Thoughts on Santa Maria/Argentenian/gaucho/ parrilla grills

[tekobo]

31 minutes ago, Basher said:

Thank you all for the well wishes.
Tekobo I was born in PNG and my dad worked for johnnies dad. Johnny has a several years on me and he use to look after me as a baby.


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I sort of guessed that.  After I had worked out that PNG was not a type of graphics file but a place called Papua New Guinea.  Great to have friends like that.  May you both live a long, adventure filled life.  

[tony b]

@Basher you have a special friendship indeed there, mate! Cherish it for as long as you both are breathing! 

[C6Bill]

Happy Birthday !!!!!!!

 

[jeffshoaf]

I had my first cook that made good use of all the space available on the big grill yesterday. Three spatchcocked chickens that were dry brined with salt and garlic powder for 24 hours, rice-stuffed peppers, and skewers of miscellaneous veggies. Got some 20 inch skewers from Amazon on prime day and  they just fit across the grate frame. I also grilled asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and some greens in grill baskets but didn't get pics of those.

Everyone was happy with the results!

[tony b]

Awesome!

[tekobo]

That looks fantastic @jeffshoaf!

[MacKenzie]

A feast for the eyes.   

[Basher]

All that wood is going to give you a hell of a big fire.
The food looked good

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[jeffshoaf]

1 hour ago, Basher said:

All that wood is going to give you a hell of a big fire.
The food looked good

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It was a big fire! After letting most of the wood on the floor burn down to embers, i loaded the chickens and waited about 30 minutes before adding the skewers. After the chickens and skewers were done, grilled asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and some mixed greens in grilling baskets. It took about an hour and a half to cook everything; added 5 or 6 additional splits to the brassero during the cook so there's definitely more fuel consumption than with the kk.

 It was certainly hot! I have some grilling gloves with short gauntlets but i need some welding gloves or something else that covers my arms to the elbow when raking coals from under the brassero.

[jeffshoaf]

There has been some discussion on the merits of fire brick vs grated floors with the main advantage of a grated floor being better air flow for a better burn. I grilled a big batch of burgers and hot dogs Saturday on my brick lined grill; as you can see in the attached pics, i had no issues with getting a good burn!

One i put the food on, i was very busy and forgot to take pics but the results were very popular, especially the burgers. It was most attendees first ever wood-fired burgers, tho most assumed it was the burgers instead of the cooking method. I used members mark 80/20 1/3 lb frozen burgers for Sam's Club. The hot dogs were a hit too but wienie roasts over wood fires are well within most folks' experience around here.

[tekobo]

That's some fire you got going there @jeffshoaf!  What was it like for smoke?  I only tried wood once in my Argie grill - too much smoke for my urban setting.  

[jeffshoaf]

1 hour ago, tekobo said:

That's some fire you got going there @jeffshoaf!  What was it like for smoke?  I only tried wood once in my Argie grill - too much smoke for my urban setting.  

There was quite a lot of smoke initially but it went blue pretty quickly. The wood was kiln dried so very dry; I had newspaper tucked into the log cabins and I think a good percentage of the white smoke came from that paper. I waited for it to burn down to mostly embers before starting to cook;  maybe 20  to 30  minutes. 

I'm still learning this grill and cooking with wood and this was really too much wood and too much heat; I can manage the cooking temp by raising the gates but burned my arm from the radiant heat while flipping the burgers. I had on heat gloves but they only reach about halfway between my wrist and elbow and the burn was in the exposed area below my elbow. I guess I need to get some welding gloves with gauntlets that reach my elbow.

[Basher]

That’s a huge fire Jeff.
Tekobo I would think your wood is either green or it’s absorbed some english moisture out of the air.
I use hardwood- stacked no more than 3 inches high. If I need more heat mid cook( only happened once when we were grazing through a deer over a few hours), then I add an extruded coconut charcoal. Why? The charcoal doesn’t flame like wood. It as it ignites it becomes instant embers.
I do love the flexibility of winding the food closer or further from the heat and watching/ hearing the cooking happen.


