cruzmisl Posted March 23, 2010 Report Share Posted March 23, 2010 Hi All, Recently there has been many discussions about not being able to get grill marks on steaks, not hot enough, need the grate lower etc etc. I decided to take it upon myself and help fellow owners realize the true potential of their cookers without messing with too much. First I have to say I am not an expert nor do I claim to be. High heat grilling on a KK has the potential to be dangerous so please be aware of flashbacks which can easily occur. Trust me, they aren't a joke. If you value the hair on your head God gave you or the Hair Club for Men down the street gave you, please follow my advice. This is a technique I use and it works very well for me for the last decade or so of cooking on ceramics. Open the top damper at least an inch and the bottom damper should be fully open and the door pulled away from the coooker about 1/2-1" Its also important your ash is cleaned out. Leaving ash from half a dozen low and slows can restrict airflow. It doesn't have to be clean but just be sure there isn't a huge pile in there. Next, put a layer of LUMP on the bottom of the charcoal basket and light with a torch in several different areas. I prefer lump because I find it burns hotter than briquettes and produces less ash. Also don't use giant sized lump pieces, they're great for low and slows but for grilling we want pieces that are smaller. In a few minutes they'll be started. At this point add more lump on top. Don't pile it up to the top because its not necessary and will actually choke the fire and minimize max temperatures. You're looking for a good fuel and airflow balance. Close the lid and after a short wait you'll have a blazing fire that resembles Mordor. After a short wait your temperature gauge will look like this. No this isn't a trick and I didn't take this cold, its actually pushing 800f As you can see the grill temps are correspondingly high. It went down a bit while I tried to take the photo and not get burned but you get the point. Now its time to throw on your desired hunk of beast. High heat grilling like this is not designed for 2" thick cuts. If you attempt it the outside of your meat will be burnt and the inside blue-not good. Ideally its best for 1" cuts (give or take a bit). In this example I threw on some ribeyes I got from a local organic farmer and closed the lid for one minute. I then opened the lid, turned them 45 degrees and closed the lid for another minute. Then I flipped them over and pushed he draft door in all the way so the temps aren't as hot. This is where it gets dangerous. If you choke off the air supply to a ravaging fire and then open the lid shortly after you can have a backdraft which is very serious. Don't peek for at least a minute and then when you do, crack the lid open slightly to allow airflow and then slowly open it fully. Trust me on this one. Cook to desired temperature and this is what you will be rewarded with. I may not win any awards but they tasted great and were cooked to perfection. Sorry no interior meat pics, didn't last that long I hope this helps someone. I burned a hole in my dress shirt doing this and the wife is p!ssed She just bought it on the weekend. Figures a hot cinder pops from the coal when I was lighting it and landed on my right shoulder...... Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T Rex Posted March 23, 2010 Report Share Posted March 23, 2010 Hey Cruzmisl, thanks! This will come in very handy. Mrs. T Rex is away at the moment however I will make this as soon as she returns. Looks great! T Rex ps sorry about the shirt........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myself888 Posted March 23, 2010 Report Share Posted March 23, 2010 Sacrificial Shirt Thanks so much for your sacrifice. My husband and I watched this post together. We do reverse searing with our steaks and can see how this would easily work for us. Start the coals as for a low and slow with less air, then when we reach internal temp, pull off the thick cuts of beast and stoke up the heat. This looks very straight forward and you didn't even need to use a lower grill. Thanks so much for your help. The only problem we had was that we were eating potato leek soup while looking at your tasty steaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxwrangler Posted March 23, 2010 Report Share Posted March 23, 2010 Re: How to grill on a KK - a tutorial ...a hot cinder pops from the coal when I was lighting it and landed on my right shoulder... Could be worse. A number of years ago a pretty good sized glowing mesquite ember popped out of the Weber I had at the time and went straight for my eye where it adhered to my eyeball and lower lid. Fortunately it hit the white of my eye rather than a critical part so there is no lasting damage other than some now nearly invisible scarring. Still, it was not one of my more pleasant BBQ experiences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffB Posted March 23, 2010 Report Share Posted March 23, 2010 Re: How to grill on a KK - a tutorial I hope this helps someone. I burned a hole in my dress shirt doing this and the wife is p!ssed She just bought it on the weekend. Figures a hot cinder pops from the coal when I was lighting it and landed on my right shoulder. I had some South American charcoal that popped like crazy when lighting. When I was lighting it one time a piece flew up into the air and landed just beyond my gauntlet leather gloves, It instantly burned a cavity in the skin of my forearm about a centimeter in diameter. I was using a handheld torch just like you have in the picture. I immediately went out and bought a Bernzomatic JT850 (found it at my local Lowe's). It has a nice long reach to it and I can now stand well away when lighting. Thanks for the tutorial. I will have to try lighting just a little charcoal and then piling a little more on once lit. I normally pile the charcoal all the way to the top (the more the better right ) but I may be holding back the airflow. Will let you know how it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted March 24, 2010 Report Share Posted March 24, 2010 Thanks Joe.. Great sear marks even from up on the Main grill As you can see, getting great sear marks is very simple even up on the main grill.. Can you imagine how those marks would have looked if he had used the lower or the sear grill way down below.. Also when grilling it's also more economical to use a smaller amount of charcoal because it takes a long time for the fire to cool off and die from raging at over 700º. Thanks Joe.. Additional comments: Your going to use up much more fuel/charcoal using the main grill searing to get the same job done.. there is a reason for the lower and sear grill. You can pre-cook or dwell on the main grill but it is much faster, less charcoal and less high heat stress on the grill to do it with the sear grill. Also best to never peg your thermometer like that.. no reason to ever go 800+ dome temp.. Thanks J Also.. we all need to put posts in their proper area so they can be found later... This of course should be in Techniques.