It's BBQ season again

[Handyman]

Yes folks the warmer weather is quickly approaching us once again.

I've been checking out the new 2004 model grills and I'm just having a hard time not buying one... Fotrunantly for me as much as I would love a nice 4 burner stainless steel grill, I have no need for one of that size. A 2 burner would be more than adiquate.

But... I'm a old charcoal diehard... I like the flavor, and the smell. Propane is more like cooking on a stove (outdoors) than anything else and you cannot smoke on a propane.
Sooooooooooo , here I sit with my delema. Should I or shouldn't I... [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

I already own 2 Webers (kettle & table top), 1 barrel grill/smoker and 2 table top propane bottle types (1 worn out the other goes on the road with me). I use the worn out table top for the fast grill'n needs or after dark times, but I'm getting tired of having to replace those little 1 lb bottles every 4th use, not to mention it gets expensive compared to a 20lb bottle.

I love my collection of grill, but I need to thin them out... [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

One thing I have noticed with this yrs model and that is they have gotten away from Lava rocks... but are designed with brass burners and heat deflectors.

Sorry, but I thought that the lava rocks helped with the flavor from previous meat drippings to add some flavor.. you might want to say were seasoned.

I suppose you could put a piece of expanded metal over the burners and still add the rocks. [img]/forums/images/icons/ooo.gif[/img]

[egon]

Enjoy the flavor, dispense with the mercapton; switch to wood burned down to coals.

Egon

[fivestring]

I just bought a new 2004 model Char Broil grill. $260 @ Lowe's.
It's a 3 burner with a fourth burner on the side. It does not use lava rock, and I'm glad. Lava rocks are only good for keeping a more even heat bed.

<font color="red">"Sorry, but I thought that the lava rocks helped with the flavor from previous meat drippings to add some flavor.. you might want to say were seasoned." </font color>
Marinate your meat overnight in the fridge for seasoning and flavor. This is true for all meat -- pork, red meat, ribs, poultry, etc. It is especially true with ribs.

If you want to add smoke flavor, soak your favorite wood chips (I like hickory, apple and pecan) overnight. Take a piece of aluminum foil and make a container (about 4"w x 2"h x 8"l) and place the wet chips inside. Fold the top over so it is basically an aluminum container with a lid with wood chips inside. Poke several holes on the sides and top of this aluminum foil contailer and place the thing on your grill grate. Voila, smoke!!!
I keep the chips on the fire side and the meat on the other side of the grill where the burner is off (or at the lowest setting) so it is cooked indirectly.
I'm going to try to add a little smoke to some NY Strip steaks next time I grill out.

I also have a Smokey Joe smoker (charcoal) for ribs, turkey breasts, chickens, etc.
For me, nothing beats charcoal for smoking. I smoked 6 racks of ribs 1 1/2 months ago. (It usually takes about 3 - 3 1/2 hours to cook.) We froze the leftovers and now all we have to do is get them out of the freezer (vacuum sealed) and put in boiling water to heat. MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm!

[Pat]

There are probably more little nuances of BBQ technique than there are practitioners of BBQ. As to a comment along the lines of Propane has no place in a good BBQ rig, I say NOT SO! I have eaten professionally prepared BBQ that was cooked mostly by heat from a propane fire. It was indirect heat as the fire heated the bottom of a container that had the racks for the meat and the products of combustion were not in contact with the meat. Not that the combustion gasses would be bad for flavor but the chamber with the meat had wood for producing "flavor smoke" and the air was controlled for controlling the burning of the flavor wood and was not influenced by the combustion needs of the propane fire.

This allowed thermostatic control of the temp of the meat chamber as the propane fire could cycle on and off as required to maintain the optimum cooking chamber temp and the dampers controlling air into the cooking chamber could be adjusted manually by experienced operators to produce optimum smoke effects. The two controls interact but aren't hard to adjust as once the thermostat is set that controls the propane fire you do what you want to the wood smoke fire and the propane fire cycles as required.

This uses a lot less flavor wood than conventional BBQ rigs but can produce a lot more flavor smoke on less wood. The meat can get the optimum cooking environment and the optimum flavoring environment. You can make really strongly flavored and tasty meats with various flavor woods and combinations of flavor woods but have the overall cooking control of thermostatically controlled gas cookinig.

The layout of the cooker was pretty simple. Basically concentric containers. It looked a lot like two big pipes of different sizes, one inside the other in a concentric arrangement. The propane fire was at the bottom between the inner and outer tanks and the fire and heat wrapped around the inner container and the exhaust flue was on top near the center. The outer container was insulated on the outside to increase efficiency, reduce fuel consumption, and promote even heating of the inner container. The inner container was accessed through doors in one end. The other end had the attached flavor wood burning chamber with its dampers. I don't know if the flavor wood was partially gas fire heated or if the gas burner in that part was just for starting the wood fire. What I do know was that there were some truly amazing flavors of meat prepared with this cooker. The smoke flavoring was adjustable but due to the separation of flavoring smoke production and cooking heat production you could make some really potently smoked meat without overcooking.

The rig was portable, trailer mounted, and used by a guy and helpers who catered BBQ outings. Some of my relatives in Mississippi belonged to a BBQ club where the members take turns in rotation supplying the meat for the monthly BBQ. Most times this caterrer was used. The club even had a permanent picnic ground set up with tables and lights. They would typically do both beef and pork with turkey and venison in small "sample" quantities.

