What’s your biggest or most memorable barbecuing oops?


 
More of a family story, but my father was asked to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving many years ago since they knew he did such a great job. Probably 30 people at the time.

We show up, and turns out he was supposed to smoke the turkey for Thanksgiving. Not just an extra one.

We went light on our serving of turkey that time.
 
Brian_D said:
I went to a friend's house on 2 different occasions & he grilled burgers.
The first time, he forgot to take the plastic off the cheese.
The 2nd time, he seasoned the Patties... With Cinnamon!
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I’m betting you’re getting In N Out before going to his place again.
 
Brad Olson said:
And back in 2004 we were staying at a vacation condo with gas grills, and after cooking dinner I turned up the burners to clean the grates and then promptly forgot about them, and when I went back outside about a half-hour later the grill was spewing fire. Fortunately I was able to shut off the gas and there wasn't any obvious damage. And the grates were really, really clean.
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I once left a gas grill on high all night. The next day I looked out on the deck and saw, above the grill, that shimmering effect you see above the highway on hot summer days. The grill was mounted on the deck about two feet away from the wood railing, and I had wondered if that was enough clearance. Turns out it was.
 
Not BBQ, but Thanksgiving turkey related
When I was an Army cook many moons ago, Thanksgiving was the bigger holiday meal, as everyone wanted to be home for Christmas
Now, we did have the big convection ovens, but they were full of whole turkeys and dressing and all sorts of stuff
We had these giant "ranges", kind of like a household stove, just bigger and with a flat top
The tops had three sections and could be set for low, medium or high. The ovens in them had temperature selections, as well as low, medium, high or broil
Our lead cook put a roasting pan with 3 turkey "rolls" into of of these oven, basically a deboned turkey(s) covered in turkey skin and secured with a net
One of our other cooks went to turn the heat on top, but grabbed the oven controls by mistake. It turns out that he turned the oven from a low setting to high
5 minutes later, we saw flames licking out from the oven door!
Someone reached in and grabbed the pan out without burning himself too bad, realized what had happened, cursed the guilty cook out, reset the controls and stuck the slightly blackened turkey "rolls" back in to continue cooking
Crisis WAS averted!
 
Brett-EDH said:
And how many of us were stupid enough to squirt more fluid onto lit coals because there wasn’t enough fire burning already?!?!?!
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This is no joke. Neighbor down the road from my parent where I grew up had the flames come right back up the stream and he reacted. Badly. 2nd and 3rd degree burns over most of his head and neck area, and took a very long time to recover.
 
My neighbor once had a major oops. He was grilling chicken, opened the lid to turn the pieces over and then got distracted back in the house for a few minutes. He came back outside and closed the lid that was left open.

When the food was done he brought it inside for the family dinner. One of the pieces in the service dish looked a bit different than the rest of them. It had a tail and 2 little ears and 4 tiny legs and what looked like a lot of singed hair from head to tail.
 
Wow! Really great responses in here, I'm dying with a lot of them! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:

I've not got anything too crazy except running out of charcoal in a mid overnight cook after too many drinks, and I've been known to not let rain deter me away from a smoke or grilling session. The rainy sessions can turn out quite messy...sometimes messy with no food.
 
I had a super hot afterburner chicken wing cook going. Was less than 5 minutes from done, everything was crispy and cooked. Put the lid back on, came back a couple minutes later and all the grease from the wings sitting in the foil around the cone was on fire..........a few were edible still.....gave those to the MRS. I ate a bunch that had bites on one side.
Haven’t used that thing since, lol.
 
Darren Lebner said:
My neighbor once had a major oops. He was grilling chicken, opened the lid to turn the pieces over and then got distracted back in the house for a few minutes. He came back outside and closed the lid that was left open.

When the food was done he brought it inside for the family dinner. One of the pieces in the service dish looked a bit different than the rest of them. It had a tail and 2 little ears and 4 tiny legs and what looked like a lot of singed hair from head to tail.
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gross. absogross.
 
Ryan Burke said:
Picked up a couple of prime ribeyes from a local butcher. Fired up the Genesis and had the steaks on the side table and went inside for a few minutes. Problem is the dog was outside and had herself a great dinner before I got to grill the steaks.
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our Boston loves sushi. he gets all the trimmings as i prep food. and he loves mexican food too. actually he eats everything. he ain't picky, except he'll wait for us to eat dinner before he eats how bowl of chow. hoping to get anything other than his dried chow.
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
LAST WEEKEND! I got totally distracted with guests and conversation.
Turned thirty wings into charcoal using the Vortex, I had not had ONE JW celebratory cocktail yet!
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Off topic: Did you use the wingcoal as fuel for your next cook?

On topic: Taking four beautifully med-rare rib-eyes into the house from the grill and tripped on a coping stone and threw them into the weeds. Nobody saw me. Picked them up brushed them off. Wife & guests were none-the-wiser. Some alcohol was involved.
 
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TonyUK said:
Off topic: Did you use the wingcoal as fuel for your next cook?

On topic: Taking four beautifully med-rare rib-eyes into the house from the grill and tripped on a coping stone and threw them into the weeds. Nobody saw me. Picked them up brushed them off. Wife & guests were none-the-wiser. Some alcohol was involved.
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Nope, one guest was here and she actually suggested “knocking the burnt“ off and serving them anyway! Her late husband was a fabulous chef, cooking instructor, and very nice guy. He would have had a great time!
I‘m planning on some NY Strips this evening, I hope I don’t get surprised by a firecracker and drop them either!
 
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