This is the most important question in the thread. Sing us the song of your steak. What made it so incredible? How do you normally cook your steak? What was the biggest difference you noticed between the two methods? What other methods have you tried and also found inferior to ‘caveman cooking?’
As far as safety goes, definitely use lump charcoal.
Why on the coals? Use hot rocks. Cavemen had rocks. It wasn’t called the Stone Age for nothing!
Next up: food on sticks or is that too advanced tech for these guys?
actually, thinking about this, I watched an episode of BBQ-U or Grilling America or something, and the host took a hunk of meat, wrapped it in a damp towel and salt, so that by the time it was done, the salt formed a crust. He didn’t just put in on the coals, he buried it in the coals.
Isamu, the method I recommend is the one that fills yer belly and lets you sleep happy at night.
Fun fact about Kingsford charcoal-- it was first developed as a result of the notoriously thrifty Henry Ford wanting to squeeze few bucks from the leftover scrap waste wood from building his Model Ts. So yeah, I probably wouldn’t cook food directly on a product that started out as repurposed industrial waste:
That sounds like I’m not a fan of Kingsford charcoal, but for the record, I do use it all the time in my smoker (mixed with chunks of apple and hickory wood) and my kettle grill for longer cooking food. I just wouldn’t cook anything directly on it. Natural lump charcoal is good for quick-cooking things, but for long, even burning, Kingsford is good.
A few passes with a handheld butane torch will nicely sear the outer flesh and leave no bothersome ashes or debris. If Alley Oop had a ray gun, he’d use to cook those brontosaur steaks.
This is why we need to clone the woolly mammoth. Call the nearest university, and tell them to get busy.
Oh, I’ve tried some off-brand charcoal that would NOT catch on in a chimney starter. Mostly when I was up north, ran out of the good stuff and had to settle for whatever was at the local general store.
I just noticed greyspacepoof, who has 3 posts and just joined this month, turned the word ‘grill’ in his quote of my post into an affiliate link. Reported.
How so? Uber tender? Super smoky? Ever catch the fat on fire?
Someone once said there are three levels of cooking a steak if done correctly: medium rare, rare, and a good veterinarian could still save this. In our house, we’re in the middle of that continuum, hoping it’s hot yet oozing blood so I wonder how long we could even leave a steak on.
Someone mentioned upthread about using a hair dryer to encourage the coals. A friend of ours uses a leaf blower. That might blow ashes off your food as well but of course you’d have to be careful about hot embers landing somewhere you’d rather not burn.
We use a gas grill unless we’re camping but also have a Smokey Joe we could press into service. Tempting…