cl wrote:
"Jack Curry" Jack-Curry deletethis @cfl.rr.com wrote in message
om...

I suppose, Jason in Dallas, that if you can't tell the difference in taste
between food cooked on propane versus food cooked on charcoal, or if
button-pushing convenience is more important to you than cooking better
tasting food, then a gasser is right for you.



Jack do you think that a steak done under a salamander at Ruth Chris tastes
as good or better than that done on charcoal?

No, it doesn't. I was singularly unimpressed with the steak the one
time I ate at a Ruth Chris. It had an oily taste, like the scent of
propane. The prime rib that someone else had was much better.

Beth

--
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or
cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men
who can dream of things that never were. --John F. Kennedy
our home page: http://www.IsleOfSky.net

"Jack Curry" wrote
"Jason in Dallas" wrote:
He'll never get it, CL. Oftentimes a gas grill is a helluva lot more
convenient than charcoal. I use my gasser 10x as much as I cook with
charcoal (grilling or smoking).

I suppose, Jason in Dallas, that if you can't tell the difference in taste
between food cooked on propane versus food cooked on charcoal, or if
button-pushing convenience is more important to you than cooking better
tasting food, then a gasser is right for you.

You should check your assumptions before you get so smug.

I *can* tell the difference, but when I toss some wood chunks in the gasser
the difference is extremely subtle and I cannot taste the difference any
more. Both methods are grilling and there is wood smoke applied, the
difefrence being one method is a lot easier than the other. In fact I'd
challenge you to differentiate, and would happily bet a large sum of money
that you couldn't tell assuming a proper double-blind study where we did it
a number of times to see if you could do significantly better than random
guessing.

I don't know what else to say: I have 1 and 1/2 jobs, I'm also in school
working on another degree, I have a wife and a son, I own a home I try to
keep up with, I have other hobbies ... my time is important to me and I use
the gasser a whole lot than my charcoal rig. Yes, it's due to convenience
but I'm here to tell you the quality of food is not sufefring.

I smoked a couple butts on the bullet smoker last weekend and they were
great and I enjoyed the hours of work, but tonight I'll be quickly grilling
a couple fillets mignon on the gasser. I *could* get out the charcoal, the
chimney, wad up some newspaper, start up the chimney, assemble the grill,
clean my hands, then clean up the mess when the chimnety is ready, then dump
the charcoal in the grill, then clean up the ashes when I'm done ... but
it's a lot easier to push a button and toss in a couple wood chunks before
cooking in the gasser.

Until you cook on a decent gasser with cast iron grates and wood chunks for
flavor you don't know that the difference is negligible to non-existent.

"Duwop" wrote in message
...
wrote:
much MORE to the OP than cooking over a real wood fire, then maybe he
is too busy and should stop and smell the wood smoke...

I don't buy that too busy thing either, that's a cop out designed to make
the person feel more important.

If you were like me and had 1 and 1/2 jobs, were studying for a second
degree, married, a homeowner, had a 6 month old baby at home you love to
spend time with, and other hobbies besides cooking ... you would "buy the
too busy thing" guaranteed. Apparently you have more free time than I do and
that's great, I am suitably jealous of that but not your of inability to
reason.

I cook over real wood fire at times, but 10x as often I fire up the gasser,
toss in some wood chunks and let 'er rip. I simply have better or more
important things to do than mess with charcoal most of the time.

Well, I'm not going to diss anyone for what they cook on, it's a lot more in
the cook than the equipment IMHO.

However, in my personal experience, moving from using a Weber for many
years, to a Kamado, my results got significantly better, particularly for
low and slow. It is very difficult to keep a Weber going and at a constant
temp for many hours or overnight, whereas with a K it's pretty easy. More
well suited equipment may not be essential, but it certainly makes it a lot
easier.


Duwop wrote:
Its not being lazy. We use all sorts of implements to speed up the
cooking process, so why is a gasser any worse than a foodprocessor,
salad spinner or even an electric oven. Likewise, why have a kamado
since you can do just as long low and slow cooks on a kettle given the
time and effort? Sure ribs on a regular ol'gas grill is lazy if you
have the time and the equipment to do it right. As for steaks, chicken,
burger, chops, dogs and fish is can be just as good or better. A TEC is
a gasser is anyone want to argue with that assertion....and a smoke box
works for grilling and roasting....

