The chimney comes with a battery case that holds 3 AAA batteries. I used this once and it's very weak. I HIGHLY recommend using a Ryobi tek 4 rechargeable battery. Works much better. My last comment is I wouldn't recommend using the chimney without the fan as it doesn't have many vent holes so the charcoal doesn't have good air flow.
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First of all, I like most of the STOK products but this one didn't last more than 2 months. The concept is good but it just doesn't hold up to heavy use (we grill 3-4 times a week). Go with the trusty weber instead.Best Deals for Stok SGA3070 Rapid Charcoal Starter
I love grilling both with gas and charcoal but the time it takes to get charcoal ready (20 minutes in a charcoal chimney) kept me from more routinely grilling with charcoal.I found this charcoal chimney and really liked the idea adding the blower to speed up the combustion of the charcoal, supposedly to get you cooking in as little as seven minutes. If I had designed a charcoal chimney, it would likely be just like the STOCK Rapid Charcoal Chimney. Unfortunately, executing the design has left some things to be desired.
A standard charcoal chimney allows you light the newspaper and return in 20 minutes and you are ready to grill with about 2/3s of the chimney filled with charcoal. The STOK charcoal chimney requires that, after lighting the newspaper, you return in a few minutes to turn on the blower fan to then rapidly heat the coals. This wasn't clear to me when I bought it. I hoped it was more along the lines of a `set it and forget it' approach like a normal chimney. A challenge is timing exactly when you turn on the blower. If you turn on the blower fan a couple minutes too soon you will blow out the newspaper embers. Turn it on a couple minutes too late and you might as well wait the standard 20 minutes that a normal charcoal chimney takes . . . so all in all it doesn't save much, if any time, if you have to be so mindful and it takes you away from other cooking tasks. It takes more attention than a normal charcoal chimney and this is a significant concern as the chimney is not located in the same place that you are preparing a meal. Often one is preparing a meal inside the house while the chimney is starting up outside. It is quite a pain to have to run outside to turn on the blower.
I did find the detachable blower very useful as a way to perk up the coals in the grill, once I was cooking. If you can affix it to an air intake on the grill you can turn any grill into a pseudo jet grill to get nice high temperatures, which was my other hope for this chimney. It is perhaps an equally useful feature of this chimney. I actually cooked a great steak by simply leaving the blower running in the chimney and adding a small cast iron grill atop the chimney. Nice and hot, no other grill required.
In truth, I may try to fine tune the timing of turning on the blower, if it would allow me to get coals in 10 minutes, versus 20. However, I've had to replace the AAAs in the blower fan EVERY time I've used it, even when I only used it for a few minutes to heat the charcoal. Even after replacing the batteries, the fan is occasionally unresponsive. It isn't reliable and I've largely stopped using it as a result.
20 minutes isn't too long to wait . . . but I am still looking for a better solution.
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