kettle grill: more flavorful fuels than charcoal?

[ssampier]

I recently bought a Kettle Grill, a Weber Silver. I use the typical charcoal lit in a chimney starter.

I have been extremely happy with it, except for one thing: when I grill, I don't really notice any particular flavor or taste imparted to the food. Maybe this is cloudy nostalgia, fueled by bad grilling with starter fluid.

Does chunk charcoal or real wood give additional flavor to the food? I am not talking about smoking wood, I do that when I am slow cooking (such as a delectable baby-back ribs).

 

[Tiberius]

In my experience, you can occasionally detect a hint of wood flavor when using a lump charcoal as opposed to your run-of-the-mill briquettes. I've also had some luck with smoking chips made out of chopped up Jack Daniels aging barrels. At the very least, you don't end up with a dead dino taste, provided you don't use lighter fluid. If you really want to get flavor from the smoke, you need to expose the meat for a long time, which is why you only really see barbeque enthusiasts looking for the smoke rings.

Man, now I'm hungry.

 

[bento]

If I recall, and it's been a while since I did some smoking on the grill, soaking mesquite chips in water for about an hour, then putting them in a foil pack with holes in the top, will impart some of the smokey flavor on your food as you cook it. Be sure to put the foil pack in the coals. I've also used the Jack Daniel's chips and that worked good as well.

I recently purchased a large vacuum-packed salmon steak that was shrink wrapped to a cedar plank. You soak the plank in water for a while and grill the salmon on top of it. I'll have to remember to defrost it this week to try it out.

 

[Galethorn]

When I do steaks, I'll throw a bunch of unlit briquettes onto the hot ones shortly before putting the grill on. Basically, it makes a bunch of smoke; the smoke gives the meat a smoky flavor. This only works, of course, when you're using the slow-light kind of briquettes; the ones that are basically just ground charcoal and a small amount of binder (and sometimes mesquite chips, but they're not exactly critical).

We light ours in a....I'm not sure what it's called, but it consists of a metal cylinder with holes along the sides, a handle, and a metal grill at the bottom. You put coals on top, and newspaper underneath, and it gets a Weber worth of coal ready in half an hour, no lighter fluid needed.

 

[kenobi65]

We light ours in a....I'm not sure what it's called, but it consists of a metal cylinder with holes along the sides, a handle, and a metal grill at the bottom. You put coals on top, and newspaper underneath, and it gets a Weber worth of coal ready in half an hour, no lighter fluid needed.

A "charcoal starter", also sometimes known as a "chimney". One of modern man's finest inventions.

For a nice cheese flavor to your grilling, try putting a few Rifts supplements, or maybe the 2E AD&D Complete Book of Elves, on the charcoal.

 

[Piratecat]

I use chunk wood charcoal, and I'm much happier with it instead of briquettes. It doesn't burn as hot or as long, but it has fewer chemicals and (to me) tastes much better.

 

[kenobi65]

One of my best friends is a blacksmith (we spent most of our summer weekends through the 1990s working at the blacksmith shop he and his wife owned at the local Renaissance Faire). Because of this hobby/obsession, he buys coal. He also buys lump charcoal for his Weber grill.

Several years ago, we were going to have a cookout at his house, but he wasn't there when it was time to start the fire. He had instructed his wife that "the charcoal is in a barrel in the garage." Well, there were *two* barrels in the garage. We suspected that the other one had coal in it...but we didn't know which one was which. So, all of us who were there took close looks at the contents of both barrels, reached a consensus on which one was actually charcoal, and proceeded to make a fire.

Needless to say, we guessed...poorly (we learned this after we'd cooked dinner, when the blacksmith returned home). Though, the fire burned nicely, and there really wasn't any Pittsburghian flavor to the bratwurst that we grilled.

 

[Ranger REG]

I recently bought a Kettle Grill, a Weber Silver. I use the typical charcoal lit in a chimney starter.

I have been extremely happy with it, except for one thing: when I grill, I don't really notice any particular flavor or taste imparted to the food. Maybe this is cloudy nostalgia, fueled by bad grilling with starter fluid.

???

Last I checked, starter fluid don't give any particular good flavor to the food. The food typically smell and taste like kerosine.

Does chunk charcoal or real wood give additional flavor to the food? I am not talking about smoking wood, I do that when I am slow cooking (such as a delectable baby-back ribs).

If you want to use soaked wood chips in your regular grilling, that's okay. You could marinate the food beforehand overnight.

 

[ssampier]

I fully admit that I could be misremembering things. My first charcoal was those $30 specials at the discount store. I piled the charcoal in a pyramid, doused it with starter fluid, and lit it on fire. I will never forget that taste. Other times, I remember having a nice hint of wood flavor without the starter fluid after-taste.

I use regular charcoal without starter fluid. As mentioned I use a chimney starter. The grill gets incredibly hot, but I usually use a three-stage fire. The food has a very "neutral" taste to it.

I will try the chunk charcoal next time I'm in the city. I actually do have the Jack Daniels wood chips on-hand. I was reading that using them directly on the grill - without pre-soaking- will producing a very mild smoke.

 

[ssampier]

...

Man, now I'm hungry.

You and me both. I bought "How to Grill" by Steven Raichlen. It has a huge selection of how to grill almost every type of food.