do you wait until the pellets are burnung good and then turn the pit on so the fire wont burn out?
You might have to with fire gel, but not with a torch. I put a good handful of pellets in, turn the unit on (so air is blowing in) and then apply the propane torch until it's burning on its own (usually within about 45 - 60 seconds).
Since I have to manually start my Stoven, I've played around with different methods, and the torch, with the fan blowing air in, is by far the quickest and easiest.
It works with the MAK and down at the Fall Gathering we had to manually start one of the Rec-Tecs. The torch had it up and going in no time.