If you've been watching my videos for the past several months,
you might have seen me using this. The SearPro.
Now I've had a handheld torch for a while, like those brazing
or soldering ones, and I've used that to light many fires.
But I wanted something with a little more versatility.
And after looking at different options, comparing a lot of things,
this is what I chose.
So let me show you the SearPro right now.
So I don't have it connected
on top but all it does is screw right on to a standard
camping propane cylinder.
Then when are you going to light it
you just open this top valve slightly.
And after you do, you click the igniter back here.
Then you can dial it up as hot as you want it.
Fairly straightforward and simple, and that's what I was looking for.
What are the reasons I chose this over some of the other options out there?
Number one, I like this because when it is attached to the bottle,
it can just sit like that. It doesn't need an external stand.
You can just pick it up, use it, set it down.
Secondly, the price. I think I paid ninety nine dollars for this on Amazon.
So I mentioned I wanted something with a little more versatility, some other uses.
Well, yes, this will light charcoal, and I'll show you that in just a minute.
But this is also great for searing foods.
Let's say you do, Sous Vide,
and you want a sear a steak after you've got it all cooked.
This is perfect for that.
Or maybe you want to put some char on some vegetables.
Just the other day, I did some green peppers, some red peppers, some tomatoes.
It's really nice to be able to do that without having to fire up the grill.
Another great use for this is helping to clean the grill.
You know, after you're done,
you have some of those greasy bits on there that aren't quite hardened yet.
You can just take this. Fire it up. Hit the grates with that.
And those sort of moist, wet bits will turn hard and easy to brush off.
But really, the main use for this is lighting charcoal.
So let me show you how that's done.
So I have a small pile of charcoal here in the Weber Performer.
This is something I might use this size, to say, light the slow and sear
or some other long cook
where I'm going to have more charcoal going, and this is just the starter pile.
So I'm going to go ahead and fire up the SearPro.
And if you can hear me over this,
this is how you do it just for like a minute.
And that's it, I've got a pile of coals
that are going and ready to ignite more coals.
Now, of course, you could do this with
a charcoal chimney or with some fire starter, the exact same thing.
But this is another option. And I really like this option.
Also, let's say I'm using wood chunks
and I want to help one of those along to get going.
I'll show you how to do that.
Just put that on your coals.
That's it. Less than 30 seconds of time, you've got that piece of wood ready to go,
already letting off smoke. And that can mean less time
waiting to start grilling because your piece of wood's ready to go.
One of the other things that I really wanted in a unit
like this was the ability to use it with gloves on, with grill gloves,
because you can manipulate anything, the valve, the igniter trigger.
No problem with that. And that brings up an interesting thing here.
The igniter trigger, you don't have to keep holding it down.
But when I had this for the first month,
I would light it and keep holding this down.
You don't need to.
That's just to ignite it. The gas is flowing by the valve.
And as comparison here, I know there are other units
that are kind of similar to this, do different things.
But and I've actually tried several of them.
There's nothing wrong with those. They work as advertised.
They put out great fire. They do virtually the same things.
But when I compared those
with the features that I really wanted that ability to just stand up like that.
So you can set it aside, not have to worry about some external stand.
The simplicity of it and the price I mean, for under a hundred dollars,
what I paid for this
compared to a lot of the other units, this was an extremely good value.
And beyond that, I've been using this for, I think, about three or four months
now, maybe even a little bit longer, not hundred percent sure.
So this review, this product review comes after a lot of use.
And I have no issues with this whatsoever.
It's performed flawlessly.
Now, I get questions sometimes from people.
How long do the bottles last on this?
I think a lot of that depends on how long you burn it
when you're lighting your charcoal or whatever you're lighting.
I've used this bottle here, I think,
for about 20 cooks now, and it's still pretty good.
I think it's probably maybe about a third full.
Now, granted, I don't run this for, you know, two, three, four minutes at a time.
In fact, I think that SearPro recommends you don't do a really high temp
burn for more than a couple of minutes, maybe just for overheating purposes.
Personally, for me, I can't see a situation
where I'd need to go more than a minute, minute and a half maybe.
So for me, this just works and it's kind of fun having a flame thrower.