Thanks, John! I like crystalized giner — the good stuff.

That ”liquid smoke” cracks me up. I looked at some in a market. It looked like a bottle of water into which someone had put some of their wood stove or campfire remnants into. Maybe I bought it. Long time ago.

I have a ”Dehydrator” in the form of a portable Breville combination oven. I have never used the dehydrator function.

Your story of finding some jerkey that got squirreled away or dropped between two floorboards, reminded me of that John McPhee book ”…Birchbark Canoe.” The canoe builder guide had packed his own provisions. As I recall, they got damp, moldy and very unappetizing, but the guy just kept eating them.

I know people who know the canoe builder, but have not seen them in years. I never did get to ask them about their friend’s experience with McPhee. Imay stiill have that book if it was not a library book.

I looked up some beef jerky images. They look good. Pliable, very UNLIKE that chew flip dog treat stuff. What a great image you conjured up.

Remodeling?! Sounds like a challenging summer. I bet it will look great.

It is so doggone hot here. I have lots of little projects for DH. More than a few involve garden and yard work. Even though we are a clearing in the woods, it is HOT and humid and with no wind. He looks at me as though I have suffered a severe head trauma. There is no way he will be doing anything outside, not even sitting in the shade.

We should be on a wet boat like the Sunfish, but there is No Wind to speak of.

Tonight, the temperature will plummet to 89° F hahaha

“I remember $4.99/lb. for flank. Was a great steak to marinate!”

Great to marinate and better that way.👍🏻 I think flank is $10/lb. at our market right now, but tri-tip’s $6.

A couple marinades I like for tri-tip or flank.…1 1/2 to 2 pounds of either.

1/3 cup soy sauce
2 T. brown sugar
1 T. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T. vegetable or olive oil

OR…

1⁄4 cup lemon juice
1⁄4 cup vegetable oil
2 T. sugar
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 T. Kitchen Bouquet Browning & Seasoning sauce (I sub with Worcestershire)

Thanks, chloebud. I will have to learn about different cuts. I have read about various cuts, but don’t remember.

I did once marinate a steak with something like the marinades above, but the water/lemonjuice part seemed to make the steak gray — as if I boiled the thing. perhaps I did not pat it dry enough. Dunno.

I think tonight, heat or no, AC indoors, I will make all or one of the following as I have the ingredients:

Pad Thai with chicken and shrimp (we have been sprouts, they are pretty perishable)

Pad Bai Kaprow — Hot Thai Basil with Pork

Baby Bok Choy with Pork

And, another day, Kung Pao Chicken

I hope rabbits don’t like tomatoes because there are a lot around and they go through the garden fencing — that is where they have their nusery, beneath the very thorny blackberry canes.

The bunnies have gotten very tame and come running when we open the kitchen door, asking for black oil sunflower seeds (BOS). Yesterday the adult was going to take stems from my hand, but didn’t like what I was offering. They will eat chives, clover and every dandelion insight. They lounge in the shade just outside.

The price of beef is UP

The price of chicken, down a bit

I forgot the other. My brain is overcooked.

Oooo, John McPhee, one of my favorite writers. Second only to A. J. Liebling, the gourmand Francophile war correspondent New Yorker writer who bragged he could “write better than anyone who could write faster and faster than anyone who could write better“. Today you can probably have ChatGPT spew words by the gross, in styles close enough to mislead those who’ve not read better, in quantity sufficient to drown out those who write better, for pennies a page and more profits for the publishers. It makes me sad.

No outdoor laboring for DH in this heat! Where’s his union rep? Is he in a union? I’m thinking of starting the International Brotherhood of Husbands. Someone will start the International Sisterhood of Wives. We’ll merge as the International ‘Hood of Significant Others (IHSO) and DH will be safe.

^^^ I vote you president of the IHSO!

Fortunately for ISW, there is a lot of indoor work for us to to. I am almost ready to buy an Airstream. This estate is too large and too much work — there is always something and because he is so much more intelligent and skilled, it only makes sense that he roll up his sleeves, torn or not. This week it’s the disposal. I fixed it once — a leaking dishwasher connection. This time, the 40 yr old disposal gave up the ghost. The box store says ”return policy” is only 2 days from purchase, even if it is never removed from the box. (Huh?)

Today will be another hot humid day. Why not make it a whole week. Maybe the entire summer.

Is the plaster and construction dust sticking to you? Finding its way into your dinners? I remember when we were sanding the plaster walls here — sometimes into 2 AM. We didn’t dare to go near a coffee shop for fear we’d be mistaken for donuts.

SWMBO was wise to leave for California.

Remember when they could not give chicken wings away? They are now more expensive than chicken breasts or thighs.

