I don’t expect a $200 grill to last a lifetime. But it has to cook meats and veggies evenly, with good temperature control.
No no no, it doesn’t HAVE to cook meat! You don’t either. Neither of you should, or at least, each or both should cook a lot less meat:
Livestock is the world’s largest land user. Grazing occupies 26 per cent of the earth’s ice-free terrestrial surface, and feed crop production uses about one third of all arable land.
Factor in that meat production requires staggering amounts of land, water, and energy compared to plant foods, and it’s not surprising that a 2010 UN report explained that western-type dietary preferences for meat would be unsustainable in future, given that the expected rise in world population. Demand for meat is expected to double by 2050. Meat consumption is already steadily rising in countries such as China, which once followed more sustainable, vegetable-based diets.
A person existing mainly on animal protein requires ten times more land to provide adequate food than someone living on vegetable sources of protein. Far more energy is put into animals per unit of food than for any plant crop because cattle consume 16 times as much grain as they produce as meat: it takes 16 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef.
Guess what. I’m an omnivore. I like meat. I love beef, I love seafood, I enjoy pork and chicken and lamb. So yeah…I fire up my now 10 year old Weber Genesis and I cook meat on it. I also cook plenty of veggies on it too. Like the author I adore grilled peaches. I also love a grilled romaine salad with Gruyere and Red Wine vinegar. Grilled tofu is fantastic. Any grilled veg is really good, olive oil, salt, pepper and toss and grill.
So you eat what you want. I will eat what I want. Leave me the hell alone.
I’ve had a few Char-Broils over the years and one thing was the same with all of them - the paint. Build quality can vary greatly with Char-Broil but if yours has no dents and assembles smoothly, you should be fine on that count.
Do yourself a favor and pick up a can of header paint now before you need it. Header paint is not only very resistant to high temps, it also comes in plenty of nifty colors to customize your grill. It needs to be cured to last but it’ worth the effort and if yours is anything like mine, you will probably need it before grilling season ends.
Yes, yes it does. Unless you sacrifice cow to the Char-Broil at least twice a year, it will become angry. You wouldn’t like Char-Broil when it’s angry.
Methinks you doth protest too much, and ironically as well, given that I don’t say the things I believe with any more vitriol than you just displayed in what you wrote. It’s funny how, as displayed in another thread yesterday, my statements of my beliefs, no matter how evenhandedly and politely framed, get read by some as “vitriol” and so on; I really think it’s what I say, not how I say it, yeah? But let’s drop the tone policing and stick to the topic at hand (ha, granted that I apparently failed to do just that in the last thread – such imperfect humans we be!). Oh, and ftr, I don’t hate men, white people, homophobes or meat-eaters, and I sometimes eat meat myself (and also consort more or less amicably with men, white people, and homophobes, believe it or not). White/male/classist privilege and supremacy, homophobia and othe forms of bigotry, opression, abuse, environmental degradation, etc. – those are my enemies. Actions, not people, “punch up, not down,” etc.
So, I’m not saying people shouldn’t eat meat, but it’s clear to me that too many people eat far too much of it. Hell, I’m actually with those who say we should do something else for the sake of eating meat – let’s all skip showers for beef! Well, those of us who do eat meat, that is.
As Bojack Horseman would say, True Dat. Ironically I often hate white men and meat eaters. But back on topic.
It pains me to see a ‘budget grill’ thread. This question has been beaten to the ground. Here is the order of grills, based on price, least expensive to more expensive.
Pretty sure you’re in the wrong place then as the topic of this thread is meat.
Full disclosure, I eat meat, and I just bought a charcoal grill and weber propane grill.
But I’m with @anon15383236 (and Moby) and agree that we eat way too much meat.
AND I feel that our meat industry is abhorrent, so I pay through the nose for local organic hormone/antibiotic free meat/eggs/dairy. ($20 a chicken!) And AND I would pay even more if they marketed a meat that assured me the animal was well cared for and did not suffer. Seriously. Someone market that. I would pay many many dollars for that.
I was a vegetarian for a decade. CAFO style beef production is a blight. Giant hen houses are evil. And overfished seas that turn into giant algae slime ponds make me cry.
If a person has hunger for dense protein, there are a million plant based items that do the same thing. Plus, to incorporate my silly screeds on grilling, fire roasted veg is one of the great culinary treats.
for what it’s worth, @anon15383236, my approach to food is as an omnivore but perhaps not a mundivore. my family’s diet is probably higher in red meat than you might find moral and the majority of the beef is purchased at one or the other grocery stores i shop in. my father is no longer living and my mother is too old now to go through the process of feeding out a calf, along with the various stages of slaughtering, butchering, and dividing the meat among the family as we once did. regarding the food for my immediate family, we eat beef 2-3 meals a week. chicken, quail, or duck (mostly chicken but the others make semi-regular appearances) 5-7 meals a week, pork shows up 5-7 meals a week and unless we run out before we’ve had a chance to feed out a pig it is seldom from a grocery store, fish and wild game mostly from my mother’s property rounds out our weekly budget of meals. i personally enjoy the flavor, textures, and versatility of tofu but despite my best efforts i have been unable to make any converts at my dinner table. i realize that the casual attitude most americans or even most europeans take towards the consumption of factory farmed animals is probably maddening to you. all of that said, i make the best of the circumstances available to me with compromises i can live with, and more importantly that my wife and younger son can live with, and go on about my business. i would actually rather go back to finishing a calf and slaughtering it, as much for the control over flavor and quality as for the reduced impact but i barely have the space to feed out a pig and a few chickens much less the space for a calf and my mother is no longer able to look after that process anymore.
i’m not going to try and tell you your business except to the extent of saying that you sometimes seem a bit harsh when you discuss issues related to meat. i mean no disrespect, there are issues over which i have been known to get a bit harsh, and as you obviously feel strongly about it i imagine you feel the harshness is deserved but don’t think that taking a hard line doesn’t change the way the objects of such harshness will approach a conversation.
If you live in the SF Bay Area I have a few meat producer recommendations. Otherwise, have you tried bison meat? They’re basically not domesticated so they’re guaranteed to be grass fed and reasonably well treated. Trust the meat thermometer when cooking, as it’ll look more red/raw than it actually is.
