Grilling in the very cold


 
Chris in Louisiana

Chris in Louisiana

TVWBB All-Star
Food blog Serious Eats has recently featured some essay type pieces.

One the readers here may enjoy was posted by a lady griller about firing up her "battered Weber" in harsh winter conditions in the North Country of NY.

Here is an excerpt:

On maps, my house abuts a long blue line, the official demarcation for eight million acres of empty, better known as Adirondack Park. About 30 minutes farther up the road is a barren plateau called Tug Hill, due east of Lake Ontario, which frequently sets records for daily snowfall totals in the Lower 48. We're talking more than 200 inches per winter, folks. Last year, the mercury never rose above 10 degrees for the entire month of January. Lake effect. Wind shear. Thundersnow. Black ice. Polar vortex. Weather is not a dull subject up here. ... But when a blizzard howls and my 200-year-old house creaks in response, cabin fever kicks in, so that's when I get serious about grilling.
Click to expand...

http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/01/comfort-food-diaries-grilling-in-winter.html

Of course, the commenters have to tell their own war stories and argue about charcoal v gas.
 
well, here it is now 2 degrees above zero with the wind chill at minus 18 degrees... and in about 10 minutes, i'll be heading out to grill some shé~cone wings.

if you live in the cold, one does tend to get use to it.
and as the summer dialog goes (it's not the heat, it's the humidity....) in winter, it's not the cold, it's the wind chill that'll kill ya.

Grill On!
 
I enjoy grilling in the winter as much as I do in the other seasons. In fact, I'd rather stand in front of a blazing hot grill during freezing weather than during hot/humid weather.
 
Theres much to hate about kalifornia, but not the weather. I think the worst I've cooked in was a butt. I put it on at 5AM it was high 20's and by noon it was 60 degrees :)
 
Cold weather to me is anything below 50 and 40 or below it ain't gonna happen outside period. It was 56 at grill time last night so I was able to do Cliff's Rusty Chicken, a great chicken recipe.
Like Jim said it's not the cold but the wind that gets you and here there is a moderate wind 80% of the time.
 
Well, I must admit that my days of camping out and hunting, cooking, and grilling below zero is behind me. I have become a bit of a wuss. Although, last winter was so bad (for this area) last year that I HAD to grill in the cold and snow. So far, this year (it was 3 degrees this morning when I got up with a wind chill of 10 below) I have resisted it. It IS a good time to explore new recipes, indoors, tho'. I'll post a picture or two of a recent indoor exploration, shortly.:cool:

Dale53
 
I also enjoy firing up the Weby's in the cold ( I think Geir had a pic of his WSM in the snow chugging out smoke, which is a beautiful sight. )
But I do work outside for a living, and if the Hawk was kick-in my arse during the day, the last thing I wan't to do when I come home is go back out in that.
Like the old saying " Weekend's were made for Michelob " ( or smoking) in my case.:wsm:

Tim
 
One of the reasons we recently moved south was to get warmer weather. It is now 55 degrees here in SC (Hilton Head) and at my old place (Greenville, NC) it is 30 degrees and freezing rain!
Ray
 
Normally, I enjoy grilling or smoking in the Winter. Some of the best wings I've ever made were cooked in a snow/sleet squall last February. However, with anywhere from 12-30" of snow headed our way this weekend, I'm planning some indoor cooks. I have all the fixings for ham & bean soup and sweet & sour pot roast on hand. Maybe after the driveway's cleared, I'll have time to shovel the back patio and grill something on Sunday.
 
The writer of that column lives in Central New York, and although the general area where she lives has recently seen a rough couple of winters she should not be comparing it to The North Country which she claims to live in and the area I went to Engineering school. Although the two areas are only about 70 miles apart, there is a significant difference is temperature and typical wind speeds.

With that said, cold is relative. Living in the actual North Country myself I grilled when I wanted to because I didn't care if it was cold or not, I wanted grilled meat. Now I'm living a bit further south and I still feel the same way. It's still relatively cold to the general weather, and I still grill when I want grilled meat.
 
it has seemed to me that the weber kettle roasts our thanksgiving turkey even better when the temp is in the 20s, rather than the 50s.
and as long as the wind chill isn't too bad, it doesn't seem to take really any longer to roast the 20+ pound bird than in the summer.
of course maybe that's because the beer is colder.....grin
 
Chris in Louisiana said:
Food blog Serious Eats has recently featured some essay type pieces.

One the readers here may enjoy was posted by a lady griller about firing up her "battered Weber" in harsh winter conditions in the North Country of NY.

Here is an excerpt:



http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/01/comfort-food-diaries-grilling-in-winter.html

Of course, the commenters have to tell their own war stories and argue about charcoal v gas.
Click to expand...

I grill on my performer quite often in the winter. it is regularly below zero here and we get up to 300" or so on average....I love charcoal, only use charcoal, just in the winter you need a bit more to hold the heat.

chris
 
The older I get, the less I like the cold. In the winter of 1980 I was nuts enough to grill steaks on the kettle for Christmas Eve in -27F temps.
No way would I do that now.
 
Bob H. said:
The older I get, the less I like the cold. In the winter of 1980 I was nuts enough to grill steaks on the kettle for Christmas Eve in -27F temps.
No way would I do that now.
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+1 .. it's just not possible for me anymore with the arthritis and all that. I try to freeze as much pulled pork as I can and I do occasionally cook ribs, like next Monday when its going to be unseasonably warm here, but pretty much January and February is down time for me now.
 
Jim Lampe said:
well, here it is now 2 degrees above zero with the wind chill at minus 18 degrees... and in about 10 minutes, i'll be heading out to grill some shé~cone wings.

if you live in the cold, one does tend to get use to it.
and as the summer dialog goes (it's not the heat, it's the humidity....) in winter, it's not the cold, it's the wind chill that'll kill ya.

Grill On!
Click to expand...

Pretty much how the midwest works
 
I live in Anchorage Alaska and have smoked through the winter on my 18.5" WSM for 14 years. I have done a number of smokes down to as low as -20*. It uses more charcoal but is totally doable IF it is not windy.
 
Griff said:
It uses more charcoal but is totally doable IF it is not windy.
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Agreed. I don't mind cold weather if the air is fairly still but not when it gets breezy. I grill year-round but I also do it in an old, detached garage at the base of my driveway, which is perfect for any day when it's windy and or raining/snowing. And on a sunny winter day the temperature inside can sometimes be 15 degrees or more warmer even before I start a fire, which really helps. I just checked and right now the outside temperature is about 37 and inside the "smokehouse" it's 46.
 
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