8"? The damn thing will almost heat up my 22" cast iron to red hot. Sure, at that size you treat it like a wok, but it puts out enough BTUs to boil 8 gallons.
Eta
Propane is at best 40% efficient
http://www.alliantgas.com/why-propane/cooking-with-propane/
Induction is 90%+
USDE says 84%, but they are conservative. The only more efficient method is immersion, which doesn’t apply to grilling.
Propane has one thing going for it, portability. But on every other aspect it loses.
This is starting to seem like a lot of work, bringing the cooktop outside, getting the cast iron, running an extension cord.
Right now I turn a knob and push a button.
To each their own. I never run out of gas and have to get a tank refilled (I have refilled more tanks than most propane professionals :D)
Oh, we’re civilized around here these days. There was a NG line that came with the house.
noice!
csb: i had some friends who rented a house that had NG appliances, but for some reason to NG lines. solution? hook up a propane tank to each appliance. i never told them why i didn’t go back. (to be fair though it was a 1900’ish farm house, so it was draftier than most exhaust systems could hope to be)
Did they even have gas lines that ran to the house? My MIL doesn’t, so it’s propane for her.
they never did. and using propane indoors is… for the adventurous.
Oh, you mean small propane tanks stored indoors next to each appliance instead of an exterior tank that runs lines inside! Oh noes!
yep!!! a cylinder next to every appliance. i was baffled.
I’m on some sort of list for buying food grade saltpetre . So probably.
Propane is 100% about convenience and heat control. If I come home past midnight and I want something hot to eat I can crank it up and get something cooked inside of 30 minutes without dirtying a pan. And once I get it dialed in to a particular temp or burner set up I know it’s going to stay there all day (or at least until the tank is about to kick).
I’m surprised no one has played that up more. Propane, pellet and electronic smokers have all sorts of thermostats and auto feeds and wireless controllers. Propane grills still just operate on a high medium low off model.
[quote=“Ryuthrowsstuff, post:40, topic:63489”]
More over charcoal burns very cleanly with little smoke. It contributes very little itself to the the flavor of the food.
[/quote] The more reasonable argument is not about the flavor that charcoal is supposed to add but about NOT adding flavors from petrochemical exhaust to your food.
The other advantage of propane is that I can leave the grill running pretty much all day for a cookout, so people can cook a burger when they’re hungry, without having to add charcoal and wait for the new charcoal to start from the old.
If you are not using charcoal or wood, you are not grilling, you are just cooking outside. And if you are not using lump charcoal with a chimney you are doing it wrong.
I dislike lump charcoal. I find it difficult to get a consistently hot fire, it burns out to quickly. And the handful of bags I’ve purchased were full of pieces that looked an awful lot like pressure treated wood and bits and pieces of plastic, metal, and even terra cotta construction waste. I no longer trust the stuff. Professionals, particularly those guys doing real BBQ tend to use brickettes. Because they are consistent. Mostly standard Kingston stuff. But there are brickettes with less binder that burn hotter and cleaner if that’s your concern. Or you can do what my grandpa does. Shop vac on its blow setting to feed more oxygen to the fire.
I am getting warnings from discourse that I’ve posted too much in this thread, so I’ll make this the last one.
What brand of lump were you getting? The bags I pick up here in OR are perfect, beautiful charcoal. And it burns much hotter than brickettes. I can take pics of the bags if you’d like.
Kingsford has a huge plant about two miles away, but I never see bbq’ers around here use it. It is either pellets (like a traeger), lump, wood, or propane. Then again this could be completely regional since Kingsford is considered ‘common’.
Oh, and the shop vac blower? shakes your hand you and your grandfather have it right 
I’ll second that, and plug the Weber-branded chimney starter. The spiral cone that they use gives you more surface area, so it’s quicker to start. You treat one of those well, and it’ll last forever. One of my former bosses is retired, and still uses his dad’s 50+ year old Weber.
I used to have a Char-Broil grill, that I won at a company raffle. I worked at a Kmart back in my college days and because they stuck me in the garden center over the summers, I sold a few of them. They worked pretty well, but the problem was that a couple of years down the road, there were new models out, and the parts weren’t interchangeable back then. After I had mine for about 5 years, it went out for scrap, and it wasn’t a cheap model. Never again, unless something drastic happens that causes me to change my mind.
Which reminds me: due to them being plugged on BoingBoing years ago, I got an STC-1000:
Mine’s mounted in a project box. While a PID would be better, it works well enough that here in a while, I’m going to fill a crock with water, set the temp, and seal some frozen chicken breasts in bags (ziplock under water, allegedly every bit as safe as the vacuum-seal bags.) Around about an hour before supper time, I’ll get some charcoal going, and after I cook some potatoes on the grill, I’ll brush the cooked breasts with olive oil and butter, and brown them there. You know how chicken breasts are awful on the grill? Not these!
I’ve personally bought bags of Royal Oak and Cowboy, both had the problem. And I’ve had similar issues when I used the stuff cooking with other people in various brands. Like I said the issue is consistency, even if I could fumble my way to regularly available brand that doesn’t usually contain sketchy crap each bag is going to be different and perform differently. Which makes it 1 hard for me to get the hang of 2 a bad idea for me to rely on even if I manage to get the hang of it. I’ve had chimneys of the stuff work beautifully, and then the next load out of the bag barely burns. I even went so far as to sort the stuff by size so I could make sure there wasn’t any dust or smaller bits choking it off. Even when it worked for me the high heat was so short lived it was a bit impractical to actually cook on. I don’t like it.
I’ve seen a few caterers that use lump for grilling around here. But they’re mostly the sort of high end caterers that market their use of lump as a mark of distinction and refinement. Outside of guys cooking on big green eggs I don’t think I’ve seen an actual BBQ professional recommend lump. TV chefs sure. With the komados apparently you need to minimize ash production to keep the small fire they use from dropping temp too fast. Lump has the least ash so its often prefered.
Though from what I understand there are several brands and styles of brickette that burn just or nearly as hot as lump. Apparently it all comes down to the ash produced by the binders, more binder = more ash = less air = cooler fire. So low or no binder brickettes burn hotter than regular, with better consistency and fewer disturbingly large pieces of PVC piping.
Here let me self servingly post something from some one authoritative who agrees with me!
If this is the mark of good BBQ, I think we both agree.
Harry Soo of Slap Yo Daddy BBQ, one of the top 10 competition teams year in and year out once told me “I buy whatever is on sale.” Mike Wozniak of Quau, the 2010 Kansas City Barbeque Society Team of the Year and winner of scores of championships told me “Charcoal is for heat, not flavor. Wood is for flavor. I cook on whatever brand the competition sponsor is giving away for free.”
(Ignore the pine, I just wanted to keep it covered)
What brand of lump do you play with BTW? I may try it again at some point, but only if I can be reasonably assured I’m not paying for half a pound or better of potentially dangerous construction nonsense and several pounds of soot.
Avoid the “Cowboy” brand of lump charcoal. That stuff is full of the crap you mention. I recommend Green Egg.
I use one of those electric air bed pumps if I need to start a barbecue fast. You need to make sure you’re in an area where sparks aren’t a problem (and probably wear goggles too), but you’re good to start cooking within about 10 minutes. I never use liquids either - a firelighter, a few twigs from last year’s Christmas tree and charcoal on top.
