Good Lord, man, it’s summertime!!!
You build a fire indoors this time of year, and you’re apartment is going to be hotter’n Hell! It’d be one thing if you were way up in the frozen north somewhere, but I see from your OP that you are in D.C., which is known to get hot enough in the summer to melt tungsten.
Are you MAD?
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Yes there are many things you can do but the question is would you want to?
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Which is why you should always listen to your Spidy sense!
While reading the replies I had the mental image of one of those race-type carnival games - the kind where you shoot water in the clown’s mouth and watch things rise up toward a finish line. On two platforms sit a Darwin Award and a Nobel prize. Which will it be? Who is the clown? Yikes.
So what I’ve gathered so far:
[ul]
[li]Heat is essential. No heat, no air movement, no life.[/li][li]No charcoal. Find a use for the leftover wood.[/li][li]No greasy, splatter-prone chimney-coating food.[/li][li]Have the chimney cleaned first.[/li][/ul]
So no one has quite come right out and said, do this and you will die. There are things to be wary of, very important things. Spidy sense still isn’t quite quiet yet though. I’ll do a bit more checking in Lincoln park, but I’m fairly sure there are no grills out there. Motorcycle is my only transportation, so I don’t think traveling to a grill is a viable option. I think the best idea so far is packet cooking. Clean, not so many fumes (from the food) and easily controlled.
I’m sorry that I can’t adequately describe the motivation to some of you. I guess if you weren’t born with the grilling gene you just won’t understand why an electric grill just won’t cut it, or why in the heat of summer the need to eat roasted corn could easily outweigh the desire not to sweat like a pig.
Dinner invitations may be forthcoming, or perhaps directions to a park (DoperBq?) Notice I did not rule out funeral arrangements.
OK, I’ll say it
DO THIS AND YOU WILL DIE!
Rhythmdvl: “So no one has quite come right out and said, do this and you will die.”
kunilou: “ DO THIS AND YOU WILL DIE!”
Damn! Damn damn damn DAMN!
A friend of mine died from using a hibachi in a place that was not adequately ventilated. The fumes continue long after the flame dies down. Please don’t…
They make a teflon grill you can put on your stove top to get a similar BBQ experience.
Or you can use some liquid smoke.
Don’t use lighter fluid, use one of those electric starter thingys if you really must try it at home.
Reality check here, people.
Am I the only person here who has ever been in a reconstruction of a 18th or 19th century house?
Our Colonial & Civil War ancestors used to cook indoors over a fireplace all the time, dammit!!!
And here in Murfreesboro TN , we have a reconstruction of one such Colonial village. And one of the buildings is a working blacksmith’s shop with a real charcoal-fired forge! They use the forge with the door closed all the time!! I’ve seen them do it, dammit!!
And nobody’s died yet. 
Quit passing yourselves off as experts when ya doesn’t know diddy-squat!!!
Why not? Caveman steak, welcome to the Boy Scouts. Actually, you typically use coals, not a fire. A teflon grill wouldn’t be a “similar BBQ experience”, as handy says… Fire good! Sweat good! grunt
I’ll repeat what others have said: Use wood. The forge that Bosda just mentioned would be a considerably larger fire than anything in your Hibachi, and thus would vent itself more. For kitchen cooking, you can bet that they used wood.
One other note: If you’re used to BBQing over charcoal, the cooking times will be longer, as charcoal burns hotter than wood.
ya but…
Note that those “fireplaces” weren’t fireplaces, but huge hearths with huge chimneys. They were designed for cooking.
The modern chimneys in today’s homes aren’t designed for cooking. If you cook food, especially meat, you’re likely to start a fire in the chimney due to the accumulation of fat and grease condensing on the walls of the flue. Ever notice that open flame cooking pits in restaurants have grease traps? These vent hoods start on fire often enough even WITH the grease traps.
Rhythmdvl, I definitely do not have that barbacue gene. Mine has been sitting out in the yard unused for some years now. In any case, you say you are in DC… I am sure there are plenty of parks with grills you can use. Just to mention one: You can find several at the park at Daingerfield Island, where the Washington Sailing marina is, just south of National Airport, on the GW parkway. I am sure there are many more places.