Grill Maestro

Whenever cooking burgers, I usually cook to both time and touch. That means I cook until the burgers to what I consider an adequate amount of time and to a firmness is what I associate with a particular level of doneness. This, however, can be dangerous according to some studies. In fact, courtesy of Megan Severs, a Senior Account Executive at GolinHarris; 90% of grillers don’t know that 160° F is the proper temperature according to The Beef Checkoff. Only 15% use a thermometer.

I’ve never used a thermometer but have never had indigestion problems, so I could myself (and my guests) lucky, but here are three tips for proper burger cooking:

• Always cook ground beef to 160 F. This ensures ground beef isn’t under- or over-cooked, and any harmful bacteria is destroyed.
• Stop eyeballing the doneness of your burgers. Rather than relying on colors or juices, get an instant-read meat thermometer, which gives an accurate temperature reading much quicker than an
  oven-proof meat thermometer.
• Use your instant-read meat thermometer properly. Always insert the meat thermometer sideways into the thickest portion of the patty to ensure it has reached 160 F. And to make sure you get an accurate reading, hand wash the thermometer instead of using the dishwasher.

In the mood to grill some fish but don’t have a basket or cedar planks to grill on? Try making a temporary grilling platform using a piece of cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil. That’s right, stiff cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil is a great way to create a small platform for you to grill fish on when you don’t have an alternative.

Concerned that the cardboard will catch on fire? Don’t be, paper doesn’t burn via heat unless it reaches over 451 degrees F (hence the famous Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451. As long as you don’t get that hot, the cardboard should be safe. The foil is there to ensure the fish doesn’t stick to the paper and so it deflects flames.

One additional benefit of using this is that it’s often convenient when you have smaller pieces of fish and don’t want to waste a larger cedar plank.

If you are going to be grilling fish on cedar planks, I recommend spending the extra money and getting fresh fish over frozen fish. The main difference between frozen and fresh fish is that fresh fish is often jucier and more flavorful than frozen fish. Frozen fish sometimes gets a little dry, a little tigher, and that makes it harder for the cedar flavor to get into the fish.

I’ve grilled salmon on both and found that the juiciness of fresh fish really makes a big difference. Frozen fish isn’t bad, but fresh is better and when you figure you only have the cedar planks for a few uses, you might as well use the good stuff.

The 16th Annual 2008 Safeway National Barbecue Battle is a little over a month away, taking place in our national’s capital the weekend of June 21st and 22nd. This year, the National Pork Championship will be held there so look for it to be a rowdy and exciting weekend. Last year I wanted to go but was unable due to prior commitments so this year I’ll just have to go both days! (okay maybe not) Either way, I’ll be there to check out the furious competition.

I can’t wait for the Safeway sampling pavilion! Open six hours from noon to 6pm, you can get free food samples until they run out. Mmmmm…

For Memorial Day weekend, I put together the Brinkmann SmokeN Grill Charcoal Smoker and Grill courtesy of Home Depot (get it there, if you want it, instead of Amazon.com, it’s only around $35 now; I provided the link for additional details) in order to provide this review of its features.

Overall, it’s a very affordable smoker and at $35, downright cheap. When put up against a Weber 2820 Smokey Mountain Cooker/Smoker, it’s really no comparison. But you have to remember that the Weber reatils for $200 whereas the Brinkmann is a mere $35. Given the huge price disparity, I think that the Brinkmann really afforded itself quite well.

Installation: Installation was easy and took maybe 30 minutes. You are basically putting together the handles, attaching the legs, attaching the metal hooks for the grates, water tray, and charcoal tray, and putting on the thermometer. You could do it in your sleep, which was nice because I was tired.

Good:

• Thermometer: It’s nice that there’s a thermometer on the outside but it really had three levels - Warm, Ideal, and Hot. It didn’t indicate the actual temperature, which would’ve been nice, but it was convenient that you could read the sensor without opening anything and releasing heat or smoke.
• Cooking Surface: For $200 on the Weber you get two 18-1/2-inch-diameter cooking grates, for $35 on the Brinkmann you get two 15-1/2 inch-diameter cooking grates.
• Portable: You could, without taking it apart, move the smoker around by using the handles - a definitely plus.

Bad:

• Door Handle: The door handle to access the coals and wood is metal and it gets hot. They should have used treated plastic or something so that you could access it without burning your fingers.
• No Air Vents: It’s difficult to regular temperature if you can’t regular air flow! The charcoal tray is essentially an open bowl at the bottom of the smoker, so you get a ton of air flow and no way to control it. There isn’t even an air vent at the top.
• Water Bowl is Too Low: It made it difficult to add additional coals or wood chunks and put them where I wanted to. It’s a minor complaint as I could just use tongs, but it wasn’t an issue with the Weber.
• No Handles On Top Grate: If you have both grates cooking and you want to access the lower grate, it’s a pain to lift the top grate because it lacks handles. I often, about two hours in, like to wrap my meats in foil with some apple juice to add some juiciness back in, but this was made much more difficult by the lack of handles.

