Samba Natural Firelighters

Rubbish – Just as well there are 36 in a box. I used 12 starting bbq heat beads in a heat bead starting funnel. Show details

Best Value for Money Firelighters – The SAMBA Firelighters are easy to light, well priced and no strong smell...definitely my favourite after trying many other brands! Show details

Don’t Burn long enough – Great idea but they burn for too short a time and don’t do one thing they are supposed to do, start your briquettes well. They are better on charcoal. Show details

Dog sh*t – Absolutely terrible firelighters and the the tw*t saying the poor reviews are user error based probably works for them. You'd need half a pack of these to match the equivalent normal firelighter Show details

The fire lighter Gel – This product works , but when you get to the bottom of the bottle you cannot use all of it, so it is wasted ,very frustrating will not buy this product again, the bottle is not user friendly Show details

Lowburning crap – Seen and used better samba is just cheap trash and not worth the money. Bought their matches and just crap, caught their fire lighters sad, samba is just cheap in all rounds and not worth the money compared to redheads Show details

Love these!! – I love the these fire lighters. No smell and work great. I just read people having issues lighting, I don’t understand this, I have no issues lighting and I have used multiple packets, maybe they are harder to light then normal fire lighters but I have never used them because I hate the smell Show details

Failure to ignite cheap and nasty – Failure to ignite cheap and nasty. On our four separate occasions I’ve use the samba firelighters they are so hidden this if you want to guarantee to light your heat beads by jiffy they work every time. Show details

Great for pizza oven and offset smoker Bbq – These lighters are great for outdoor cooking. Good heat, no smell and long lasting to get kindling or charcoal going in a pizza oven or smoker. You do need to use a few but I think this is a small price to pay for not using a petrol based firefighter. Wouldn’t use anything else. User error probably has a lot to do with poor reviews Show details

Hard to light and too much smoke – These are hard to light and when they finally get going they smoulder rather than flame, causing a lot of smoke. 2 stars for the fact that they are natural but nothing else. Show details

Shambolic Product – Extremely hard to light, blows out if it’s mildly windy three suburbs away. A very poor attempt at what it’s trying to be. Requires several matches to light each one thus cancelling out any environmental benefits of using the product in the first place.

Samba Natural Firelighters – Yes, Samba Natural Firelighters smell like dog food, but in my experiences, I have tested it against RED HEADS & JIFFY, and Samba has proved itself to be the longest lasting. You should definitely give it a try! I never thought that I would until I used it for an experiment and was pleasantly surprised.

Works a treat! – We buy them in the 100 packs/cylinders from Bunnings and we use them to light the coals for the Webber as well as the indoor wood fire in winter. Only one is needed to start up the kindling in the wood fire. We use two to get the coals started for the Webber. I love these firefighters as they're made from recycled wood and wax.

No smell – Didn’t like the toxic smell of Redheads. So, went for natural. I knew natural would not start as easy and burn for as long. I use a little bit of newspaper to help start the natural fire lighter. Then once lit, add a little bit of lump charcoal. Once lump charcoal starts to burn, add briquettes. Not as convenient as toxic fire lighters. However, gladly to make a bit of effort to get rid of that awful smell

not what i expected – purchased a canister and found that there was very poor lighting quality.tried different lighting methods over several cooks and still could not get a proper burn. my current attempt to use the product has resulted in me using 3 different lighting methods without success. currently have approx. 25 starters trying to light 50 heat beads. will never buy this brand again

The worst firelighters I have ever used – They burn with a yellow smoky flame and the stink is awful. The charcoal often remains unlit. The cubes are of uneven sizes and are small enough to drop through grates and fire baskets.

They do a great job – I have used Samba firelighters on a number of occasions for my solid wood heater, and have never had a problem with them, I find them easy to use and always do a great job of getting my fire started.

Great little firelighters, much better than the petroleum based ones – We love these for lighting our Euro fire. They work every time and don't smell and are much better for the environment. We wouldn't use anything else and recommend them to others.

Great firefighters and no more kerosene smell – Have used these many times both in my a fireplace and in the webber, no more kerosene smell! They don't burn as hot as regular firelighters , however if you prepare your kindling properly beforehand there are no issues. Have also tried them on the hiking trail for a campfire and have had no issues either. Because they are odorless they are ideal for carrying in your pack.

Didn't burn well – I agree with the previous review. These don't burn well or long enough to get the fire going properly and resulted in it dying down and smoking badly. Had to wait until the smoke had gone to relight the fire and start again. Wouldn't buy them again.

No smell, slow burn, but will not suit everyone – Since posting my previous review on these back in 2015, I have had, by way of been provided further packets of this product by experts in Charcoal Cooking, and further advice on using these firelighters, find myself now using them almost exclusively - certainly for use in lighting proper charcoal chunks (not those heat bead briquettes) on a… Read more

souvla or similar charcoal bbq. They are still more difficult to light than your standard Red Head Kerosine based fire starter, so I will quite often coat the Sambas in a layer of a cooking oil, say like Olive oil. just so the fire takes bite on the Samba fire starter. It is not always necessary but from time to time, especially if it's a bit breezy where you are lighting the charcoal, I have found that does help.

They are a bit deceptive and can sometimes appear to have gone out, but seem to be at a slow burn getting the surrounding charcoal lit up. I usually make a little tee-pee of charcoal and place a couple of the Sambas in the middle of that and light them up. And wait patiently. Drink beer to pass the time.

Whilst it can be a pain to get going in comparison to the ease of use of the kerosine based products, once you work around the quirks of this more natural product, it performs well enough. By rights, you would never see any true charcoal bbq pit master use kero based firelighters, because they do stink to high heaven and there's a good chance of spoiling the taste of your food if the chemicals are not completely burnt off everything that comes in contact with it. Smell your hands after handling the kerosine product and you will know that by merely having the coals touch it, the kerosine smell transfers easy enough.

The lack of kerosine stench and risk of tainting your food, is the Sambas biggest plus. I would recommend them more to pit masters who have a little patience and understand more about how to get a pit fire going. It takes time, but the taste of the food will likely thank you for it.

In all fairness to the product, and my understanding of how to best use these, I have raised my previous rating of 2 stars to 4 stars.

********* Previous review from 2015 ************

I have used a number of packets of the Samba Natural Firelighters. Each time I hope the result will be different from the last but alas it is not. The issue is they simply don't burn long enough or hot anough to effectively get a chimney of coals fired up. I need to use copious amount of paper to even get these things alight but even then tney are inneffective in lighting up a chimney

Typically I will need to use about 6 cubes of these where I would only need to use 2 cubes of say the regular red head firelighters

About the only thing going for them is that they are odourless - so no kerosene smell.

Sadly the effort required to make a chimney of coal using these is simply not worth it. I am over them and won't buy again unless I am assured the recipe used in making them has changed to some useful.