Jason in Dallas wrote (twice in one thread):


If you were like me and had 1 and 1/2 jobs, were studying for a second
degree, married, a homeowner, had a 6 month old baby at home you love to
spend time with, and other hobbies besides cooking ... you would "buy the
too busy thing" guaranteed. Apparently you have more free time than I do and
that's great, I am suitably jealous of that

Yes, it's true. All the charcoal-junkies on this list are homeless,
unemployed, never had no fancy schoolin' and long ago the wife left and
took the young un's ("It's either me or that damn grill! Lord Almighty,
I believe you love that charcoal more than you love your own kin! And
don't come trying to get me to stay by huggin' me with those damn ol'
charcoal dust-stained hands!"). Got no interests, no hobbies, nothin'.
Chained to this grill, live in a tent with only a charcoal chimney for a
pillow.

But here's 2 questions-

Where do you get the time to post all this on the internet? You're not
stealing time from you bosses, are you?

Do you have to take a vacation day when your propane tank is empty to go
get it filled?

g Hey, hey, remember, I'm jesskidden........

Well no one's died and left me in charge of defining "barbecue", but the
way I use the word, it's not grilling, though they're related, about
like badminton and tennis. That said, if a person's got a gas grill that
they used as a convenient way to grill burgers, steaks, chicken, and
then gets interested in the fascinating business of long, slow cooking
of meats in smoke, I expect they could spend a lot of time very
pleasantly, and have potentially excellent results, figuring out ways to
duplicate on the gas grill the kinds of things discussed in newsgroups
like this one. All the elements are there - heat source which can be
direct or indirect, controllable introduction of wood smoke into the
mix, etc. etc.

Now once a person's really bitten by the bug, they're going to end up
burning wood down to coals, and cooking on that, same way that some
Civil War re-enactors aren't going to call it a night and head for the
Holiday Inn, when the sun goes down and the mosquitos re-enact Pickett's
Charge on a rainy night. But if I were such a hard-bitten Civil War
re-enactor, I'd feel a closer kinship with a person who spent the day at
Manassas and took off for the Holiday Inn after dark, than for the one
who never left libraries studying strategy, and I'd be glad, myself,
that he'd bothered to join the games at all.

in article , kilikini at
wrote on 6/16/04 1:14 PM:

wrote in message
...
Jason in Dallas wrote (twice in one thread):


If you were like me and had 1 and 1/2 jobs, were studying for a second
degree, married, a homeowner, had a 6 month old baby at home you love to
spend time with, and other hobbies besides cooking ... you would "buy
the
too busy thing" guaranteed. Apparently you have more free time than I do
and
that's great, I am suitably jealous of that

Yes, it's true. All the charcoal-junkies on this list are homeless,
unemployed, never had no fancy schoolin' and long ago the wife left and
took the young un's ("It's either me or that damn grill! Lord Almighty,
I believe you love that charcoal more than you love your own kin! And
don't come trying to get me to stay by huggin' me with those damn ol'
charcoal dust-stained hands!"). Got no interests, no hobbies, nothin'.
Chained to this grill, live in a tent with only a charcoal chimney for a
pillow.

But here's 2 questions-

Where do you get the time to post all this on the internet? You're not
stealing time from you bosses, are you?

Do you have to take a vacation day when your propane tank is empty to go
get it filled?

g Hey, hey, remember, I'm jesskidden........

Now that is dammmmm funny!!

Hey, I'd love a man that could BBQ up a storm and drink beer with me all
day - as long as we could afford lump instead of store brand briquettes and
as long as we could afford brisket to burgers. Dang. You men are lookin'
in the wrong places (unless you're not lookin' at all). :~)

Is lump THAT much more than stinky "brickheads"????? Give me a break, spend
good bucks on a preferred cut of meats and smoke/bbq it with bricketts???

