This thread inspired me to ask: What is the most egregious mistake you’ve seen someone make (or have made yourself) while using a barbeque grille?
First up would be using propane. You have to use charcoal. And then there’s the ol’ “it’s-not-burning-so-let’s-throw-some-gas-on-it” routine. But this one made me shake my head:
I was at Lake Havasu a few years ago and the college students on Spring Break next to us decided to make hot dogs. They put the charcoal into their grille and doused it with lighter fluid. Next, they lit it and put on the grate. So far, so good. Bt then with the flames still shooting up, they threw on the hot dogs. :eek:
People unclear on the concept.
You see, those flames are cause by the burning lighter fluid. Not the coals! I can only imagine what those doggies tasted like, being covered in lighter fluid soot. Shortly after removing the dogs from the grill, they had a nice bed of coals to cook them on. But having pulled the dogs off and having started eating them, they had no use for the coals. They just let them burn out.
I agree, charcoal is better. Lately I have been making the mistake of forgetting to open the top vents on my grill, I’ve done it twice. :smack:. Food takes a little longer to get done, usually I notice before I’m too far along. It sucks, though.
And I use an electric starter, I don’t like lighter fluid. No matter how long I let the coals burn after dousing, I can still taste the fluid in my food. Electric all the way.
Maybe it’s the skinflint in me, but not reusing coals strikes me as wasteful.
I used to get a decent sized CLEAN can (about the quart size but maybe a bit larger) and carefully remove the coals that hadn’t burned all the way down and put them in the can. Then cover the can with something so the coals would smother out.
Each new grilling exercise would start with fresh briquets as a bottom layer, with these old ones arranged on top.
I could make the 5# bag of briquets last twice as long as the folks who just left coals to die all the way out.
And things always seemed to taste better with the older coals providing some of the flavor from previous grillings.
I was one of three assigned to the grill for a group barbecue. We were cooking chicken drumsticks. The ones on my grill were coming out fine, but my associates’ were a bit burnt on the outside…and we were informed by an unhappy eater that they were also raw on the inside. One of my fellow grillers said “Raw on the inside? We’d better get the coals hotter!” I had to explain to him that raw-in-the-middle meant that the coals were too hot, not too cool.
And I agree; charcoal is better than gas, and I only use wood and a bit of newspaper to start the briquets. Lighter fluid is fun for my inner pyromaniac, but it makes the food taste like gasoline.
When I was a kid my dad started the coals with a tree-pound coffee can. He cut off the bottom and used a “church key” to make holes around the perimeter. At the top, he made a bale our of a coat hanger. Newspaper would go on the bottom, and the coals would go on top. They make these things now that have grates to keep the coals elevated, and they can be poured out when they’re lit. Dad just used a stick or pliers to lift the can off of the lit coals.
I prefer the non-fluid method of coals-in-the-can because they seem to start better that way.
Most people I know do not bother to humidify the grilling environment. When you are using a covered grill, it is a simple matter to take an empty, clean old tin can, strip off the label and fill it with some water. Place this on the grill over the coals and allow it to keep your foods moist and flavorful during the cooking process. You may even use some excess marinade for this purpose. It will add extra flavor and the slowly concentrated marinade is great to brush over the cooking meats.
I am also amazed at people who put barbecue sauce on meats right at the beginning of the grilling cycle. This slows down the cooking time, prevents proper browning of the meat and usually winds up contributing a bitter canbonaceous crust to anything prepared that way. The only thing that should go onto a cut of meat before grilling is a marinade and some well-tuned dry rub.
When cooking ribs, unless you are dreadfully pressed for time, you should NEVER place the rack meat-side down. Always grill with the bones facing the coals. For even better results, strip off the layer of “silver” connective tissue covering the back of the ribs. This permits the marinade and dry rub to better penetrate the meat, giving it a superior flavor. Placing the meat-side face down is a surefire way of winding up with dry, burnt ribs.
I also remain shocked at how many people do not know how to properly grill a good sausage. If you are at home, be sure to first heat your sausage for a few minutes in simmering water. Warm the link all the through and use your grill to brown the outside only. Extended grilling will cause a good sausage to rupture, losing much of its flavor and ruining it’s texture. A sole exception is for those who like theirs split. These should be cooked quickly over fairly high heat and consumed far from the sight of any person of German descent.
Finally, unless space is badly limited, DO NOT place your food directly over the coals. This can be done with burgers or hot dogs but you will still run the risk of scorching them. For the best grilling results, pile your coals on one side and cook over the other. This method also works with gas grills as well. Preheat the entire grill with both burners, then TURN OFF one side and work over that portion of the grill. You want indirect heat to perform the cooking process. Basically, you are utilizing infra red energy re-emitted by the entire body of the grill to do your work and not just heat rising off of the coals. Your food will cook a little more slowly but it will be jucier. The slower cooking also gives you a wider window for when the meat is perfectly done. This is a huge bonus because it allows you to come off as a super-grill-meister on every occasion.
I disagree. In my attempts to grill propane is the best, IF you use true mesquite(or other) chips to add flavor. Normal briquettes of charcoal really don’t add that much flavor. A tuna can full of Water logged wood chips(mesquite, hickory or apple) will smolder and give so much more smoky flavor than the bag of charcoal. Now the best flavor is from unprocessed pieces of the wood, but that is very expensive, and inconvienient.
