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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2422 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 28, 2024

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Lets talk grilling.

My old grill finally crapped out on me. It is 30 years old, rusted all over ajd frankly it likely poisoned me every time I cooked on it because of extensive rust and chemical scouring to clean it, but I abused it till the legs finally rusted over and broke.

So, having abused a fully depreciated asset till death, I am looking for new steak scouring options. And in this fresh market I find the Weber egg to be the premier product recommended by social osmosis.

Thing is... I don't find the end quality to be necessarily better than my existing alternative of reverse sear into broiler.

Grill marks are undesirable byproducts, further charring is controllably obtained by blowtorch, smoke is infusable at source in a brine or introduced in a sauce. With broilers I can capture the drippings onto a bed of potatoes or in a pan I can glaze the fond for a pan sauce.

So, what am I missing? What is the weber fulfilling that I can't mechanically obtain with pans and grills?

Go to your nearest shawarma place. Ask them from where they buy the spare burners. It is possible to do amazing things with infrared gas burners - to me this is the best way to prepare quick meats.

One big advantage of a grill is that you can marinade meats and cook them without the sugars burning in a way that isn't really possible on a stovetop or oven. But it sounds like that isn't what you like.

That's exactly how a grill should go out.

In Southeast Asia nobody wants to spend much time outside, at least not unless they have to. The vibe is completely different to the temperate climes where a grill is best suited, a nice northern hemisphere summer day where it’s 80 degrees (25c) with a light breeze, not too humid, a fine day to sit outside, drink, and participate in conversation while cooking at the same time instead of having your guests have a great time without you while you’re stuck in the kitchen. If I lived in Singapore, I’d rarely go outside either.

Hmm. I live in the Southeast, which isn't as tropical as where you are but is closer than some...

I now own 3 outdoor cooking appliances (Griddle, Pellet Smoker, Charcoal Grill) and consider the last to be the most foundational and valuable of the three.

The flavor of charcoal ignited via the chimney, is unmatched, IMO. You mention jus being able to drip onto vegetables, but I prefer to skip the "casserole" effect or moisture sharing frequently. For potatoes, for example, I want them tossed in OVOO and spices and put on a baking sheet instead. Favorite stuff I use it for:

  • Corn covered in cajun oil or butter, wrapped in foil.
  • Peppers and onions grilled for low-carb meal components or Salsa.
  • Yogurt and spice-marinated chicken thighs
  • Thick-casing sausages (Conecuh?!?) are best cooked on a grill

I don't know how much time and effort you spent cleaning your grill. My Weber (not the egg) requires being emptied of dust once every 2-3 cooks, depending on which briquettes I used, and a 10-second scrape-off with a steel brush. I think getting an egg would give you more smoke and insulation, but you'd lose the ability to just flip the thing over in an ash disposal area. I can't overstate how little maint and cleaning this takes compared to even broiling, where your sheetpan is going to require some soaking and elbow grease.

I got this grill when it was 15 years old and it's been 5 since, with almost no sign of degradation. Personally I think a vanilla steel grill with a cover is going to give you more bang for your buck unless you want to also be using it for smoking.

If you really don't like grill marks then this overall may not be for you, but reverse-searing a ribeye and having bacon-wrapped poppers to go with it is one of life's great joys. I personally think using a torch just misses something, and I've been told that the time for charcoal to ignite from a chimney is "Exactly one beer".

By clean I refer to rust on the grills themselves. Again, average humidity of 80%. Terrible things happen to man and machine in such an environ.

I appreciate the diminished appeal of the casserole effect, but that doesn't change the fact that exuded juices go SOMEWHERE and flaring on coals is inefficient maillard reaction to my optimization schedule. I want my flavor on my food not on my heat source, and grilled veg is additional real estate taken up when I should be focused on meats.

The charcoal flavor is what I see I am going to really miss out on, and I am trying to get something equivalent to that. My wok skills are sufficient for wok hei when stir frying , but I can't get that on steaks and that is the holy grail I am looking for.

I was suggested one of those aluminium foil mini bbq set things which is an aluminium tray with briquettes sprinkled in it, and then tenting foil over it to form a smoker. I was tempted go firmly but politely tell that friend to leave and never speak of cooking to me again, but upon reflection it might have merit.

I'm not sure what @2D3D meant by "Weber egg", but I have something that might be described as such. The Summit Kamado is vaguely designed like the big green egg and other such grills, although instead of ceramic it's made from two layers of steel with an air gap for insulation. I can attest that cleaning is real easy - use the lever which controls the bottom vents to sweep ash into the bucket underneath, which detaches so you can dump it out.

I actually like the Summit Kamado quite a bit and it's been worth the $$$ I spent on it. But I didn't mention it in my other reply because if one is on the fence about the utility of a grill at all, a $1200 grill is probably not in the cards.

Broiler puts the heat inside your house, grill keeps the heat outside your house. Useful in the summers.

Other than that, maybe hot-smoking. I don't think you can do a decent hot-smoked salmon in your oven with liquid smoke and, but that's just me, and I could be wrong.

I live i southeast asia. The heat is an everpresent oppressive nightmare and I am 100% convinced the 70% average humidity when sunny does things to cookings no western chef has ever dared contemplate.

Never tried grilling baking broiling frying steaming or anything fish That is my one true enemy, an eternal nightmare of inconsistent textures and cook times incomprehensible to my feeble impatient hands. I defer to anyone who can cook fish well, but this specific deficiency seems to be spreading among my peers and I fear in a generations time no one will know what to do with snapper.

Never tried grilling baking broiling frying steaming or anything fish That is my one true enemy, an eternal nightmare of inconsistent textures and cook times incomprehensible to my feeble impatient hands.

Grill needs to be very clean (but oiled) and hot in at least one area -- sear just long enough to break free of the grill over the high heat on both sides; at which point you may be done if you are cooking fresh salmon or similar for people who don't mind it rare, otherwise you may need to move to a somewhat cooler area of the grill and fuck around until it's flakey but not dry.

Reverse sear into broiler? How does that work? Normally with a reverse sear I would oven/sous vide the steak, then slap it on the pan to sear. Do you mean cooking in the oven and then using the broiler for a reverse sear?

Purely in terms of results, just the smoke flavor from charcoal. I know you said that you can replicate it with a brine or sauce, but I don't think it's possible. Other than the smoke aspect, there's nothing. When you get down to it, the grill is basically an oven, and anything you can do on the grill you ought to be able to do in an oven.

But honestly? I grill because it's fun. I love cooking outside, I love the big "FWOOSH" of fire that I get when using lighter fluid, I love playing with fire even when I'm not using lighter fluid. I also like developing the skill of working with my grill and getting consistent results. Yeah, I could cook burgers that are great in my skillet. But I would have a lot less fun doing it.

Burgers are pure grill beasts. The juices extruding in a pan are far too voluminous and I just end up boiling the thing. I have had surprising success with a wok smoker to infuse, but my best smoke result was liquid smoke soaked salt crystals torched onto a steak after the sear for full crustification.

My normal pattern is cold sear with flips every 20 seconds and resting every 4 minutes to let the temp even out or oven a big batch and then mass broil. The specific advantage is the exuded juices dripping out instead of staying in the pan and grey banding my meat.

Will bear in mind the specific utility of smoke, but southeast asian humidity does a number on briquettes and wood chips give an acrid burn unless I control it in a foil tray within a smoker. Ultimately seems a weber is looking less attractive save for satiating an animal male instinct.

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