Lets talk of BBQ...grilling and what not.

which comes with the best hamburgers?

More money just buys more real estate and stuff like side burners for simmering pots and fancy starters that actually work and junk like that. Hot, fast and cheap will grill a burger, brat, dog, steak, kebab, whatever just fine.

ya.

i want more real estate though so i can indirect-heat more stuff.

dont need side burners or nothin tho

Almost everything has a shelf. Something with two burners so you can turn one off. Any two-burner with a shelf will do you just fine. Decent grills are so cheap these days, you almost can't go wrong. After you pick a propane grill, if you have 4 square feet to put it get a charcoal grill for practically zero dollars.

Also, think about one of those vegetable baskets like here. Those things are baller.

Anybody that tells you that you'll ever need more than this is the kind of liar that says you need a tent to go camping. Seriously, the next step up is a pig cooker.

Just get a Weber kettle, it's not propane but your food will taste better. Use a chimney for getting the coals going; it's almost as easy as flicking the switch on a propane dealie.

ian is VERY otm.

ya i feel that but honestly i work from home a lot and i want to be able to just go out back and grill up a sausage for lunch w/no fuss.

mmm sausage

i have a great butcher and i have the feeling i'm about to get real close with him

ian is so OTM I would like to reinforce that. However finding a supplier of good quality charcoal is key. (The farm I am doing some volunteer work at this weekend produces some very good oak and ash charcoal).

mail me some

i went to buy one but we realized there was no way it would fit in the car and the hos wanted $60 for delivery and fuck that :(

station wagon try next week

I've always been partial the the regular old Webber kettle grill + chimney starter, but someone gave us their extra cheap gas grill last year. I think it might be nice to have one for "real" grilling and BBQ as well as the fast and easy last minute grilled stuff.

I've always been partial the the regular old Webber kettle grill

no doubt! i'm going to pick up a new one tomorrow. the one i have now is on its last legs,i've had it for years.

Supply list: carne asada's busted ass old weber, a bag of kingsford and *maybe* a coffee can with the bottom cut out if you're having a really hard time getting it lit. Good to go.

i am already planning something called a brunch-b-q. i WILL figure out how to grill eggs.

frittata dog.

mmm fritatta dogs.

I GOT ONE.

SO HAPPY.

picked up coils of sausages at my butcher today. told him i'd be back saturday. he said "it's always nice to come visit your butcher!" then he made me an espresso.

"2.5 minutes on each side!" he said. they were amazing.

WONDERFUL DAY.

So, dayo, you wanna buy a grill? Whaddaya wanna do on it? What's yer budget?

TWU, I saw that you are considering a kamado/tandoor of some kind? Mr Veg bought a kamado about 6 or 7 years ago from a Sacramento company that later went out of business. (Also turned out they frauded a lot of customers too but that's another story).
Ours is a concrete construction, and a little bigger than a Green Egg.

I'm not a bbqer myself, just a beneficiary but omg end result from the kamado is almost always A+. Mr Veg slaved over a Brinkman smoker for a couple of years before switching to Kamado, and for something like pulled pork, it's a dream because you don't have to nurse it nearly as much and you don't lose the amount of heat.

that is all

Yeah, I have been hearing really good stuff about kamados; thing is, I have a really nice smoker (http://www.bbqpits.com/) that I am super happy with and a Weber for grilling, and so the only thing I can't do with those is get the super high sustained temperatures you can with a tandoor -- the tandoors for sale around here are expensive, not portable, and will die if you leave them outside over winter. A good kamado (like the Big Green Egg) is built to last, will do tandoor temperatures, and costs big big bucks. Thing is, those are similar bucks to the wood-burning pizza oven I have nearly convinced Frau Username that we need (I live in a cabin in the woods with no oven). Decisions, decisions...

Mr Veg still uses the weber for quick grilling & camping etc. We use the Kamado for pretty much everything else. But you're right, the $$$ investment is a big one, no sense doing it unless you have the spare dough to justify it.

But for a cabin in the woods with no oven, a kamado is pretty much made for you. you can cook anything in there. Mr Veg even makes pot roast!

But I totally get the $$ being an obstacle. It's a lot of money - especially if you have a set up that works pretty well for you already.

We have and love our big green egg. Pricey for sure, but built to last (ours winters outside no prob) and we use it all the damn time year-round. We have it on a wheeled "nest" and pull it right up to the patio door when it raining so we can grill from inside!

I'm looking at smokers...there's no really good barbecue around here, so if I want something done right, I might as well do it myself. I'm tempted by the Masterbuilt 30" (online) or 40" (up the road at Sam's Club), both electrics, or the highly regarded Weber Smokey Mountain (charcoal). Decisions decisions.

I made the worst ribs just now

;_;

I overcooked a rack of ribs on my grill earlier this year and realized I need to get a smoker or leave it to the pros. Problem is, there aren't any pros around here.

