous and life threatening. But, I was chilled and wet after an unexpected dip into the spring fed river from my kayak. Courtesy of a collision with a deadfall in some fast moving water. The sun was already behind the tall ridgeline and the afternoon shadows in the rivers valley were growing long. By the time I'd paddled the last couple of miles to my campsite through the now unknown river due to the spring "100 Year Flood", the chill was setting in and being encouraged by the headwind that appeared out of nowhere on this calm day. As I rounded the bend in the shadow of the ridge, I breathed a sigh of relief that there was a semblance of a campsite left in spite of the flood. After beaching the yak I started the search for some tinder and kindling to warm the bones. I wasn't hopeful for an easy fire build due to being right on the river and rainshowers the night before. Just as I was prepping the tinder bundle and cursing another gust of chilling wind, I remembered that I'd brought along a new firestarter I'd seen and wanted to test. While I'd planned to test the firestarter in different and controlled situations with a variety of sparking elements, I thought this was a pertinent and perfect situation. Replaying the memory of my backpack starting to float down the river when my kayak showed its rolling skills, I hoped that the factory packaging and the ziplock bag I'd placed the cubes in to would be enough to keep the unknown quality of firestarter dry. Pulling my pack from the Contractor grade trash bag, I saw the discoloration of the fabric from the water and my hopes began to wane. I unzipped the fire pouch on the pack and saw a few drops of water on the outside of the ziplock. I opened the baggie which appeared dry inside and grabbed the cubes from inside. Popping one from it's foil sealed blister pack, I placed it inside the tinder bundle, grabbed the lighter from the fire pouch, blew out some moisture, struck the wheel checking for a spark, and wondered if these cubes would be as difficult to light as others I've tried in the past. As soon as another gust of wind subsided, I struck the wheel of the lighter next to the cube, and like our ancestors before us found delight and relief in the birth of a warming fire. Now on to the review! I first saw these firestarters in a kayaking video where their name was mentioned, the quantity, and that you could get them in the Big Box stores in the BBQ area. I remember thinking "Weber? Weber Grills came out with a firestarter???" Knowing Weber's quality, I wanted some right then. Not for BBQ'ing, but for Survival. My trip to the store that day yielded nothing, so I ordered some that night off of Amazon. During an impromptu trip to Home Destruction the next day, I found myself walking through the BBQ section and remembered to look for them. And there they were. 24 cubes for $4 or $5. I snatched up a box of them and remembered paying a similar price for 8 or 12 of "Survival" firestarters not that long ago. When time permitted later that day, I opened the box to find a foil covered, 24 cube blister pack of firestarters. Understand that this isn't the Heavy Duty foil that you find on other packaging of similar items. This is basic foil that permits you to easily pop a cube through, in the comfort of your patio or deck, to get a fire going to grill some goodness. Taking that in to consideration when I put 6 of the cubes in my backpack, I carefully cut 6 of the cubes from the 24pk sheet, being mindful of the foil covering of not only the 6 I was taking, but the remainder on the sheet. My concern being puncturing the foil and the individual cube "drying out" and rendering it useless. As previously stated, I then placed them in to a Ziploc for waterproofing. Pro's- COST- For the quantity you're getting, it's a no brainer compared to "Survival" packaged firestarters. QUALITY/RELIABILITY- The cube lit as soon as a spark hit it. While this may be age and airtight seal dependent, it worked in a difficult situation. BURN TIME- I didn't put a clock to the burn time of the cube. But I did take note that it burned for a couple of minutes, and was enough to get tinder and kindling to burn in a humid environment. Con's- PACKAGING- These aren't packaged for "Survival." They're packaged to get a grill going on your patio. HOWEVER, as my situation showed, with just the minimum in planning ahead for the cubes, they'll perform as expected. AGE/LONGEVITY- I don't know what mfg specs are for the expected lifespan of these are, but I've no doubt that if they're stored in an Airtight/Waterproof container, then they'll exceed your expectations. DURABILITY- Only time will tell. I'm going to throw some in all of my packs to see how they endure the bumps and jostling. SO, give these a shot and see how they do in your situation or planning. We may have found an inexpensive and quality alternative for "Survival" firestarters, IF repackaged for such. I know they worked for me for building 4 fires in 2 days in a humid environment. ENJOY!

I have been starting fires for a long time. For my grills and smokers, I know that sentence makes me sound like a pyromaniac, but I am not. I normally use charcoal for the grills and smokers, sometimes I use wood chunks. I do not use lighter fluid because I am not a big fan of the chemical tastes it imparts to the food. Plus liquid lighter fluid is just plain blasphemous to any legitimate Master of the Grill. We would rather boil a rack of ribs than use lighter fluid to start a grill. I normally used some newspaper at the bottom of my charcoal chimney. It works great 90% of the time. Except that 10% of the time when it is pretty windy outside. Then the burning paper ash blows around and lands on my wood deck. No bueno. And there was no way I would consider not grilling a juicy steak just because it is windy outside. Then I tried these fire starter cubes and they work great in the chimney too. I put in some coals, then the fire starter, light it, then add more coals. Works great and no paper ash blowing around. The reason I started using these fire starters was because I finally elevated myself grilling/smoking to the next level and got a Big Green Egg, and everyone who has one recommends starting your charcoal with these fire starters. I had wanted an egg for many years, but they are expensive, and seriously, are they really even worth the extra money. Turns out they are worth it. On my third smoking session with the egg I cooked a packer brisket for 15 hours in single digit weather. Without a doubt it was the best brisket I have ever cooked, and the egg holds temperature like a champ! Starting the egg with these fre starters is very easy. I fill the fire ring with charcoal then make a small depression in the coals and place half of a fire starter in that depression. I light the fire starter, let it burn for about 20 seconds, then push some larger chunks of charcoal over it and in minutes my egg is light and i can start adjusting the temperature. I let the temp steady out for about ten minutes to stabilize everything and to burn off the rest of the fire starter, and then I am ready to start cooking. I highly recommend these. I cannot believe I did not start using these years ago.

