And it does a cheapskate's heart good to get a Polish dog and a big soda for $1.25!

Well, maybe not actually good for your literal heart, but it sure is a yummy cheap lunch.

Costco trip in T minus 3 hours. Hello, polish dog!

After not paying much attention to this discussion, suddenly grills have come to the forefront of my mind. I just went out to fire ours up for the second time this year, and it wouldn't go. Or, more properly, it went, but not how I intended. The rightmost of the three gas burners is corroded so that it won't let gas through at all. Instead, the gas seeps back to the front of the cabinet and burns underneath the control panel. Not Good.

I'm cranky. "Well, you don't take very good care of it," Kris told me. Maybe she's right. I feel like I take good care of it, but I'm sure I wasn't doing all the stuff Jethro does.

I turned off the bad burner and fried up our salmon. It was delicious. While we ate, I read the book group book, which I just started, and must be finished by 10am tomorrow. I sort of have an obligation to finish since I chose it. Kris read the latest issue of the Martha Stewart magazine.

"Hey," she said in the middle of the meal. "Look at this. It's instructions on how to clean your grill."

Sure enough, Martha Stewart is going to help me get my grill in working order...

I'm also guilty of not taking very good care of my old grill, but yeah; you're probably right... The main thing to do, if you aren't using it during the winter, is store it someplace dry... leaving it outside with a cover on it isn't really a good option here in Oregon -- unless you use it periodically throughout the winter.

I'm sure Martha has some great grill cleaning tips (did one of her servants write the article?:mrgreen:), but if you need more, just remember your favorite phrase... google is your friend.

There's some good all-around grilling info on bbq.about.com, and they even have some recommendations for when you start researching your upgrade... it's never too soon to start collecting data, you know. I think I started doing research for a new grill about the time you got your Brinkmann... and I'd say my research paid off.

Ya know, Jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has a Grill/Grilling Blog (yes, there is such a thing):

http://www.grillmaestro.com/

And it's now back from it's winter hiatus.

There's a blog for everything...

Bookmarked.


Anymore grillers out there?

I love to grill, but since I've been living in an apartment it's been hard since they don't allow grills on the decks/patios. I've been having to live with grilling indoor for the past few years. I like my George Foreman grill, but it's a real pain to clean. I recently saw that they came out with new models that have removable grill plates so you can wash them in the sink.

See the new kind here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007D ... BPC62SZVIU

I asked for one for my birthday

Standard weber kettle - love it. Also have 2 smokey Joe's (the little travel kettle) for camping. All have years of heavy use.

I just did a little grilling last weekend. I figure if I'm going to fire up the grill, I'm not going to just cook one thing. I buy the cheaper bulk/family packs of chicken and wrap it up in individual portions to stack in the freezer for later in the week. My trick to reheating in the microwave is to nuke it longer at a reduced power setting. I use mostly bottled marinades (fajita & terriyaki flavors) but I add my own touches (tequila & tobasco and rice vinegar & sake, respectively). Mesquite chips, soaked in water (makes them smoke instead of burn) adds a lot of flavor and drives the neighbors crazy.

Although I mass-grill the chicken, I'm not about to put the lamb chops in the freezer. I devour those immediately.

tinyhands,

I do the same thing with the wood chips, although I usually combine hickory with the mesquite -- love the flavor and love making the neighbors' mouths water... I've found that, with the new Weber, I actually get the pink 'smoke ring' on foods -- I never got that with my old grill, despite using the same pseudo-smoking method.

That must be a function of temperatures of both the grill and the smoke, though I've never read that anywhere. Would make a delicious science fair experiment for some enterprising youth.

Grill Maestro has an explanation of the 'pink smoke ring'... http://www.grillmaestro.com/explanation ... e-ring.htm

I have several theories as to why this one smokes better... I can place the wood chips under the food with the new grill (without spontaneous combustion), and the lid of the new grill keeps the smoke in better.

Well, I was raised to believe that electricty is for lighting, gas is for cooking indoors, and fire is for cooking outdoors. I don't have a prolem with others who do it [strike]wrong[/strike] differently. (Okay, done with the smart-aleck part.)

I've got a Weber Kettle grill, which was one of the first things we bought last year when we moved to an apartment with a yard that we could use for grilling. I don't use it as often as I'd like, as I got out of the habit living in places where I had nowhere to grill, but really there's nothing you can't cook in a grill if you know what you're doing. During the summer, having the grill can make the difference between turning on the AC or not, so it's a financial savings too. (At least that's what I tell myself.)

And yes, the type of hotdog does make a difference. As a Chicagoan, we have strict rules about hotdogs and the proper assembly of such. Kosher dogs are always better. We found a kosher butcher that makes the best ones in existance. Seriously.

Just cleaned up the BBQ and replaced the burner this past weekend. We have a Thermos 6 or 700 series, I think. It's a middle-lower end of the line type model - I think it was about $300 when we got it about 6 years ago. We BBQ nearly every night we're home in the spring/summer/fall, so it's held up well though heavy use.

A money saving note (that may be obvious): as long as the "shell" is still ok, it's dead easy to replace the burner and other parts. Only took me a minute, and it saved me from buying a new one. Seems really obvious, I know, but I'm sure there are people who would just go buy a new one rather than changing the burner. It really takes no mechanical aptitude (for basic models anyway).