Overall, the Brinkmann wasn’t bad at all. If you’re just starting out and would like to cut your teeth on a simple smoker, you wouldn’t be doing yourself a disservice by using it. I think I’ve been spoiled by the feature-rich Weber Smokey Mountain so I may not have reacted the same way had this been my first.

If you’re as big a fan of chicken wings as I am, you should try grilling them rather than frying or broiling them in the oven. All you need to do is whip up a nice bbq chicken marinade, fire up the grill, and grill them as you would any other chicken piece. If you don’t have a marinade, here’s my favorite bbq chicken marinade in the world.

A few words of advice:

• Don’t put the heat too high - Wings are super delicate but if the heat it too high then you’ll burn the wings before you cook them, I prefer a medium heat that has just a little of sizzle.
• Use the warming racks - You will probably have a lot of wings and will need to contend with the variable heat zones of your grill so be sure to use your warming racks to let some wings take a break while others are cooking.
• Remember to keep glazing - Set aside some marinade as a glaze (don’t use the stuff you marinaded with, that’s unsafe) and glaze liberally.
• Cook thoroughly - It’s chicken so make sure you cook thoroughly, the last thing you want to do is get someone sick.

Enjoy!

Consumer Reports offers up, as their tip of the day for May 17th, some very useful gas grill shopping advice for those of you looking to get your own propane grill (or replace and old clunker ready for the scrap heap). Some solid advice includes bringing a magnet to figure out if you have a solid 300-series or 400-series stainless steel grill… a magnet will stick to cheaper grades. Another good tip is to recognize that grill companies generally report cooking area to include warming racks so be aware that you’re not talking total grill surface area.

Another gem of a tip from the comments, provided by Steven, is to consider customer service. He hasn’t had a good experience with Brinkmann… and I just got one of their smokers from Home Depot.

Until recently I didn’t know the difference between a rib eye and a porterhouse, a sirloin from a round, and a chuck from a flank… but this image from the Encyclopaedia Britannica does a great job of illustrating the various cuts of beef and where they are located on the cow.

Generally, the more muscular the cut, the tougher it is. As expected, chuck (pot roast, top blade, ground beef), breast/foreshank (corned beef and brisket come from here), and round are tougher because they are located near the legs of the cow. The legs are clearly more muscular than the middle, where you’d find rib (rib eye roasts, back ribs), short loin (t-bone, porterhouse), and sirloin.

This morning I took a trip to Home Depot to pick up the Brinkmann Smoke n’ Grill, courtesy of MS&L, and saw that Home Depot’s grilling and BBQ has been significantly expanded from the last time I’d been there and it’s barely Spring-time. In the past they only had about a dozen grills lined up next to the riding mowers and nothing significant in the way of accessories. They always had a few scrubs, some grill covers, and maybe a handful of grates - but this time they had an entire side of an aisle dedicated to accessories from your standard lighter fuel to wood chunks & chips and even spare grill parts like burners and grates.

They also added a lot of tailgating grills, smokers (including electrically powered ones… which seemed to defy one’s expectations) and other grill types. I was pretty happy to see Home Depot start carrying some more stuff because there aren’t any grilling focused supply shops in my area. I picked up a bag of hickory wood chunks and bag of mesquite wood chunks as well, having been advised that chunks work better than chips (we’ll see), for this weekend (if the weather improves). While the prices of the wood chunks weren’t that great, it’s certainly cheaper than ordering online and paying for shipping.

Overall, I’m glad to see that somewhere local is carrying these things so I can go pick them up rather than buying pounds and stockpiling them somewhere in my small townhouse.

When it comes to grilling and wood, the rule of thumb is to soak the wood in water for thirty minutes to an hour. Whether it’s wood chips and chunks for the smoker or cedar planks for when you want to grill up some fish, you should always soak it for more than thirty minutes and it’s best if you do it for an hour. Anything shorter and the wood doesn’t retain enough water. Any longer and you’re really just wasting your time, you pretty much get as much water as you’re going to get after an hour.

The idea, in both cases, is that you want the wood to smolder and not actually burn too quickly. With the added moisture, the wood will begin smoldering but not catch fire. Burning is actually the worst thing that could happen because it consumes the wood too quickly for the smoke to work its magic as effectively as it can.