Anybody here with smoker advice/recommendations re: charcoal vs. electric?

covid-related ennui finally got me to do the right thing and retire my gas grill in favor of a humble weber kettle and a bag of lump charcoal. two cooks in and my life is immeasurably better.

Nice! I've been using mine a lot lately. Recently bought a baby Weber for camping. Highly recommended.

Bought a bag of lump mesquite and some of the pieces are so small the fall through the bottom of the chimney starter when I lift it up to dump the lit charcoal. Not cool.

i'm totally new to this and both the small and huge pieces in the bag are very disruptive to filling up a nice even chimney!

Totally. I may go back to briquettes. All natural ones obv, not Kingsford and its ilk. AFAIK there's not any questionable stuff in something like Royal Oak briquettes?? They also burn longer and it's easier to create zones with them. The lump was flaring up a lot too.

Royal Oak website says just wood and vegetable starch in their briquettes

What have you grilled?

As you work your way through the bag the pieces get smaller, so I recommend buying a second bag so you get more big pieces to work with.

first cook was a nice dry-aged ny strip and some local baby carrots, pretty straightforward. tonight i cooked a pork tenderloin where i did a wet brine for an hour and then a spice rub, seared it over direct heat and finished indirect. had some hardwood chunks in there too. it came out really tender and smoky, so much fun to cook.

Briquettes are really needed for smoking ribs or other long, slow items. Lump charcoal burns hotter (but shorter) so is better for steaks and other high heat applications.

Brave to do a dry aged steak for 1st attempt! I'd be so worried I'd ruin a pricey piece of meat. Do you have a meat thermometer or just rely on poke test?

i have a thermapen and a decent feel for cooking protein. the beautiful thing about the two-zone fire is you can always pull the steak to the cool side if in doubt.

xp re: briquettes, i'll pick up a bag of natural briquettes soon. have you smoked ribs on a kettle? it seems great except that it sounds like it may take a double-digit amount of hours.

One of my go-tos has always been flank steak tacos (marinated in mojo criollo) but this past weekend I used skirt steak and pretty sure that was superior. May just be recency bias tho. Also grilled all the veggies for a salsa verde before throwing in food processor, was delicious.

i like skirt better than flank, skirt is so tasty when cooked well

I haven't ventured into smoking territory. My buddy who is my bbq mentor has done them on a weber and they've turned out amazing. Learning curve tho: I remember his 1st attempt was unbearably smoky, the next was too dry.

Yeah I thought I was "elevating" steak tacos by using flank

tbc i'm a long way from trying to smoke on this thing, need to get the basics of temp control down and focus on simple stuff that uses high heat or two-zone cooking

I've never grilled fish so that's my next move. Got some cedar planks.

Yeah, smoking ribs is at least six hours if not more. I've not done it but friends have. And you have to stay nearby when doing it on a kettle grill instead of an egg because you have to monitor it more for temperature changes.

If you want to dip your toe into smoking, one of my favorite things to do is use soaked wood chips in combination with lump charcoal/briquettes for a quick smoke. Weber sells small branded bags of different kinds of wood chips for smoking (apple, mesquite, cherry, etc). I get double berkshire pork rib chops and brine them for a few hours with flavorings. Set up a two zone fire and when the hot side is ready you add a handful of wood chips that have been smoked in water for an hour. Add your grate, put the cops on the cool side, then put the lid on with the air holes open and positioned over the meat, which draws the smoke down over the meat. You smoke the chops for about twenty minutes, then grill them over the hot side to crisp it up until finished. Even 20-30 minutes of smoke makes an amazing difference compared to plain charcoal.

I got the above from Steve Raichlen's How to Grill, which has some good recipes and (more importantly) just straight-forward technique. I've also done the quick smoke with salmon and it is awesome.

*oops* wood chips that have been *soaked* in water for an hour, not smoked.

I've never grilled fish so that's my next move. Got some cedar planks.

I assume you then add more coals as needed over time?

Yep

How do you set things up for long low heat then?

― I was born anxious, here's how to do it. (ledge), Friday, June 11, 2021 3:02 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

For several hours of cooking at 250 degrees, use the snake method:

https://perthbbqschool.com/2020/02/19/how-to-the-snake-method/

that is extremely cool but tbh somewhat daunting, what are "heat beads"?

I think that’s just the aussie brand name for briquettes.

oh ok I thought it was something extra you had to add, thanks

Thanks for that, looks like it's designed for briquettes so might have to wait till I've got rid of this giant sack of huge bits of 'restaurant' lump charcoal that the local garden shop guy recommended to my wife. I have to smash them into smaller pieces with a hammer. I googled and found the 'minion method' which looks a bit more rough and ready and might work with that. Fwiw I have no aspirations to become an expert bbqer, just competent - we're 95% veggie for one thing!

Lump charcoal burns faster and hotter, so it’s better for quick direct grilling where you want some char.