A couple of days ago I went to cook a ham steak so I loaded up a chimney with briquettes and set it over the gas ignition flame on the performer to get it started. I shut the gas off once the charcoal in the bottom of the chimney was lit up enough to continue on its own and let it go until the smoke stopped and flames were coming out the top of the chimney, the usual indication that briquettes are ready to pour out and finish lighting up on the charcoal grate.
When I dumped them out though, the briquettes were all unevenly ashed with large splotches of unlit area on the briquettes mixed with splotches of ashed over grey. I had to pile the briquettes up and give them a long time to finish asking over before cooking, and even then some of them still didn't ignite properly. This is a rare event, but does happen every once in a while. I had it happen before I got the performer and was using crumpled up newspapers in the bottom of the chimney. How do I avoid this happening? And what's the best way to deal with it when it does?