Priorities now!!!

Mtbchip

In article , Beth Cole
wrote:

No, it doesn't. I was singularly unimpressed with the steak the one
time I ate at a Ruth Chris. It had an oily taste, like the scent of
propane. The prime rib that someone else had was much better.

Hear hear- RC does buy good meat (for a chain) and they do sear and
char well and their broilers seem to know what they're doing (I've
eaten at the Houston original and one out east in either NC or VA or TN
I fergit....)
They butter the **** out of their steaks. Kinda over kill in my book.
I'd rather cook my own. I can do a lot better. And wear shorts and a
t-short doin it.

monroe(and cheaper too)

In article ,
wrote:

Jason in Dallas wrote (twice in one thread):


If you were like me and had 1 and 1/2 jobs, were studying for a second
degree, married, a homeowner, had a 6 month old baby at home you love to
spend time with, and other hobbies besides cooking ... you would "buy the
too busy thing" guaranteed. Apparently you have more free time than I do and
that's great, I am suitably jealous of that

Yes, it's true. All the charcoal-junkies on this list are homeless,
unemployed, never had no fancy schoolin' and long ago the wife left and
took the young un's ("It's either me or that damn grill! Lord Almighty,
I believe you love that charcoal more than you love your own kin! And
don't come trying to get me to stay by huggin' me with those damn ol'
charcoal dust-stained hands!"). Got no interests, no hobbies, nothin'.
Chained to this grill, live in a tent with only a charcoal chimney for a
pillow.

LMAO - ooohhh it's sooooo true.....(whoops the damn wind pulled another
peg out of the ground)

But here's 2 questions-

Where do you get the time to post all this on the internet? You're not
stealing time from you bosses, are you?

Yep-uphill in the snow going both directions. He's probably billing out
230 hours /week there's plenty of time for usenet...

Do you have to take a vacation day when your propane tank is empty to go
get it filled?

Only day off left in Texas is Christmas - vacations have been illegal
there for years....

g Hey, hey, remember, I'm jesskidden........

and there's a lotta truth in that too

monroe(feels soooooo sorry)

kilikini wrote in alt.food.barbecue

Hey, I'd love a man that could BBQ up a storm and drink beer with me
all day - as long as we could afford lump instead of store brand
briquettes and as long as we could afford brisket to burgers. Dang.
You men are lookin' in the wrong places (unless you're not lookin' at
all). :~)

Killi, I bbq up a good downpour and ain't got nothin else to do all
day but drink and Q. And I won't use brick-ecks. I rarely have burgers
mostly brisketts and pork shoulders and ribs. I'm lookin.
--
BigDog
To E-mail me, you know what to do.

OK...first off thanks for everyone's input!


Well I can see why people like charcoal vs. gas, but I guess I am just
looking for what charcoal grill people recommend, and WHY. It sounds
like the Kamado holds heat for long periods well, but I am looking for
something to grill some steaks/burgers/chicken/brats on in a couple
hours. Not long term or overnight cooking (althought that would be an
added benefit to have that capability). I am also interested in how
hard it is to clean out. I think I mentioned in my opening thread that
I found the pan that Weber uses to be interesting because you can just
un-hook it, dump it out, and replace it. Seems like a fairly clean and
straight-forward process.I do realize that charcoal is going to be
dirty, I guess I am looking for the most convenience for my money as
well. If I am going to spend around or over $1000 for a charcoal
grill, I sure hope it has some amenities to make it worth it.
Obviously cooking ability is number one, but what about
2...3....4...etc.

The other grill I saw mentioned was the Hasty Bake, although only
once. This looks interesting because you can raise and lower the
charcoal with a crank to adjust cooking temperature. Does this really
work or is it a gimmick?? Although it is ugly, it appears to be
functionally adequate. Anyone have one or use one before??

I dunno, I guess I am just looking for the "ultimate" barbecue that
satisfies a lot of the things non-charcoal grillers find objectionable
to charcoal grilling. Whenever I bring up charcoal grilling to
friends, they say "why when you can cook with gas and its much more
convenient". Obviously they dont understand (or care about) the flavor
difference so I was hoping to find an up-scale charcoal grill that
knocks these assumptions about charcoal grilling to the ground. Is
there such a thing??


