Charcoal Go Anywhere steak grilling advice


 
B

Bill S (sharkman)

New member
Hi all!
Looking to grill a couple of 1.5" rib-eyes on a barely-yet used charcoal GA and need advice on things like amount of Kingsford blue to use, upper and lower vent positions, lid off or on and anything else that may come to mind? Looks like it'll be around -6C (21.2F) here around cook time with a 20km/hr (12.43ml/hr) breeze.
Thanks!
 
I’ve not fired my GA yet so this is just speculation, small chimney or maybe half a full size one, for a steak, I’d go full open, sear, then maybe back the lower vents down a bit. OR do a two zone fire, hot one end, less so on the other.
Protect it from the breeze as best possible.
There are other folks here with far more expertise using the GA but, that’s where I’d start.
 
So i ended up using my Maverick to try to add some element of control. Set up for a two-zone reverse sear. Lit 12-14 briquets and let them get up to speed before adding to left side of GA. Vents initially were probably open about 25% on front lower, closed on back and top open about 1/4 inch. This seemed to starve the fire so opened top to 3/4 and bottom left to 50% and things started picking up. When temp read about 230 i put both steaks on right side of grill and closed lid. Man, heat loss was huge and immediate, lol. The room-temp meat came up pretty quick though, quicker than I expected. When meat reached about 90F i flipped both and left 'em on til 120f or so, then took off, covered and brought in to house. Lit six or eight more briquets and added to what was there, spread em out a bit and attempted to sear over this, flipping every minute and replacing lid. After 4 minutes, one steak was definately over my target temp so took both off, plated, rested and consumed. The one was a little overdone as mentioned, but still good. The other was effin great!
After all said and done, the steaks were really good but i do find heat control on GA way more stressful than i'd like. I really find its difficult to know how many briquets to use and when. i found this when the weather was warmer too. Maybe i just need to use the GA more.
 
I just put a small chimney of coals on one end, all vents open, sear 2 minutes per side directly over the coals, then move to indirect side until it's 5 degrees below desired temp, then pull and rest for 5 minutes.

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With such a small grill, it can get tough trying to get too much finesse. It's a hot, searing machine for the most part. Hot sear, to temp, time to eat. lol
 
MikeLucky said:
I just put a small chimney of coals on one end, all vents open, sear 2 minutes per side directly over the coals, then move to indirect side until it's 5 degrees below desired temp, then pull and rest for 5 minutes.

View attachment 22523

With such a small grill, it can get tough trying to get too much finesse. It's a hot, searing machine for the most part. Hot sear, to temp, time to eat. lol
Click to expand...


I do this same method on my GA, and basically same way for my big kettle too.
 
I like my steaks pretty rare so if I use the GA (like last night) I grill direct over a single layer of charcoal. I also use an 18" round CI grate and it works well even though the lid no longer seals.
 
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