Works well

they light quickly, way better than paper and no worrying about where the paper ash may land. two cubes fit quite well under my chimney. I filled my chimney with Kingsford blue, put two cubes on the grate, set the chimney on top, and light the cubes. easy-peasy. and there is no odor. there's actually 96 cubes total! that is a lot of grillin' a lot! which is good, because as long as i can get to the grill I'll still be grilling in the dead of winter.

Okay so while building my bug out bag. I realized i needed to upgrade my fire starter kit and went looking for a tinder or something that I can quickly light and use it to get my fire going. So I found out about these thru a search, and was amazed with yhe product description and bought one. When they came i was kinda miffed at how they were packed due to when you try to open one , you may instead open two or more thanks to the weak foiling. Other than that getting the cube out was easy and lighting it on fire was also a breeze. Bow here comes the part i liked most, when i lit it the cube lasted up to 14 minutes on constant fire. Amazing right. Now since as i metioned earlier with the accidentally opening two instead of one, i had anthor to test out the part where they say it can be lit in water. Note that it says it can be lit in water but not waterproofz i found this out by cutting the cube in three and lighting it in water, after water, and while water is bieng sprinkled on ( aka rain simulation ), only to learn its not waterproof. All in all i like it and im pretty sure i can use it to create some newer type of it after some waterproof mod.

These are available lots of places, and from what I've seen, same low price as Amazon. ($3.29 for quite a while now). Might as well save trip to HD/Lowe's and tack them on to your next Amazon order. There is no need to pay more for ANY kind of firestarter for ANY purpose (grilling, smoking, fireplace, camping, bushcraft, survival, bug-out-bag, backpacking, hexamine substitute, etc) than these ones from Weber. They are awesome, but have just a small drawback... the packaging is fragile, and they will dry out (diminished performance) albeit very slowly. But you could also just get yourself some fatwood and not worry about packaging/drying out. But, for a synthetic/man-made convenience type fire starter, this is the one you need and can be used in a ultra-light backpacking folding type stove (Esbit, Bleuet, Coghlan's) for those types of purposes too (boil a cup of water, cook) These are NOT paraffin wax. I don't know what they are exactly (have contacted Weber, and obtained the MSDS... it doesn't say, they won't say, and the information isn't on the web anywhere that I could find to date). They are pretty hard to describe actually... They are a sort of fine-granular synthetic wax/styrofoam type of material impregnated and compressed with a flammable liquid/solvent or like a liquid paraffin/lamp oil. They are crumbly (like baking soda held together loosely with a weak liquid binder). They don't 'melt'. They don't burn up completely either, they just shrink down as the solvent burns off, leaving a little crusty remnant. They DO dry out, but it takes quite a while... from my experience let's say you leave it out for a month (out of the foil packaging) then you will only get a 5 minute burn time instead of 9 minutes. Don't know how long one would have to leave them out before they fail completely (maybe they would never get that bad). So they will still work, and as an average firestarter (starting other combustible materials) that is good and probably ALL that you would need. If you are using them as a hexamine type replacement, or storing in a B.O.B., then that reduced performance is a bad thing tho. So they will need to be repackaged somehow: 1. dipped in wax a couple times to seal, 2. wrapped tightly in plastic bags/duct tape, whatever, 3. individually vacuum sealed, 4. smash 4 or 5 of them down into an old prescription bottle and spoon out a little as needed... etc. BONUS: they are virtually the same mystery material as a WetFire Fire Starter, used for camping/hiking/bushcraft... but are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper. Problem is they are not as conveniently individually packaged. Solution: repackage in some sort of air-tight-as-possible method. Don't pay for those other ones unless you are just lazy and have money to burn. (Weber/$0.14 each - Hexamine/$0.23 each - WetFire/$1 each) Hope that helps somebody. They are cheap enough, just get them and try 'em out.

Good product

These are great for lighting charcoal in a BBQ, or a campfire. We use a chimney to light the charcoal, placing one cube under the chimney filled with charcoal. No newspaper needed, and coals are ready quickly.

Excelente para prender el carbon, solo dos cubos para una parrillada grande.

I use these with my Weber chimney and one cube is enough to light a full container (1 kilo approx). Not had a dud yet, lights really easily as well.

Easy to light and burn well.

Ignite very quick. Great for fires in wet conditions and for making coffee in my Esbit stove.

Acender o carvao da churrasqueira,maravilhoso!!!! Nenhum trabalho, bastou 1 para acender minha churrasqueira