ETA: Hubby does not like them and the only time I eat them is if I grill a whole chicken.

Staying inside today as we’re at 34 c./94 f. today. I know, nowhere near what some of you are experiencing. 🙂

But I’m going to make a quick dash outside to put my potatoes, dill, garlic, and onion on the grill. My steaks will take three minutes per side and dinner is done.

This thread had me craving steak.

You like to steam potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil on the grill? Do you add olive oil or butter?

Hi petalique, dust is everywhere, unfortunately not excluding the dining room and foyer, and, who am I kidding, living room. I will be dusting and wiping for days, and then SWMBO will return, purse her lips in disappointment, and do the real cleaning.

We were happily eating out and/or grilling, but now it’s hot to walk anywhere or stand at the grill, so we’re mostly eating from takeout boxes. The good thing is that today is the peak of the heatwave, a more pleasant low 90s tomorrow then we get into the 80s.

Dinner done. Simple and tasty.

Potatoes slightly crispy.

Steak done how I like it and sour cream on the spuds.

And I stayed cool. Three chocolate covered almonds for dessert.

Can you set up exhaust fans (powerful ones) to help move the dust outside?

Nothing wrong with (good) take out 🥡🥢

Roxol — If you wrap the potatoes in foil, how can they get flavored by the wood, charcoal or grill. A SIL used to cook burgers on top of aluminum foil on the grill. While it kept the grill clean, she might have just as easily used a skillet.

Yeah, chicken wings. I’m not sure I’ve ever bought them, but the price it high. I sort of reminds me of people who kill sharks just for their fins.

petalique, I don’t keep the potatoes wrapped the entire time. Only for a few minutes. I close the BBQ.

No standing at the grill.

Those steaks look great, spuds too! What are the thick steaks?

Alberta beef tenderloin.

My husband likes to have the leftover potatoes for breakfast.

" If you wrap the potatoes in foil, how can they get flavored by the wood, charcoal or grill. "

Gas BBQs don't impart much cooking flavor other than by fat dripping on the hot surfaces below. And they cook by baking, not "grilling" because they don't get hot enough to cook simply from the heat from below. On meat, the only browning is from the heat from the grill grates, not from the heat from below. Next to impossible to properly sear beef or lamb.

I'm still learning with what I have (I'm a longtime Weber charcoal kettle user) but I find my 3 burner Weber gas grill disappointing.

petalique, I’ve been running the Big Hood on full chat, 1,000 cubic feet/min, and when DS is sawing tile you can see dust spewing out the sideblast fan on the house exterior. My neighbor thought we were having a fire. I have to clean the baffles with the hose and cups of mud run out.

We went out for dinner, our favorite neighbor Italian place was full so we walked to another one. They had bavette on ravioli so naturally I ordered it. Very pretty, but . . . you or I could do better. The bavette was in chunks, nicely browned but overdone, and the ravioli was just okay. For some reason all the dishes were bland, reminding me a bit of a health spa or (gasp) hospital. I wasn’t unhappy - they had AC, its 100F at my grill, the Aperol spritz was delicious, and the dish wasn’t expensive. Still, this reminded me why this is not our usual Italian place; the food there is superlative. I really look forward to communing with Marcella Hazan in my kitchen again.

Elmer, I think gas grills don’t get as hot as charcoal grills can. You can get grill marks but for real searing, I heat a cast iron pan on the side burner.

Nice looking Stampede Days dinner Rox!

I don't have a problem getting a sear on meat on my gas Weber but it has a 4th burner made for searing. With all 4 burners on high and the lid down it will get up to 600F+.

Thanks LoneJack! I’ve got a 4 burnerBroil King grill. 🤠 It’s simple and quick if you know what you’re doing. 😉

It’s flippin’ hot here and I’m not about to start messing around with charcoal.

eta I’m doing a spatchcocked chicken today.

That dinner looks attractive, John ; too bad the flavor wasn’t there and the steak was overdone. What was in the ravioli aand what do tho think might have improved it?

I have made ravioli, but not for a while. There is a pasta shop in town that makes spinach and ricotta ravioli. It’s pretty good, but somehow I want to amp it up.

One of these days (🎶I’m gonna rise up singin’ — Hush little baby, donnn’t you cry…🎵🎶)

One of these days, I am going to make 🦞🦞Lobster Ravioli. Really, I am. I found a recipe in a book with a large colored photo to motivate me; help get me off my $40 a week lobster roll habit.

At least you got to cool off, enjoy a cool drink and conversation, as escape the construction dust.