With charcoal, you are also stuck with a much narrower range of temperatures. That are hard to master unless you use the exact same charcoal, in the exact same configuration, at the exact same cooking time. With my gas I now exactly how hot it is in every area at every dial point. I can let the meat rest on top at a very low temperature to get smoky flavored, Crank it up to sear the sides, drop it to cook the meat perfectly, and crank it up again at the end if I want to carmelize the sauce. Moving it around on top of the charcoal just doesn’t have the same variation.
I don’t know where you are getting your info, but my Big green egg uses lump charcoal and will grill at temps up to 1000 degrees F or cook lo and slo @200 degrees for 20 hours to do real Q.
I usually cook steaks with a 750 sear for 2-3 minutes per side and then shut the vents down for a 5-7 dwell (continue cooking)
The only reason I don’t go to a higher temp sear, is that my dome thermometer only goes to 750, I’m too lazy (cheap) to buy a 1100 degree thermometer.
Check out this months Bon Appetit for some professionals opinions abot this topic. Every one of the chefs asked except Bobby Flay said charcoal.
Hey! We had a cooker that looked just like the Big Green Egg when I was a kid! It didn’t have a frame, though. I must have missed it on the page; how much do they cost?
Johnny,
the ceramic egg is about $600 for a large. When you throw in the nest (stand) and a few other accessories you are pushing about $750. In the old days they were made from clay and would crack if the temp were taken too high. Nowadays with ceramic you can take the temp as high as you want.
Over the years, I have cooked on propane, natural gas, charcoal in both a Weber kettle, and in my egg. I still use my Weber sometimes (overflow when the egg is full) but I won’t go back to gas.
Getting back to the OP, when I was a young teenager (13ish) I was at a friends house for a party. We were going to cook hamburgers on his dad’s BBQ (The old round pan type on three legs and an adjustable grate. His was the real fancy kind that had the half round hood that would support a rotisserie) Anyway we loaded it up with charcoal and plugged in his electric lighter wand thingie. Apprently there was a problem with the wand, and it did not get real hot. After about 15 minutes we added some lighter fluid, nothing. So we added some more, still nothing. So we kept adding. all we got was some minor smoking as the lighter fluid vaporized.
So we tossed in a match. The resulting fireball was about 6 feet in diameter. It burned so long and so hot, it took all the paint off the hood of the barbeque. My buddies dad was pretty pissed about that if I recall.
I was talking to a friend yesterday. He had decided to do some grilling earlier in the day so had gone out and lit the grill. A while later he went to check the little thermometer to see if it was hot and smelled a strange “plastic burning” smell. Only then did he remember that he had put his plastic utensils “temporarily” under the grill lid to keep them out of the weather several days ago and then forgotten about them. When he opened the lid they were drip, drip, dripping down through the grating
I used to use the coffee can method to light charcoal. Works very nicely. The can eventually rusted into smithereens, though, so I went back to just putting paper and a few slivers of wood beneath the briquets.
For temperature control, the Char-Broil I used had a coal rack that could be adjusted from 5" to 14" below the grill. Worked very nicely. I think my most egregious mistake was losing the cover and letting the grill sit out in the weather. The ash pan finally rusted through. Very, very sad.
Another mistake was getting to the beach, getting the coals going, laying on the meat, and then realizing I had no utensils, no plates, and no buns. The only way to eat would be to to pull the meat off the grill with one’s fingers and stuff it directly in one’s mouth, screaming with pain at the second degree burns. So I had my wife tend the grill and drove back to town to buy supplies. Those ended up being some damn crispy burgers.
Make sure your tin can doesn’t have lead paint on the exterior labeling. (Many products still do, surprisingly.) Otherwise, you’ve got lead-encrusted Q.
P.S. You still owe me that recipe for the beef stroganoff, after saving your elegant passage in my earlier thread. Pay off, bud!
Probably my worst mistake was grilling a tofu and vegetable kebab directly on a grill - even though I oiled the grill, there was enough sticking (due to residual marinade) that chunks were torn off when I turned it. A mistake that wasn’t my fault was spending a lot of time marinating some venison chops and carefully grilling them, only to have my husband pronounce them inedible due to the “gamey” flavor - his dad had given them to us, and he has a lot bigger tolerance for “gamey” venison than my husband does.
At my house, we have both a propane grill (with two heat controls, and an extra, upper rack for extra indirect cooking space or for keeping food warm if need be) and a charcoal grill. We mostly use propane if we’re grilling quickly - I’m not going to deal with getting charcoal going if I’m just grilling some stuff for a weeknight dinner. For charcoal, we use the natural hardwood stuff, not briquettes. (If you’re going to complain about the “taste” of propane, don’t forget about all the binders and other stuff in briquettes.)
Oh, here’s one that’s my husband’s doing. We were at a birthday party for a brother-in-law, and someone had to start the grill, so he and another brother-in-law decided to try. Surprise, our sister-in-law had bought regular charcoal briquettes, not match-light like our BIL thought they had. The group was getting hungry, and the usual methods of gently fanning the coals, and so forth, weren’t really working. So my husband asks if they have charcoal lighter. Nope. Gasoline? Yep. He gets a plastic cup and goes to the garage, gets about 4 oz worth, and carefully begins drizzling it over the coals. I back up. He gets to a particular spot, where apparently there was a coal that had actually been smouldering a little. Whoosh, fire shoots up the stream and into the cup. He tries blowing it out, reflexively, then drops it into the grill. Melting plastic over the grill rack itself, and onto the coals, sigh. Well, it started and no one lost any hair from the experience.
