When I wrote about my issues with charcoal grilling, I received lots of advice from other grilling aficionados. To recap, I'm branching out this summer with my charcoal-grilling so I can cook foods that take longer than one cycle of coals.

For starters, everyone suggested I buy a chimney starter, a cylindrical contraption that holds the coals. Apparently, everyone else in the world has known about this thing for years. Every coal lights and you don't have cold spots. The other point is, you don't need lighter fluid or the generally more expensive pre-soaked coals.

While I was buying the chimney starter, I checked out the brand-new Weber kettle grill, thinking about replacing the one I have that's about 25 years old. Weber might want to rethink its strategy if it's hoping to make money off someone like me. I'm hardly keeping the company afloat buying a grill once every quarter-century.

The new grill has an enclosed ash catcher instead of a flimsy metal plate; the grill lid has hinges on either side so you can feed the fire on both sides or do indirect grilling more efficiently.

Nevertheless, I was too cheap to buy one.

The store had only the Weber brand of chimney starter, but it was reasonable at $15. The only problem was that the box showed these mysterious ice cube-like things, and I had no clue what they were.

After I spent a fair amount of time deciphering the picture, the hardware-store guy finally pointed me to Weber Firestarters. They're wax cubes that you light; they light the coals. Of course I bought them. Of course you can use newspaper, but I didn't see a picture of that on the box.

The chimney starter sent up a plume of smoke that had me looking out for the fire department. But the smoke subsided as the coals burned, in about 30 minutes.

I had a butterflied leg of lamb to try on the grill, which I marinated in the meantime (which, of course, was really too short). Once I had the lamb on the fire, I thought I was home free because the coals would be burning longer. Why I thought this is a mystery, because, as I soon found out, the chimney starter has nothing to do with that. When my leg of lamb was still raw after an hour, I should have realized something was up.

I went back to my grilling bible, Steven Raichlen's How to Grill cookbook. Raichlen says the coals would begin to die after 60 minutes and would need to be replenished - even with a chimney starter. He suggests setting up a separate batch of coals in the chimney starter, placing it on something that won't catch fire, such as a small picnic-type grill, if you have one - and letting coals catch and burn down before adding them to the original coals. That way there is no lag time while waiting for the coals to ash over. This doesn't solve the how-to-move-the- grate-and-food-without-getting-burned problem.

A co-worker suggested adding unignited coals on top of the lit coals just before adding the grate and the food. That way the unignited coals will be ready for cooking when the other coals have burned out. This may work. Other ideas? E-mail me at meitusm@RockyMountainNews.com.