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George Goble's famous charcoal grill experiment

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Here, in the Northwest, the weather is becoming adequate for barbecues. Since I dislike waiting for charcoals to become warm enough, I looked for possible ways to accelerate this. Well, George Goble seems to have found a slightly extreme way to light up a charcoal grill.

George became an instant Internet celebrity when he released videos and pictures of himself lighting a charcoal grill by pouring approximately 3 gallons of liquid oxygen (LOX) at cryogenic temperature. George was asked to remove all the materials but a few sites still have pictures of this memorable experiment (https://www.vwauditeamwetterau.de/Witziges/grillen.htm - in German).

George is seen below using a 3 meters long pole to pour LOX. According to his calculations, the temperature rose to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, the intense fire consumed the steel grill and only a small pile of ashes remained as shown by the picture on the right.

             

Gobles cautioned against allowing even a single charcoal briquette to soak in liquid oxygen because he calculated that it would explode with the energy of a stick of dynamite when ignited. One more reason (if one was needed) to not attempt to duplicate this at home.

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