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[tony b]

That's a crazy big fire, dude! Glad that you tamed it and the food came out great! The benefit of being able to adjust those grates up/down!

 

[tekobo]

11 hours ago, tony b said:

The benefit of being able to adjust those grates up/down!

I think it was the benefit of waiting for the fire to die down.  He would have needed a grate about a floor up to get away from those flames!

@jeffshoaf, @Basher thank you for the tips.  I do use kiln dried wood but it will of course absorb moisture from the air.  I like the idea of wood fire and found that my Solo stove is very good at keeping the smoke down so I have used that instead.  Will try again on my Argie grill.  The thought of wood smoke on my burgers.  Hmmm.  

[jeffshoaf]

Did another small cookb using oak on the big grill last Saturday. I didn't make too big of a fire this time but did have to add wood during the session. I'm still experimenting with different sear techniques and used the griddle for the sear this time. Cooked all the sides on the grill as well, including baking a couple of potatoes in the embers. Very tasty!

Edited October 4, 2021 by jeffshoaf

[C6Bill]

That’s a great looking meal 😁

[Tyrus]

Nice cook Jeff, see you and the grill are getting along "just fine". I noticed the fire of Aug 24 the roaring inferno and it made think if I did that I wouldn't have a roof left. My roof is 9-10 ft so a controlled fire with splits and lump or charcoal have to suffice until some expansion improvements come around. By the looks of it you appear to be all settled in with the pit, is it all that you expected? 

[jeffshoaf]

19 hours ago, Tyrus said:

Nice cook Jeff, see you and the grill are getting along "just fine". I noticed the fire of Aug 24 the roaring inferno and it made think if I did that I wouldn't have a roof left. My roof is 9-10 ft so a controlled fire with splits and lump or charcoal have to suffice until some expansion improvements come around. By the looks of it you appear to be all settled in with the pit, is it all that you expected? 

Since I'm usually cooking for just myself, it seems to be overkill for a lot of my meals especially since I have the 23" KK, a Weber kettle, and a gas grill and all of those are upstairs on my deck and convenient to the kitchen, but it's been great for the bigger events. I'm still learning how to cook with wood -- I tend to use to much wood and build too big of a fire (like the August one); I over compensated on this cook and used too little. The grill is under my deck with the brassero hanging out from under the deck but the bottom of the deck is 12' up. I've considered putting some metal roofing or other metal over it to help deflect the heat but I think I'm ok without it.

I'm mostly happy with the grill;  my only real quibble is the brassero. On their website and videos, The brassero hangs on the back of the grill with no legs leaving the floor totally open and making it easy to pull embers out and position them, but my brassero is on legs and stands on the floor. It's also more enclosed than shown on the website/videos. It functions fine but I really liked the original and it irritates me that they didn't mention it during our discussions and haven't noted the difference on the website. I called and discussed it with then after I received mine and they said they made the change because others had complained about the original design scratching up the back of the grill;  they offered to work up some brackets that I could mount to the brassero and hang it. As you can see in one of the pics above, I cut some fire bricks in half and raised the brassero some which makes it a bit easier to access embers underneath and that helped some.

My big issue now is that I have too many things I want to try on all of my grills (plus I have pizza ovens as well)  and I'm on a diet! Cooking for one tends towards having leftovers too so one cook can sometimes feed me for days - the last pork butt I fixed in my KK fed me for a week. I'm planning on spatchcocking and roasting a whole chicken Saturday in the KK and trying out the new cold smoker that was delivered yesterday;  that's 3 or 4 meals before my next cooking adventure.

[Poochie]

Why don't you use a Seal-a-Meal on some of those leftovers? I'd get sick of eating that pork butt every day for sure. Your setup is beautiful and I love that grill/Santa Maria. It takes a while to get the hang of cooking with wood but you look like you're well on your way. That steak supper looked delicious!