Thanks again to everyone!!

Todd

Todd wrote:

It sounds
like the Kamado holds heat for long periods well, but I am looking for
something to grill some steaks/burgers/chicken/brats on in a couple
hours.

The Kamado is also an EXCELLENT grill- can easily get temp's of 500
degrees for cooking steak in [not hours] but 4-5 minutes, which is the
reason I got it (before that I was going to go the "smoker" and "Weber
kettle" route...)



I am also interested in how
hard it is to clean out.

Well, you don't clean it out everytime you grill, as you (and others)
have implied. I've had my K for 1 1/2 years, cook on it 2 or 3 times a
week all year long and have done a "total clean out" maybe 5 times.
Usually I just scoop out excess ash that might block the air flow via
the bottom door. When you use lump charcoal you get a lot LESS ash than
with briquettes.

wrote:

The Kamado is also an EXCELLENT grill- can easily get temp's of 500
degrees for cooking steak in [not hours] but 4-5 minutes, which is the
reason I got it (before that I was going to go the "smoker" and "Weber
kettle" route...)

And if you wait a few more minutes, you can get temps up around 700 or so.
A few more minutes, and the thermometer will lap itself. It can be quite
scary :-).

Dave Bugg wrote:

wrote:


The Kamado is also an EXCELLENT grill- can easily get temp's of 500
degrees for cooking steak in [not hours] but 4-5 minutes, which is the
reason I got it (before that I was going to go the "smoker" and "Weber
kettle" route...)


And if you wait a few more minutes, you can get temps up around 700 or so.
A few more minutes, and the thermometer will lap itself. It can be quite
scary :-).


Oh, yeah, but I didn't want to let it get too hot and scare the fellow
off g.

Was doing chicken thighs last night and wasn't really paying close
attention to what was going on under the dome. These suckers really had
a lot of fat and I didn't trim them so the old round cast iron griddle I
use to do "indirect" and prevent flare-ups caught all the chicken fat
and caught fire. I had decided I was going to go "old fashioned" and use
standard tomato based BBQ from a bottle and, well, I had no problem
"carmelizing" it... g

OH, yeah, and the K makes an excellent OVEN as well as a GRILL and a
SMOKER.

On 17 Jun 2004 12:39:20 -0700, (Todd) wrote:

OK...first off thanks for everyone's input!


It sounds like the Kamado holds heat for long periods well, but I am looking for
something to grill some steaks/burgers/chicken/brats on in a couple
hours. Not long term or overnight cooking (althought that would be an
added benefit to have that capability).

That's only one-half of the Kamado story. In about 30 minutes time I
can have my #5 or #7 Kamado well on its way to 500+ degrees, just by
dumping in some lump and lighting a few chunks of fire starter with a
MAPPS propane torch.

I grill on my Ks far more often then I do low-and-slow. I grill about
6 nights a week, all year 'round. I'm a lazy sonofagun, so if it were
difficult or inconvenient, I wouldn't be doing it.

I am also interested in how
hard it is to clean out.

Two words: Shop Vac.

I stick the hose of a shop vac into the lower damper hole and vacuum
up the ashes. I usually do it after each low-and-slow cook, but if
I've just been grilling two months might go by before I have to clean
it out.

I dunno, I guess I am just looking for the "ultimate" barbecue that
satisfies a lot of the things non-charcoal grillers find objectionable
to charcoal grilling. Whenever I bring up charcoal grilling to
friends, they say "why when you can cook with gas and its much more
convenient". Obviously they dont understand (or care about) the flavor
difference so I was hoping to find an up-scale charcoal grill that
knocks these assumptions about charcoal grilling to the ground. Is
there such a thing??

Yep. It's called a Kamado.

--
Kevin S. Wilson
Tech Writer at a University Somewhere in Idaho
"Anything, when cooked in large enough batches, will be vile."
--Dag Right-square-bracket-gren, in alt.religion.kibology