Charcoal vs. Gas Grills

Posting on this blog has become almost an annual event. With so much going on in life's everyday events, posting on a blog isn't high on the list. Probably easier to post on my Facebook page, but that is another post. But now it is getting into good grilling & gardening weather and I can share my adventures with the flame.

I own both a charcoal (Weber) and a gas (SunBeam) grill and enjoy using them both. These are only "urban" sized and not meant to be pulled behind a truck or big enough to cook for a large event, but the charcoal vs. gas debate is the same, no matter the size.

Speed. Gas is fast. Charcoal is slow. You don't want to wait 30 to 45 minutes for the coals to get ready to cook on after work, you want to grill & eat. Gas grills were made for this. And with smoke boxes and different drip flavorizor devices, you can get some of the grill smoke flavor on your gas grill.

Now, charcoal may be slow, but that is the advantage you need at times. Now, I do not use self lighting charcoal or starter fluid. I really don't like petroleum flavored food. I bought a charcoal chimney starter and it lights the coals first time, every time, with only a match and a piece of newspaper. If you own a charcoal grill, this is a must-have piece of equipment. You can prep your grilling items while the coals burn down to that perfect gray ash consistency. As far as charcoal itself goes, I normally use the regular Kingsford brickettes. I have used the natural hardwood lump charcoal as well. Lump will burn hotter, but quicker and the brickettes will burn more even and slowly. I like the lump charcoal for steaks and the brickettes for ribs and chicken. You will get more smoke from the lump, but some soaked wood chips put onto the brickettes will smoke nicely as well.

You can grill on direct or indirect heat on both grills and they will take up about the same amount of space in your garage. I consider buying charcoal and refilling propane tanks a wash as well. Gas has an edge on being cleaner (no ash to dispose of). It really just depends on what you need to grill and how much time you have. Stopping from a summer event or fixing supper on a weekday evening, you will want to do gas. But a lazy Sunday afternoon, sitting out by the grill (in the shade), partaking in a nice cold beverage of your choice, cooking on a charcoal grill will provide great relaxation and cheap therapy to boot!

I own one of each and love them both. They both have their advantages and their place in the spotlight. Get one of each and go grill!

Grills Gone Wild

I am proud to announce another Grill to the fleet! I have purchased a Weber Gold Charcoal Grill. I broke it in last Sunday with some Cedar Planked Salmon Steaks. I also grilled my first bread on it and the taste was great! Both kid's exact words for the bread was "Awesome"!

This evening I will be grilling some T-Bone Steaks, some more bread, shrimp skewers, and some asapragus.

Now, I know most of you out there are great cooks and grillers. I also know some of you (friends & family) own some mighty big and impressive grilling rigs. I'm not competing with you or saying I'm better......I'm just proud of what I have and happy I can cook on it and everybody likes it!!! And to everyone who sent me information on new gas grills, THANK YOU! I have not made any purchases yet, but the Weber Genesis and Holland gas grills got high reguards from you! I did clean and refurbish my current SunBeam GrillMaster grill. Two new wheels and hubcaps, new grease catcher cup & holder, replaced chipped and broken grill rocks, and I removed and scrubbed the grill grates and cleaned the inside and outside good. Bought a new cast iron skillet to grill on, a new cast iron smoker box, a cast iron griddle, and several new accessories for the new Weber and old SunBeam grills. A corner of the garage now looks like a grill store.

From the garden front - I'm getting a few tomatoes from the Tomato patch, but the quantity is not what I would have liked. The bottom leaves and branches are dieing off. They look like shrubs right now. If not for the cages, they would be on the ground. I have several green tomatoes on top at the moment. I am feeding and watering, so I'm not sure of what is going on. Not to mention the birds pecking at the ones that are "just about" ripe. Time for some pie-pan scare-crows!

My Dixon lawnmower has served me faithfully for the last 15 years with only regular maintenance needed. It finally broke on me. The right hand side of the drive transmission locked up. I took it to the local authorized Dixon shop and they rebuilt the cone-drive transmission. Runs great and I should have several more years of service out of it. I did find out that Dixon was bought out by Husqvarna and they closed the Coffeeville, Kansas factory. I was told everything was moved to one of Husqvarna's factories in North Carolina.

May your garden be green and your grill be hot.........till next update....

Gardenin' & Grillin' Gabbin'

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! This one is bittersweet as it is the first without Dad, but I am thankful for everything he did and meant to me.

My Gardenia's are just finishing their blooming and it did smell good around those plants the past week or so. I have several Marigolds coming up from last year's seed and speaking of that, I have four tomato plants that came up on their own from seed. I have no idea which variety came up. I only planted four this year to cut down...HA! Now I have eight. I noticed some worms eating on the leaves, so I put a light dustin' of Sevin dust on them. I know, not exactly the "green" way to do it, but sometimes there IS better livin' through chemicals.... I pulled a red tomato from the vine yesterday. It was not very photogenic and it was a little smaller than a baseball, but it is the first pickin' and will be sliced up this evening and go on some grilled burgers. My Hydrangea's are doing well this year, but the past few weeks of almost 100 degree heat and no rain are forcing me to water a little more often. I am trying to reduce my plant and yard watering (excluding tomatoes) to a minimum to conserve water and reduce my water bill. We need that money for gas!

Gas...hmmm, that leads me to propane and grillin'. My wife is wanting me to get a new grill (Bless her!). I would like one that is a little bigger and I am able to control the heat more. I did a lot of internet research this weekend and every blog, website, or comment page all pointed to Weber being the best quality grill on the market. Others (and there are many) may be cheaper and have more bells and whistles, but indications are that they will not last. I'd love to hear from any of you with your grill experiences!

