I did say not to cook it directly. That said, if it takes five minutes of a torch to light the pilot, it's already not in great shape. :)

FWIW I learned this trick from a service tech, when I called specifically because I couldn't get the pilot lit. He basically told me he could replace a bunch of parts for a few hundred bucks if I really wanted him to, orrr... Grab a $10 "My First Torch" kit from $BigBox and the cylinder will probably last longer than I will (and I already had a halfway decent one, just for sweating pipe, nothing fancy).