Newbie with an old Genesis--learning to refurb!


 
I don't have very good updates. I haven't even put the new knobs on yet. Life, and rain, have prevented that. (Glad for the rain though. We have been dry, and I appreciate every drop.)

So night before last (first cook on the new grates) I grilled steak, which turned out okay. It wasn't the best steak so part of it was great, part tough.

Last night I grilled burgers. They were WONDERFUL.

BUT...last night and tonight I also conducted experiments. I'm trying to learn how to control the heat in my grill, and what different things need.

I'd actually forgotten how to control the heat in my grill, because I forgot how nice it is to be able to turn one burner off and then relight it if I choose, cuz...you know..the IGNITERS WORK!!!!!

Yeah. That's a game changer.

Anyway...I got burned last night.

Last night I decided I would boil eggs on the grill. Cook the ENTIRE meal on the grill.

So I set the pan of water with the eggs on the grill, and I screwed around with the burners and the temperatures until I got the eggs to boil. I found out that boiling eggs is not really about the temperature on the dial. (I was trying with two burners on medium, for bottom heat, then I moved them up to high. Still no boil. All three burners on high boiled the water/eggs. I don't fully understand this, but I have this sense that apparently my Weber gas grill would be a better "baker" than it is a "boiler."

I have a lot to learn about heat and heat transfer in cooking.

Anyway, I pulled the pan off the grill after the right number of boiling minutes (we were gonna have deviled eggs) and brought it inside, and ran cold water with ice over it until the pan was cool to the touch. Then I set it aside, took off the mitts and grabbed the handle. Which blistered the fingers and inside of my right hand.

Yeah. That was not fun. So I slept with a bandaged hand with burn ointment and today I am fine. It is more than 24 hours later, and there are almost no marks left on my hands and it doesn't hurt. Grateful for the care of my (medical person) husband.

What I learned: I was gonna throw that pot in the trash, because even though I took steps to cool the pot and the eggs, and the pot was cool and the handles were hot and burned me.......Okay..maybe that means on the STOVE, where the pot was meant to be used, the pot would be hot and the handles would be COOL. And if so, the pot was doing its job. I just messed it up with my experiment and caused the opposite to happen.

Okay. I should take a step back. I will do some research and learn about these pots.

NOW TONIGHT...

I went on with my experiment in learning about the grill..

And I used my cast iron griddle pan to fry some onions.

Frying onions.jpg

I realized that cast iron responds in a more reliable way to the heat of my grill, than do stainless steel cooking pots (I will have more questions about this in the future)

So it was really easy to heat this cast iron griddle up nice and hot and fry these onions to "brown." We don't mean carmelized. We mean "BROWN BABY! BROWN!"

I had hot dogs with browned onions and avocado on split top Hawaiian buns.

They were good.

Hot dogs with fried onions and avocado.jpg



As an aside, I think I should run for office. My platform will be as follows:

All hot dogs and buns should be the same length. That should be law. To the industry: I don't care how y'all decide this, but I know y'all have conferences, so FIGURE IT OUT. Don't make me come over there with my government regulations. Make them the same damn length. And the same number of hot dogs as buns in the packs. OTHERWISE you are cheating the American public.

Yeah.
 
Ooh, sorry about the boiled egg fiasco. I guess that's why they offer grills with sideburners so you can cook things like that safely in a pot.
 
DanHoo said:
I hope Chris doesn't put me in jail for arguing politics, but I feel individual choice in dog size or bun size should be allowed.
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Oh yeah? I happen to believe that bun/dog size should be standardized. In addition, buns and dogs should be sold in the same count package size. This has been out of hand for far too long now!
 
Steve Hoch said:
Oh yeah? I happen to believe that bun/dog size should be standardized. In addition, buns and dogs should be sold in the same count package size. This has been out of hand for far too long now!
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What if someone wants a dog free hot dog?

The extra buns come in handy.
 
Steve Hoch said:
Ooh, sorry about the boiled egg fiasco. I guess that's why they offer grills with sideburners so you can cook things like that safely in a pot.
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Yes. I was CLEARLY bucking the use of the grill doing this. But still a good lesson in how heat transfer works with a kettle full of water vs a cast iron grill pan.
 
Steve Hoch said:
Oh yeah? I happen to believe that bun/dog size should be standardized. In addition, buns and dogs should be sold in the same count package size. This has been out of hand for far too long now!
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YES on the count!

We cannot be responsible for the accidental dog-i-cide when one rolls off the grill, or the feeding of a bun to the ACTUAL dog.

No. We cannot.

Standard.
 
Boiling eggs is easier than that. Put the eggs in a pan and cover with water as usual. Bring to a boil. When the water boils, turn the heat off but let the eggs continue to cook in the hot water until it is cool enough to fish them out. That's it.

A grill is always going to be a special trick for boiling because your pan is typically round and the burners (unlike a home stove) are not. A lot of the time the handles get hot due to the shape of those burners putting heat where you don't want it.
 
Scott Smith said:
Boiling eggs is easier than that. Put the eggs in a pan and cover with water as usual. Bring to a boil. When the water boils, turn the heat off but let the eggs continue to cook in the hot water until it is cool enough to fish them out. That's it.

A grill is always going to be a special trick for boiling because your pan is typically round and the burners (unlike a home stove) are not. A lot of the time the handles get hot due to the shape of those burners putting heat where you don't want it.
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Excellent points. I boil eggs all the time, but not on a grill. So this is interesting. The round pan vs linear burners. It is clear that WATER IN A PAN BOILS with direct bottom heat. Bread and other stuff that is baked, likes consistent surrounding heat and convection, if you can get it. Because the meat cooks so amazingly well on the grill grates, I thought the bottom heat would be enough, but not so.
 
Question:

Since I have now used a cast iron griddle on the grill to do my onions, I have to ask the question. Why is there a need for a special setup and "holder" etc for griddling on the Weber? Why don't folks just put a griddle pan (of whatever size) right on top of the grates? It was NOT as hot as my actual Blackstone griddle, but if I'd given it a bit longer, I have no doubt it would have been crazy hot.

And after 12 years with the Weber Genesis (which has refurbed incredibly well with $200-250 input, and one year with the Blackstone (conditions are not the best here, but the Weber sits in same conditions, yaknow?) it is so very obvious that there is about 50 layers of difference in quality of build for my Weber grill as compared to the Blackstone. If I don't do a sand, prime and paint on the Blackstone this year, it will probably be unsalvageable by next spring. There is SO. MUCH. RUST. Just one year on my back deck, and the paint is falling off this thing.

The Weber, on the other hand....y'all have seen that it is not too bad with regard to rust.

For THAT reason, I could see getting the Weber insert, along with its necessary structure insert (which I will say again, I don't understand.)

ANYWAY, a dedicated griddle is an awesome thing. But to get a griddle of decent quality I would have to pay a lot more, and get it somewhere other than WallyWorld. That's for certain. (FYI, I chose my particular model of Blackstone because it has the side burner, and that was sold ONLY at WallyWorld last year.)
 
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