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruzmisl Posted March 25, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 I'm happy some found it helpful. A few notes though. I typically don't bring the temps that high but for demonstation purposes I let it run high. Anything around 600f will yield the same result. Also the sear marks would have been better had the steaks been cut more even and without a bone. The bone allowed some of the meat to be raised off the grill. Even still they turned out pretty good. Lastly, the sear grill will use less coal but I'm lazy and hate flipping grills around. For the added few cents of lump, I'll stick with my lazy habits Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffB Posted March 25, 2010 Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 One thing that might be getting in my way of getting sear marks on the main grill is that I like to oil my grill grates just before I put food on. This helps clean the grates (biggest reason) but also prevents food from sticking, although for a steak, sticking is not likely. I wonder how much I cool the grate surface down by oiling them? I will have to pull out my infrared thermometer and test that out next time. Anyone know what the minimum temperature the grill surface needs to be in order to get sear marks? I imagine it varies with food type but it would be nice to know the general ballpark in which things happen... off to google... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruzmisl Posted March 25, 2010 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 A good sear depends on amount of heat and moisture of the meat (on the surface). If you have moisture on the meat it will steam. I always pat my steaks dry then oil the steaks before putting them on as it aids in heat transfer. Since the grill is 700f and most oils smoke at 450f I'm not sure how much good it will do. I've wiped at these temps and it just smokes. The grill still looks dry because the oil just burned off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
U2PLT Posted March 30, 2010 Report Share Posted March 30, 2010 Grilling There is a new product www.grillgrate.com. I have used it and it makes great grill marks on everything. I got the large size; so it covers the normal top grate. I just started a good lump fire and in 20 minutes put a dozen hot dogs on it, and it cooked great and I had great grill marks. When you go to their WEB you will find some You Tube videos you can watch about using it. With their design I got grill marks twice as fast as using the KK grills, which are great, but this patented design really works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPT41 Posted March 31, 2010 Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 Sounds interesting. Would like to hear more as you use it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
U2PLT Posted March 31, 2010 Report Share Posted March 31, 2010 Grilling The grilmate is made of anodized AL. While all the KK's are made of SS; which is great for cleaning and a lifetime of use. The reason the grillmate heats up so fast; even sitting on top the KK SS grill; is related to a complex formula for thermal conductivity rates. However the the factor is "k" the thermal conductivity rate which has been measure in tests long ago. Al has a thermal "k" factor of 117 while SS varies from 10.8 to 16.6. The SS variation is due to different alloys. So AL is 10 times faster at heating up. That is why most of the SS clad pans have AL between 2 layers of SS. The first cook I did with hotdogs was to get use to it. The KK thermometer on the hat got up to 300* while the hotdogs were cooking just fine and getting great grill marks, because of their design of the grill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffB Posted April 26, 2010 Report Share Posted April 26, 2010 Works great but be careful I decided to try this on some strips steaks I recently bought. Based on my experience I can definitely say this technique works, but you need to be very careful. My normal grilling procedure is almost exactly what cruizmisl describes with the only exception being how much charcoal is initially used and the fact I don't pile on more -- I just load the basket all the way to the top at the beginning. With my normal procedure I get decent temps but nothing that really puts great sear marks on meat without resorting to the lower/sear grills (not as convenient as the main grill). So, following cruzmisl's advice I nearly emptied the charcoal basket (from a previous cook) leaving only a small layer of charcoal. After my normal lighting procedure I then closed her up and went to go get the steaks ready. I wish I would have kept better track of time so I could give exact numbers, but I came back sometime between 5 and 10 minutes. The dome thermometer read 800F!. Oops. I opened her up and piled a little more charcoal on top and then went to grab the steaks. I figured the temperature would go down some (at least for a little bit) after introducing new charcoal so I didn't close down the dampers just yet. When I came back only a few minutes later with the steaks the dome temperature was 1000F! Double oops. I quickly closed down the dampers to get things under control. I like to oil the grates to clean them before putting food on. This time the grill grates were so hot that the oil immediately burst into flames when I wiped them down. My end results looked like this: It is a good thing Dennis builds a cooker that can handle these temps but next time I will be sure to monitor things a little more carefully. Either way, I now realize that it is all about the airflow stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primeats Posted April 26, 2010 Report Share Posted April 26, 2010 Nice job Jeff, couldn't help but notice the steaks resemble the outline of a mini animal carcass minus the heads and lower legs. This is the one place I know where that statement won't gross anyone out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruzmisl Posted April 26, 2010 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2010 Jeff, nice job! You really do need to monitor the fire when using this technique. As I said earlier, for bragging rights, 1000f is great but for cooking 6-700f will yield great grill marks that are brown and carmelized not charred and black. After a few trial and error runs you'll determine how much coal you really need and what the dampers should be set at. Either way those are some nice strips! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
