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Grilling. Do you grill? What do you grill? How do you grill? What are you grilling with? How often?
Recently I had an incident where I wanted to cook a meal at my grandmother's house, but for four people, I didn't see any way to make multiple pounds of nicely and uncontroversially roasted meat without using an oven. So now I want to learn charcoal grilling, but the Weber charcoal chimney is in the mail, so I must burn with passion regarding grilling quietly to myself. Charcoal grilling seems a lot better to me because it's a lot more unique than stovetop, offers unique flavors, offers variety like smoking meats, and has way less moving parts and the grills cost a lot less and they seem generally more portable. Also I hate running out of propane in the middle of a cook. I actually haven't used the propane grill much because it feels like a hassle compared to stovetop. So if it's a hassle either way, I might as well pick charcoal, is the way I see it.
I do grill. I grill various things like steak, burgers, brats, salmon, etc. I also smoke things on occasion, which I would say is pretty different from grilling and really counts as its own thing.
First, you don't have to wait for your Weber chimney. Lighter fluid is vastly over-hated by the extremely online grilling crowd; I use it from time to time and I can't taste any difference in the food at all. Plus it's fun to watch a big flame shoot up as the fluid ignites. I would say try it for yourself and see if it works for you or not, don't take the claims that you must use a chimney starter on faith.
I definitely prefer charcoal to gas for grilling, though I do have a gas grill (from back when I lived at a place that strictly prohibited charcoal). I don't find it to be that much of a hassle, basically you get the coals going and walk away for 15 minutes. No biggie. I have a Weber Summit Kamado grill, and I love it. The design means that it holds temperature very well for long cooks, and it also is airtight enough that you can shut the dampers and the fire will go out (so you can save that unused fuel for next time). I've had various grills over the years ranging from El cheapo to not so cheap, and this one has been by far the best.
Biggest tip I would say is learn to control temp. Your charcoal grill is going to take in air on the bottom and vent exhaust out the top; both those things can be used to control air flow (and thus fire temp), but the intake matters more than the exhaust. If your grill lets you adjust coal height that also will make a big difference in how the food cooks. You don't want the fire to be rip-roaring hot because your food will burn on the outside before it cooks on the inside (though maybe you like it rare on the inside, but not all things are good that way). That temperature control is something you'll learn with time, and IMO is the real skill element in cooking with fire.
If you are going to cook bigger things (thick steaks, chicken and the like), you should use a two-zone cooking technique. When you put the coals in the grill, put them only on one half. Then you let your items cook through (or almost through) on the cool side, before moving them to the hot side to brown the outside nicely. This is a great technique and really effective, though the effectiveness does depend on there being enough thickness of meat so that you can get the outside nice and hot without heating the inside up too much. Doesn't really work super well on burgers or small steaks etc.
If you're interested in smoking, look up Meathead's articles at amazingribs.com. Dude knows his stuff and writes very informative articles, it helped me a lot when I first started smoking.
Overall, have fun! Grilling is a great way to cook, the fire hits you right in the caveman brain and it's very chill (especially if you smoke things). And keep us updated on how it goes, I look forward to hearing it!
Yes! Yes! This is the grilling content I wanted! Thanks for the amazingribs link.
I do not possess lighter fluid. I figured even if it was true that lighter fluid burned off before it got on the food, a charcoal chimney would probably be cheaper over a long period of time because you do not have to buy fluid continuously.
I have a very tiny 14 inch used Char-Broil tabletop kettle grill. We'll see if I can do two-zone with that.
I think the first thing I cook will be brats and chicken thighs and then maybe chicken leg quarters, too. I might try grilling up the cabbage in the fridge. Do you do marinades or anything like that? My lazy air frying usually involves just seasoned salt and a meat and it usually turns out pretty great, but then my uncle (who grills a lot) avails me of his complicated adventures involving brining and marinades and rubs and I feel bad.
I'm too cheap to experiment with steaks. Steaks are very expensive, especially lately.
I would think that this is a wash, because you still need something to ignite the coals when you use a chimney starter (just throwing a match in there doesn't cut it in my experience). I use paraffin wax cubes for that purpose, which means I'm still buying consumable stuff to get the coals going. Newspaper does work, so if you have it sitting around you can always use that at no marginal cost to yourself. I just don't have anything like that.
I suspect that a 14" tabletop grill is going to be too small to do two zone cooking, but I certainly could be wrong. I don't have direct experience with those.
As far as food prep goes, it depends on the specific thing I'm cooking. I do use a marinade for making jerk chicken, and something like a marinade for salmon (I cover the fillets with a mixture of brown sugar and Dijon mustard, them cook them indirectly). For burgers and steaks, I just do salt and pepper as a rule. For brats I do nothing at all - they are seasoned enough already that you don't need to add more, and I'm not a beer brat kind of man (though many people do like that).
When I was learning how to grill, I found that brats are surprisingly tricky to cook. This was where I learned the importance of temp control, because I was turning out brats that were blackened on the outside but were raw inside. Even now I probably don't do an amazing job (I think that I have a tendency to overcook them so they come out dry), but at least they aren't raw. You might find them easier, but just something to look out for.
Steaks, by comparison, are trivial! Which is good because they are expensive as you said. Salt and pepper, maybe a seasoning mix, and then you cook them like 3-4 minutes per side. And if you really want to be thorough, you can use a thermometer to temp them, though I generally don't bother.
Another thing which is really good is grilled corn. I've done a couple of different methods, but the one I have found I prefer is to peel back the husk (don't remove it), take the silk out, and then put the husk back. Then you soak the ears of corn in water for a long while (I do overnight), and cook them directly over the coals, turning the ears every now and then, until the husk is dried out and brown/black on all sides. The corn inside should be perfectly cooked and it's delicious (with the usual salt and butter of course).
Soak kitchen paper or cotton in cooking oil. can get a chimney starter to emit blue flame in 6 minutes.
I didn't know that one, I'll try it out. But my overall point was just that you need to use something to get the chimney starter going, and that something (probably) coats you money. Using oil and paper towels is cheap, but so is lighter fluid. So my guess is that no matter what method you use to light coals, it'll be similar in costs.
You don't get any junk mail or grocery store circulars? I agree that the "lighter fluid bad" crowd tends to be a bit overzealous, but the problem I have with it is more one of consistency—unless you're very careful about how you apply it, there are always a few briquettes that don't seem to light, and you usually have to stir the pot a bit to get everything going. Match-light charcoal avoids this, but it's also the most expensive solution. This is the same reason why I think lump charcoal is an affectation as well. It looks cooler but is more expensive to produce and doesn't give the consistency that good 'ol Kingsford blue bag does.
I do, although to be honest I have never thought to keep them for that purpose. I just throw them out immediately. It's a good idea, though, and one I will probably start implementing. The paraffin wax cubes I currently use to light my chimney starter are not super expensive, but free is even better.
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I think that a lot of people still live with the first seasons of good eats, not realizing that the 80s suburbia is long gone. More and more briquettes are pressed dust with some starch as binder. And they deprive themselves of the brilliant asian briquettes with hole - those things can make your local blacksmith passing by to ask if they can use your forge for some minor work.
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