The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The grilling went great. The brats especially benefited a lot from the smoky flavor imparted by the charcoal. Maybe it's just because I didn't cook them as hard as I usually do, but they seemed a lot juicier as well. I had recently cooked the same kind of brats in the oven, using the broiler to char at the end, and it really was a world of difference. Chicken thighs also turned out really well. Pork loin was good, but I don't know if it was better than in the air fryer.
The grill itself is kind of horrible. There are no bottom vents, so if you want to put the lid on, you start smothering the fire (I did it anyway to get some indirect heat after searing). Some ways through the cooking, one of two points the handle was attached by detached. And of course, the darn thing is horribly small, meaning you can only cook a few things at a time, meaning the cook took kind of a long time. Two-zone charcoal seemed to work, despite its size, and despite my not really being able to get an even amount of charcoal on an entire side. Maybe should have left it in the chimney for a little while longer, because some of the charcoal wasn't really lit if it was away from the hot corner.
I like that I can throw random sticks I find in my yard into the fire. I don't know the consequences of this behavior, other than making it get a lot hotter for a minute or so. If I had a larger grill, I'd definitely be doing fajitas on it. Or longer cooking time things like potatoes or chicken leg quarters.
Also I swear that that tiny grill is still way better than the propane three-burner Expert Grill from Walmart we've got. Burners so far apart, I doubt the thing keeps heat very well, and I feel like I can barely sear on it at all. Maybe I should give it another try sometime, maybe I'm wrong. It certainly can keep a lot more food on it.
Did you parboil? The one thing I find a little tough about brats is that if you are grilling from cold, it can be a challenging to make sure they are fully cooked before the outside over-chars. I usually parboil the brats prior to grilling, in a bath of light lager and sliced onions. That way, they're fully cooked when you put them on the grill, and the only thing you have to worry about is imparting the grill flavor and getting the perfect char on the outside for your tastes. As a bonus, you can drop them right back in the beer bath to keep warm, and they stay nice and juicy for hours. And, the onions go great on top.
Agree that a gas grill is really just a gas range that happens to be outside instead of in your kitchen. No comparison.
I did not parboil, in fact, the brats were from frozen. I will have to try the par boil. The onions part of that sounds good, and it makes me wonder if the Oktoberfest brats that I love so much were created with a method similar to this, as some of them had great onions.
There's clearly a lot of benefits to charcoal. I like that they're generally more portable with less moving parts and are significantly cheaper. Generally, I want to emulate the American Dream by grilling away from my wooden porch on some grass. Also charcoal can get a lot hotter. Apparently that's the best way to do wok cooking if you don't have a proper wok burner like a restaurant would. Maybe the best way to do pizza if your oven doesn't like to get up past 500 degrees. Also you get to play with fire, which does a lot for morale.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link