I'm looking at a new Weber Genesis series gas grill and maybe a new Weber charcoal kettle grill as well. I do a lot with my SunBeam GrillMaster Gas Grill, but it has it's limits and sometimes only charcoal will do. I have not bought anything yet as I have only completed the internet research. Now I need to go and "kick the tires" and put my hands on the grill. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out, but in the meantime, the SunBeam GrillMaster will keep on cookin'.

Sometime in the future I will get into composting and recycling......we do a lot of that around here and we never fill up the trashcan before garbage pick-up day.

Hope your Grill stays lit!

Grillin' Pork Chops

This evening, I tried some new marinades and one of my traditional favorites with some pork chops on the grill. The pork chops had the bone in them and were custom cut at our local butcher shop, Peacock Meats #2 here in Warner Robins. I put four of them in a bag with my traditional marinade. The other four were split with two in a bag with Don's Seasoning Delight from Augusta, Georgia and the other two were marinaded in a Ginger Root Marinade from Hillside Orchard Farms Inc. in Tiger, Georgia. They spent a few hours in the fridge and I laid them out for about 30 minutes before they went on the grill. They grilled nicely and all were good. My traditional marinade was voted 4-0 the best of the three, with the Ginger Root marinade coming in second. Don's was not bad, but it will be used in the future for the crock pot marinade for roast beef. It make's an awesome crock pot roast!
Next, I made two different servings of grilled veggies (zukini & squash). The first was fixed with salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and some Dale's Seasoning Sauce. The second was fixed with salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and some of the Ginger Root Marinade. Hands down, by a 4-0 margine, the Ginger Root Marinade was excellent with grilled veggies.
Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend and I see BBQ chicken & ribs on the grill in my future for the family getting together!

Spring Time Again

I have not posted in a while. Dad passed away back in October and the winter months were filled with sickness (2008 is the year of the germ) and coaching two Upwards basketball teams at the church. But time heals and spring renews hope.
I got out "The Grill" a couple of weekends ago and grilled some nice T-Bone steaks my wife picked up from a butcher in Hawkinsville. The first grillin' of 2008 and those steaks were good! However, when I started to roll out the grill, the front wheel came off. Seems that the plastic wheel center broke. I grilled with the grill on blocks (nice neighborhood...haha). Well, SunBeam stopped making grills back in 2003, so I found a place on-line in Chicago that sells OEM SunBeam Grillmaster Wheels (no chrome or spinners...sorry). So, I will keep repairing the 10 year old GrillMaster for as long as I can and keep using it.
My tomatoes went into the ground last Saturday. I crushed some eggshells into the planting hole to provide calcium to try and prevent blossom-end rot....we will see if it helps.
Planted some ornamental grasses in the Trellis area and I used the leafblower to clean off the Trellis patio and I put out the ceramic plates onto the table and got out the seat coushions....it is officially open!
My Japanese Snowball bushs do not like living in the Pine Island, so I moved one across the yard with the Forsythia and see how it does there. I replaced it with a dark purple Elephant Ear plant. One of my shrubs in back of the house died over the winter and this may be a blessing is disguise. It would grow and block my view from the Sunroom....constant overtrimming probably did it in. I removed the corpse, er, dead shrub and I have a nice area I am going to plant some colorful (low growing) annuals (this is another weekend). Not to mention the new Geraniums at the front door (Red) and back door (pink). New patio plants, mailbox plant, and a new lantana at the sidewalk patio entrance, shrub trimming, and waalaa, nice plants and a sore back! Last weekend, I did the spring mowing, trimming, and edging. It is not the 18th hole at Augusta, but it isn't bad.
Here's to your garden and grillin"!!!

The Grill

I don't have a "name" for my grill. It is just called "The Grill". It is a Sunbeam Model 520 GrillMaster. They do not make them anymore. I, or I should say, "we" received the grill as a wedding gift when my wife and I got married back in November 1998. It was a combined gift from the Doub Family and they should be happy to know that it is still in use today and it has grilled many a meal to this point. The Doub family actually grilled/smoked BBQ chicken halves for our wedding reception. That's right, I said BBQ chicken. We did not have a "traditional" wedding. We had a private ceremony with only immediate family in the church, but we invited EVERYBODY to the BBQ chicken dinner reception in the church fellowship hall. There was a BIG turnout and everybody had a GREAT time! It was like a big family get together! So you could say that our marriage is founded on BBQ! LOL! And a grill is the perfect symbol of that! Maybe not the most romantic symbol, but I did marry the most wonderful woman in the world, so there is nothing else to compare to her anyway.

I keep it in the garage when it is not in use, so it does not sit out in the weather. I did have to replace the burner last summer though. I found an on-line parts supplier for Sunbeam grills and bought two stainless steel burner assemblies. I know, one should last the rest of the life of the grill, but who knows.....I may be still using this grill 30 years from now and I needed a spare burner assembly! My marriage should outlast the grill easily (that death do you part thing...), but I would like the grill to give a run for it's money!

I want a charcoal/wood burning smoker grill next to really do BBQ right, but the Sunbeam Grillmaster will always be there for burgers, dogs, brats, chicken, pork chops, steaks, chicken, etc.

This is the reason for the Garden of Grillin'....

And to my good friend Lee...."Smells Good!"

Seeing Red.

Happy 4th of July! Independance Day means red, white, and blue. So what better day to celebrate the first ripe red tomato picked from my garden. There are several tomatoes turning, but they are not quite ready yet. Soon though. Tomato sandwiches will be coming soon!



Later this evening, it will be sliced and paired with a juicy burger from the grill. No warm weather holiday event is complete without something from the grill. Tonight, it will be juicy cheeseburgers and Brats. Mmmmm, I can taste them now....

I hope your garden is growing, your grill is lit, and you are enjoying your freedom.