Searing Experiment: chimney vs. basket

[Mark R (LR)]

I recently tried grilling a steak on a grate over a chimney starter (found the idea in a thread here). I REALLY liked the result:

I wanted to try to duplicate the results with something big enough for 2 steaks so tried using a custom charcoal basket made from expanded metal:

The basket worked ok but not as well as the chimney. Last night, while using both (basket for veggies & chimney for steak) I checked the temps near the grates for both using an old Thermapen. The grate temp on the chimney was around 900 F, and the grate temp on the basket was around 500 F. I guess the solid sides on the chimney do a better job of retaining and channeling the heat to the grate. I also noticed that my old Thermapen registered temps over 900 F, but my new Thermapen only registered temps up to around 550 F before switching to a "Hi" reading.

In the future, I think I'll stick with the chimney when trying for extremely high temps.

 

[JSMcdowell]

Nice experiment Mark.

As I was reading above, I thought you were going to say, and I fried my old thermapen.

 

[Mark R (LR)]

At 900+ degrees, that was a distinct possibility.

 

[Hank B]

Originally posted by Mark R (LR):
... I guess the solid sides on the chimney do a better job of retaining and channeling the heat to the grate.

The additional depth of the charcoal bed in the chimney probably helped as well.

 

[Regina S]

Thanks for doing that experiment Mark! I was going to try the same thing,...now I know!

 

[Marc Massaro]

Mark,
How long for each side over the chimney? Did you use it full?
Next time the bone-in rib eyes go on sale I'm going to try it
Your steak looked good

 

[Mark R (LR)]

Hank, Good point - I agree. I was actually a little disappointed with the height of the basket that would fit, after measuring and deciding how much room I had between the charcoal grate and grill grate.

Regina, Glad you could benefit from my mistake ... umm, experience. That's what I love about this site. Fortunately, I think the basket will still be useful since I often cook for 1 or 2.

Marc, The steak was probably 3/4" thick, and 2 minutes per side got it just on the medium side of medium rare (a LOT of pink but not much red or blood). I used about half a chimney. You really need to let the charcoal get completely white, without much flame, because it IS going to flame some. The 2 minutes of grate time actually turns into around 3 minutes of real time, because I had to move the steak on and off the grate because of flames. It's kinda cool watching the olive oil burn off the grates as you're waiting on the flames to die down.

 

[Stuart S]

I'm glad you were able to get a reading. I did the same thing tonight with a strip loin I had in the fridge that needed to be cooked while I was getting ready to cook some hot dogs. My little cheapo Maverick thermo crapped out at 600 degrees.

 

[Brian Zimmerman]

Like the little charcoal basket you made. Also like how you made it so you can unscrew it and make it wider if needed. Pretty cool.

 

[Mark R (LR)]

Stuart, I love my Maverick (aka my baby monitor) for the smoker, but with it's temperature limitations, I haven't been brave enough to try it with the grill.

Brian, I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to work with expanded metal. Before getting input from Dan N on this site, I was half expecting to need pricey, specialty tools for cutting and bending it. Metal shears cut it easily, and bending and shaping it by hand was a breeze.

 

[Bob Miller]

one thing I have been doing which is along the same lines is that i have 2 skinny firebricks that i use for indirect cooking. When I've been doing steaks I push them closer to the side of the kettle and get a really hot searing area. Sometimes I put them straight across others i put them in a V to have a deeper pile of coals for a more intense heat.

Last week I cooked a perfect Md rare on a inch thick steak @ 90 sec. per side and a 5 minute foil rest. I used that time to reposition the bricks and put a veggie plate over the coals and made some zucchini. it was the first time i really nailed a steak on this grill. I've been way over cooking.

 

[Mike Freel]

I use the two charcoal baskets that came with my performer to do the same thing. Makes a great sear and a definite two zone fire.

