Let's talk grills and grilling

Doing something a bit different today. Beef back ribs. Made a wet rub with some shallot mustard, some gochujang, a little sriracha and a splash of cider vinegar. Dry rub includes Szechuan peppercorns and ghost curry powder (amazing stuff) from Savory Spice. Should have big flavor with an Asian slant to it.

I replaced the temperature sensor in the Rec Tec the other day, which was damaged when I first received the grill but had only started acting up recently. They had shipped me a free replacement some time ago. The replacement turned out to be easier than I thought it would be aside from one screw in particular being difficult to remove because the holes didn’t line up well enough. Good news is that the new sensor seems like it may have fixed the issue I was having, though I guess I won’t know for sure until I do an overnight cook.

So the craving strikes. Once in a while I get a craving for an iceberg wedge salad. So tonight it is. Blue cheese dressing, bacon bits, homemade croutons. Along with a slice of yesterday’s quiche.

Edit: This is obviously in the wrong thread. Duh.

Whoa. I just went to my parents and made this for them tonight! EXACTLY like that! Well almost exactly, I also added thinly diced radish, and chives too.

That sounds so very good.

And now back to your previously scheduled thread.

Was able to stack a couple of deals and got this grill from Target for $138.

Great deal. Congrats.

Nice! Hope it serves you well. But not well done.

Nice! Let us know how you christen it!

Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou. For this bit of advice. And thank you to anyone else who suggested this.

The tank ran out when I was preparing Shabbat dinner the other night. There are people who refer to meal time as “danger zone” and if it gets too much past that, watch out. It was getting past that when the gas ran out.

Thankfully, I had an extra tank, because of advice like this. Now I just have to get the other tank refilled tomorrow, because the other lesson I learned from this thread is that people…uh…tend to overlook that detail. And I can totally see myself doing that.

Dinner went pretty well, but another surprise pushed things back. My girlfriend’s tenant has his mother visiting, and she wanted a lesson in how to grill. It was cool, in that she was asking questions and listening and wanting to participate. “Let me do it. I want to do it,” she would say. So I taught her and her son the way I grill asparagus and mushrooms and corn. And they’d bought some nice burgers, so I taught them how to do that too. As well as how to properly toast the hamburger buns.

It was nice. It did set things back though, which almost got me into trouble, but it was nice.

And fuck. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of having salmon on the grill. I am a little embarrassed at the weird orgasmic sounds I was making as I ate my own food, since I’m generally pretty modest about my cooking. But geez. It just has an entirely different character on the grill.

-xtien

Dude, if you can grill salmon without ending up with something that is fragmented and sad, you are now a…

Congrats, @ChristienMurawski. ::applause::

Seriously, I keep meaning to try and master grilling fish but I fuck it up every time.

Wow, speaking of, the week of July 4th is upon us and I haven’t refilled my spares. Thanks for the reminder!

Sure thing.

I went in today and it took much longer for the refill than I was expecting. Especially considering they were not busy at all. They just didn’t really know what they were doing, and then ringing up the refill took another ten minutes because the cashiers couldn’t get the codes right, and didn’t understand the sequence for how to charge properly based on the gallon amount.

Luckily I’m a pretty patient dude.

Refill costed about $19. So getting the extra tank, which full was a little over fifty bucks originally, seems to be a good choice. Having two, and doing the leapfrog thing is a good plan. If you remember to refill the empty, of course.

-xtien

I have a gas place near work and pay for just what is needed on a refill. 99% of the time it is far, far below what it costs for a convenience store refill or otherwise…

This is so much a, “I know a guy,” thing. Just telling you, it made me laugh quietly to myself.

-xtien

Hey I can laugh at that! We all have a gas place, Dingus. For some of us it’s closer than others.

Check to see if there’s an exchange near you, as gas stations with propane seem to be rarer and rarer these days.

I only use Blue Rhino exchanges.

https://bluerhino.com/propane-finder

We’ve got a really nice charcoal grill that we purchased when we moved into our current house. We’d been gas before, but after two friends of ours across the country had propane tanks blow up on them, my wife said let’s do charcoal.

I like the taste of using good charcoal. There is a difference. I have a nice chimney charcoal starter that works well. I like the searing capabilities of a charcoal grill. I like the ease of setting up a two zone grill.

However - I realize that I would use a gas grill more often than our charcoal grill. It’s just easier. Easier to get started, easier to hit a desired temperature and hold it there. Easier to quickly raise or lower the temperature with control.

At the end of the day, ease of use for us is going to win out. I suppose the right thing to do is wait until the end of summer and buy a new gas grill on an end of summer sale but I am tempted to go ahead and make the switch now since there’s a lot of summer left. Plus I think I could sell my charcoal grill easier in the summer.

I think the effort involved with charcoal is part that enhances the whole experience.