Preperation of the Grills

Hi Again!

I was wondering how the grills were prepared. Obviously with 20 minutes in the entree round you don't have time to do it yourself and I see that the heat of the grill was a problem in at least in Donna's case. Also the WSMs were at least pouring out smoke. They must be somehow setup because Harry Soo used it and I saw Diva Q use it in the first episode.

Dustin Dorsey said:

Hi Again!

I was wondering how the grills were prepared. Obviously with 20 minutes in the entree round you don't have time to do it yourself and I see that the heat of the grill was a problem in at least in Donna's case. Also the WSMs were at least pouring out smoke. They must be somehow setup because Harry Soo used it and I saw Diva Q use it in the first episode.

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Good question. My propane grill wasn't hot enough and neither was my charcoal grill. I should have done something about it but was too worried about other stuff. A pyrotechnics staff took care of the grills and Harry was worried that. After all, those of us who cook, like our fires a certain way, just like Tom said in the show. I'm not sure if they added more fuel between takes or not. My shot was early in the morning.
Give me something to bbq and I will use a wsm. I just didn't feel the grill show is the right place for a wsm unless you pull the whole thing apart and just use the bottom...ugh, another thing I should have done.

When a pyro special effects crew is hired to light your pits on the set, you can be assured they are all set at a blazing hot 800F or so.
The key is to turn down the temps right after you're allowed to touch your grills once the Chopped clock starts.

I tried to show diversity of technique by smoking and then grilling my lobster. This was not noticed by any of the judges and I didn't get any brownie points for the extra effort within the 30 min timeframe.

So in the dessert round, I skipped the smoking part and went straight to grilling my dessert. I knew that a hard char was what they were looking for and did that for my dessert round. The comments I got back were my dessert was too charred. Duh! Also, they said my dessert was too sweet! Duh! Those judges are harder to please than KCBS barbecue judges! LOL!