Mike

 

[Thom E]

Originally posted by Bob Miller:
one thing I have been doing which is along the same lines is that i have 2 skinny firebricks that i use for indirect cooking.

I form a square with 4 firebricks wrapped in foil. It helps focus the heat up, where the expanded metal releases some of the heat thru the sides.

 

[Daniel S]

This reminds me of Alton Brown cooking a tuna steak over a chimney starter w/ a small cooking grate. Those who have added the CI Stok grates would probably have the ideal setup for this w/ a perfect little pit to securely hold the chimney and a small CI grate insert to go atop the chimney.

AB recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/rec...in-recipe/index.html

w/ Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkLmoaLrw5Y (actual cooking at ~5 mins)

and entertaining transcript: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com...a/TunaTranscript.htm

Our fish is on deck and we've even brought a clean plate for retrieval. As for the fire, well, it's hot. It's real hot. Just take a look. It's like a jet engine down there. Now the normal thing to do would be to distribute those coals across the bottom of the grill and get to cookin'. But, um, I don't want to dissipate the heat. I don't want to spread it out. I want to keep it concentrated. I want to cook on a jet engine! And ... it's ... my jet engine so I say we'll cook on the jet engine.

 

[Mark R (LR)]

Thanks for the links Daniel! I just recently discovered AB/Good Eats and now have the series set to record on the dvr. I'm going to have to try the tuna.

 

[JSMcdowell]

Mark,

Unfortunately Alton just pulled the plug on the show after 249 episodes. There are 3 1 hour long specials left, the first of which premiered last Friday night and was BBQ pork.

http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums/a/...0069052/m/4891030126

Food networking and Cooking channel will always run the old episodes though. Alton got me into cooking and while I don't always agree on everything with him, he has definitely improved a lot of the food cooked at home out there.

 

[Daniel S]

Originally posted by JSMcdowell:

Food networking and Cooking channel will always run the old episodes though.

I really hope so (if not, can the PBS Create Channel have them?) The Food Network has taken a long slide downhill from what it was many years ago, making me glad that we don't have cable at home! Out of town, my wife and I were watching their "eXtreme Chef" show which was watch-a-train-wreck bad. Here's the website description of the last episode: "Three chefs travel to a farm to dig for their own ingredients, but a powerful dust storm stops them in their tracks. And one chef almost quits after a cow he's milking goes mad."

Since Alton Brown actually made a quality show I won't be surprised if they '86 him from the lineup as they have with others. He must have too much integrity to sell-out and stamp his name on poor quality Food-Network merchandise sold at Kohls!

 

[JSMcdowell]

I know several of the seasons are available on DVD if you really want them.

Food network has gone the way of so many before them. I think everything except SAT & SUN AM programming is some sort of competition. How about introducing people to new ingredients and methods rather than reality TV? Their Next foodnetwork "star" series has only turned out duds. The food competitions are a joke when compared to Top Chef.

It's like MTV no longer plays music videos and TLC no longer provides educational programming (Unless you count teaching someone that you can get on TV by being 16 & pregnant). Even the History channel is full of reality shows.

Sorry to get way off topic and on a rant, but I really only need my TV for sports nowadays.

 

[Daniel S]

Originally posted by JSMcdowell:
I know several of the seasons are available on DVD if you really want them.

...and of course there's always YouTube which seems to have many of them. http://www.youtube.com/results...son%2C+playlist&aq=f brings up playlists with season episodes.

 

[Chris Stanek]

Originally posted by Daniel S:
.... Those who have added the CI Stok grates would probably have the ideal setup for this w/ a perfect little pit to securely hold the chimney and a small CI grate insert to go atop the chimney.
.

This is exactly what I did last night. I took the two remaining ribeyes i had and just put the center grate over the chim while it was nestled nicely in the main grate. I had two 16oz bone-in ribeyes. Each took just about 4 minutes and were pretty dead on after a 10 minute rest.

I might do that again this weekend. I'll post up some pics if no one else gets to it.