I have not cooked outdoors yet this season and thee grills are still covered. Now, I am itching for a rotisserie. I have a couple of good ones JennAir (with cord and motor) that I got years ago from ? Free Cycle. But I have to fashion a support for them, preferably on that can be adjusted at different heights. However, there are certain 3-dimensional issues with my brain architecture. I’m usually good at coming up with work-around solutions, but wish I’d taken shop.

I suppose any support will have to be ade of metal. Maybe DH will have time for that challenge. Else, I might have to resort to a shhet metal lab or a handyman.

OR, buying a Weber charcoal grill that comes with an optional rotisserie. But that wouldn’t use my two JennAir units. Maybe I can visit a ckever pal and offer him one for his helping me figure out a support set up.

BUT THEN, I don’t think our existing small Weber gas grill will be hot enough, even if I go to all the trouble. Besides, I think I want to return to real lump charcoal grilling, and we are in the woods, so have lots of firewood we can get real coats from. Wood-roasted eggplants make the most flavorful babaganoush.

?Maybe it already has some pieces of support gear. But it was intended to fit with a JennAir range.

My gas grill gets much hotter than my charcoal, but it is NOT a Weber. It has a left and right burner, that means I can use one on high and one off or on low. I also use a cast iron smoke box with wood chips for smoke.

My best charcoal grill, they do not make anymore., I have a Weber Preformer now. It is good, but not as good as the vintage 1970's aluminum grill that was made like a gas grill.

I use the gas grill for somethings, the charcoal for some, and I have just replace the smoker for a few things that I make three or four times a year.

But lonejack and rox, don’t you miss the charcoal (lump real charcoal, not those ghastly briquettes)?

Not at all. I have a Weber Kettle that I use for some things with lump charcoal or even those 'ghastly briquettes'. I also have a smoke tube that I use sometimes on the gas grill that uses wood pellets.

I had wondered how those smoke tubes would work. My Webar gas grill is one of those rectangular, smallish things. I bet yours is more serious.

“But lonejack and rox, don’t you miss the charcoal (lump real charcoal, not those ghastly briquettes)?”

Not when I’m doing the cooking. My husband is another matter, though. He can do what he wants when he cooks. And does.

He went through a phase where he deep fried turkeys. The cook in our house is responsible for cleanup. I’m not that dedicated.

As Kenji says:

At the end of the day, the real measure comes down to this: Which one do I get the most utility and pleasure out of? Certainly, there's something ritualistic about lighting a live charcoal fire and taming the flames with careful control of ventilation and placement, not to mention tending a long-cooking piece of meat throughout the afternoon or night. Then again, the joy I get from being able to step outside my kitchen door, turn a knob, cook, then shut the gas grill right off when I'm done cooking—well, it's difficult to place a value on that, but it's high. Grilling used to be a special occasion that occurred maybe once or twice a week. Now it's something I can do any time, any night, with no real forethought.

I have a Weber Genesis E-325 model.

You can buy real, natural brickettes. Of course they cost more.

Thanks, Annie. I envy you, and I also understand that you are a dedicated industrious worker along with your DH. Still, you make it look easy.

I like sirloin also, but hrocery stores substitute rope when no one is looking. There is one grocery store chain that sells beef with so little flavor that I suspect they remove and sell the blood, then pump in water (perhaps the drippings from their air conditioners).

Sherry, yes that real, lump charcoal is what we used to use when we had the charcoal grill. So much better.

Rox — I appreciate the Kenji quote. Absolutely true.

" With all 4 burners on high and the lid down it will get up to 600F+. "

Yes, so will mine. But that's the thermometer on the hood, registered with the lid closed and it's the same as oven heat. Measure the heat from the heat source, not from air trapped above it. Gas grilling does baking, not true grilling.

True fire heat - briquets, wood, or whatever, is producing heat like that from below and that's the difference.

The Kenji quote is about convenience and the tactile experiences. There's no mention of the end result in his words. I'm confident he would say in a side by side test of the cooking results produced, with no consideration of what was involved to get there, it's no contest.

I get the convenience and compact form-factor thing. It's why I got a gas grill for my second home. For me, the inferior results it produces more than outweighs the convenience factors. I really dislike it and use it sparingly. I've pretty much tried the entire limited list of things we like to cook outside. Whether steaks, tri-tips, chicken pieces, pork ribs, lamb loin chops, or even undemanding hot dogs and hamburgers, I can't come close to producing the flavor and results easily done (though with longer advance prep time) using my Weber kettle.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210514231221/https://www.seriouseats.com/charcoal-vs-gas-grills-the-definitive-guide

This is the entire article, petalique.

My chicken is ready to go. I think I’ll do corn on the cob with it.

Keep cool everyone.

Gas grilling does baking, not true grilling.

Pure Elmer drivel! If that is your impression then you obviously don't know how to cook on a gas grill.