Once in a while, given a good excuse, a subset of the club would seine a farm pond and have a fish fry. Our family arriving on vacation to visit served as that excuse a couple times. Three legged black cast iron wash pots were hung over wood fires, filled with oil (lard mostly) and brought to heat and they'd dump in fish and scoop them out when they floated to the top and turned the right shade of golden brown on the cornmeal coating.

As a youngster I didn't like meal on my fish but preferred flour. This created quite a stir among the cooking crew who were amused by the food preferrences of that "northern boy."

Incidently, our laundry was boiled in the same pots over wood fires as well. No to to go into great detail but this was not too long prior to the social changes wrought and or initiated by the most reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

Oh the implications and variances of burning meat!!

A wood fire takes time to get to the proper "Hot Coals" stage. During this process it should be watched carefully. Of course a cool beverage or two or ?? made from barley malt may be required to refurbish fluids lost by the fire watch labour induced sweat.

This same beverage has excellent marinating properties also.

If the proper coals appear too suddenly a green log can always be placed on the fire to increase marinating time.

Egon

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
There are probably more little nuances of BBQ technique than there are practitioners of BBQ

[/ QUOTE ]

Ain't that the truth?!! [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] The first house (an 18 year old little house) that we bought had a gas grill at the edge of the patio (natural gas), and when we bought the next two new homes, the first thing I had done was to install a gas grill on the patio, but while the first little house had a little gas grill, on the next two I got the biggest thing the gas company sold and with a rotisserie (did I spell that right?). We loved them for steaks, burgers, etc. and the rotisserie was great for chickens and turkeys. And with the dual burner grills, the meat on one side with the other burner lit under a pan of wet wood chips (hickory or mesquite), it didn't do too bad a job of smoking. But then I bought the biggest Cookin' Cajun smoker; charcoal with the water pan; 5 pounds of charcoal with some overnight soaked hickory chips, and much better for smoked salmon (and some other kinds of fish - my personal favoritie being shark steaks), smoked oysters, turkeys, and chicken.

We got rid of all that for the 6 years we spent in an RV; used a Jet Stream grill (and still do), but when we quit RV travel and bought the farm, a friend gave us an electric, smaller Cookin' Cajun smoker; not bad for grilling steaks or chops, but not worth a hoot otherwise; got too hot too quick.

Neighbors had two big barbecue rigs, used wood; not charcoal, and had an annual July 4th barbecue with a big crowd. I provided the rabbits and some of the briskets, and they barbecued several rabbits, several briskets, one goat, and a few chickens; delicious. He got up a couple of times during the night to add wood to the firebox.

And now we're back in town; have some real Mexican neighbors who bring back their charcoal from Mexico; not the little bricketts you buy in the grocery store, but charcoal that looks like big chunks of burnt logs. Ordinary little charcoal grill/smoker, but never seen anything like their charcoal before, and they sure do some great steaks, fajitas, and chicken with it.

So, gas, electric, charcoal, wood . . . any work if you get the right temperature, the right time, and the right seasonings. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird, Having lived in San Diego (Insane Diego?) and traveled in Baja I have an appreciation for biftek al carbon, etc. I have seen charcoal making operations in Baja. Mesquite makes a good charcoal which flavors the meat. And you are right about "real" charcoal being superior to brickettes. The best brickettes I ever used had wood chips made in them for flavor but still not as good as the real thing.

Another taste issue is how you start the fire. I use a paper based fire starter chimney thingy that works well (really fast) and doesn't require any fluids which can give an off taste. My neighbor to the south is a wood harvester who supplies fire wood comercially and has some BBQ places as customers for his hickory. He sells cut up hickory limbs as big flavor pellets for use in cookers. I like to run the small hickory through my chipper so it soaks up fast and I am more used to how the smaller size works.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I just bought a new 2004 model Char Broil grill. $260 @ Lowe's.
It's a 3 burner with a fourth burner on the side.

[/ QUOTE ]

Small coincidence. I really had no intention of buying another grill myself, but after doing a little string trimming, etc. in the yard, my wife, daughter, and I sat down on the patio for a glass of iced tea, and darned if my wife and daughter didn't gang up on me telling me why we needed a barbecue grill.

So, after a trip to Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Home Depot, I think I bought the same grill you did, Gary, but at Home Depot for $259 plus tax. Three burners with the fourth burner on the side, ceramic coated grill, and a griddle. Got it all assembled; just have to go exchange the empty new propane tank for a full one.

[Lazy]

Hi
And what time is the BBQ, its gonna take me a few minutes to get there [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Fred]

I hear ya Handyman. I've played around with two grills since getting rid of the one that used lava rocks. One was a $400 Coleman which is pricey for me. The one I use now is one of those that can convert over to charcoal that I got at Lowe's or H-D. I think it was around $250. It does a better job than the "good" Coleman that had the cast iron grates and all, but I'd still take that old lava rock grill I used to have for doing a perfect steak that not only tasted great, but looked great. I'm just not sold on that deflector plate thing. I've been meaning to try the charcoal out, maybe now that the weather starting to turn.