On my 3 burner Weber gas model, it isn't possible to cook steaks quickly with the lid open, as on a charcoal grill. It might take forever. It only gets hot with the lid closed and then it's baking

If you have something similar, what's your experience.

I just asked my husband if he’d like to take over the grilling today and do it his way. He said ”Nope, I love your grilled meals, they’re delicious.”

Good answer. I love that man.🥰

There are a couple of propane grills where we had 4th of July. I have no clue about how they work. I brought my portable little tabletop barbecue and charcoal and wood chips, and the table and fireproof mat. And one guest thought it was too hot (it wasn't actually hot out) and another thought she saw wasps, so instead of a proper weenie roast, and by request I faux-grilled the weenies on cast iron on the stove. No lovely wood smoke flavor, but they were fine.

We grill or call it broil on our 3 burner gas weber. yum steak. 4 to 6 or so minutes per side. depends on thickness,could be more time. ive been cooking for way over 50 years.

Elmer, if you sear a steak, in any fashion, and then cook in the oven ”call it bake or roast”, to desired doneness what, would youcall that whole process.—- baked, roasted ’, grilled or broiled.? (i am long ago retired.. ican do nonsense)

0314, I don't think that's what I was talking about.

On a charcoal (or wood) broiler, it's so hot that with several minutes on each side, lid off, a steak is cooked with the flavor from the smoke and a Maillard reaction sear on each flat side that was face down to the fire. On a gas device, doing the same thing with the lid up warms the meat with a Maillard reaction sear only where the meat touches the grill grid. Spaces in-between the grill grid marks are pale beige as is shown in the photo above. They don't get hot enough to cook the steak properly with the lid up. Lid down is baking.

Commercial kitchens where steak is featured often have appliances called salamander broilers. Over 1500 degrees F for a quick broil.

High heat is needed for steaks. Other things, not so much. Even hamburgers benefit from a high heat exposure to develop a Maillard reaction crust on the outside. A wood/charcoal fire or a hot cast iron pan will do the crust, only the fire will do the smoky flavor. Gas will do neither unless some of you have a much higher BTU unit than my $500+ Weber produces.

Admitedly, what I have is a midrange consumer product, not one of the up-market ones. Maybe built in gas grills (which I don't plan to get) with natural gas connections are available that produce higher temperatures with higher BTU burners.

Elmer, my question to you was,in thespirit of this thread, what would you call a steak whichwas seared firstand then cooked in the oven to desired doneness?.

Whether done in that order or the opposite order (which I do when cooking a steak inside, a so-called "reverse-sear"), that's fine.

The conversation path I was on had to do with cooking outside. I said that my experience was that a steak cannot be properly grilled on a gas grill.

John Liu above noted that one can't properly sear a steak on a gas grill because of insufficient heat and he uses a cast iron pan on a side burner to do that. I agree with him but would not go to the trouble of pulling out a cast iron pan outside. Indoors, fine. I bake the steak in a rather cool oven at around 275 to an internal temp of about 125 deg and then sear it with a hot cast iron pan or by placement on a broiler tray on the top rack of the oven, close to the broiler flame. That isn't "grilled" either. I'd call it broiled. The reverse sear process helps control the degree of doneness. Others have described using the sous-vide method to do the same thing. Too much trouble and time for me but that's fine I suspect too.

So far, so good. The bird is grilling wonderfully. It smells so good.

The house is remaining cool. Me too.

I think we’ll have Rainier cherries for dessert.

Plllog, those people were the whiny weanies! Don't spend (waste) another holiday with killjoys like that. 364 days of the year they can cook indoors on the range.

My new-to-me grill is infrared. So I looked it up...

Infrared grills can get much hotter than traditional grills, which typically max out at 500°F. Infrared grills can reach temperatures of up to 1,600°F, which is hot enough to melt rocks near the Earth's core. Infrared grills can also heat up faster than traditional grills, sometimes reaching high temperatures in as little as two to three minutes.

Thanks, Petalique. :) It really was fine with me, though I still have to put away the barbeque. I'm not much with logs (sexist, I know, but I always left those to the menfolk) and I don't really know how to use briquettes, but some good old fashioned charcoal, some shipping paper and a chimney starter, and I'm good. Love my Kingsford chimney starter! It's twice as big as the old one--enough to start all the charcoal needed for one course. I'm generally adept with mechanisms, but those grills stymie me. So does my fire table. :) But I can do charcoal. :) And skillet, apparently. :)

I use an electric resistance charcoal starter, the cheap kind sold at Home Depot. It's easy to use and doesn't produce flying embers that can happen with the chimney devices.

Petalique, I had to smile when you mentioned rope and air conditioner water. I think you are being too complimentary to the commercial beef processors!

Annie