69 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

The bar just bought a weber from Cap. Iron, they matched Costco price (by dropping $100) plus delivered and set up.

[t-mitch4]

Consider a charcoal grill. Weber Kettle grills are not a lot of money.
Lump charcoal is available from Canadian tire. Lump will burn cleaner and much hotter than briquettes too.

I have propane a propane grill and a charcoal grill as well as a charcoal smoker BBQ. When time permits I use the charcoal. More work than propane but worth the effort I think.

Tom

[VicHockeyFan]

Propane is substandard to nat. gas. If you buy a grill and have net. gas at home, get the gas guys to hook it up. Beats going to the gas station for propane all the time, plus it burns hotter and cheaper.

[gumgum]

^And it always works out that you run out of propane when you're hosting a bbq party and you're too tipsy to drive to refill it.
BTW, I've got a whole recycle box chock full of cardboard if you're interested.

[Rorschach]

Propane is substandard to nat. gas. If you buy a grill and have net. gas at home, get the gas guys to hook it up. Beats going to the gas station for propane all the time, plus it burns hotter and cheaper.

Propane is the hotter burning fuel. Propane is a gas that is present in most natural gas and is the first product refined from crude petroleum. It contains approximately 2,500 Btu per cubic foot. Methane is the chief constituent of natural gas and has a heating value of about 1012 Btu per cubic foot. Therefore, propane has more than twice the heat value of natural gas per cubic foot.

[LJ]

[quote name='"LJ"']That COSTCO grill is a bargain at $1099. I have been looking for a BBQ as well and the couple of places I have been to, would put it over $2000 minimum, I have not been to BBQ time but I will go and check it out before I buy the one at COSTCO. I'm guessing that their built in premier series with a side burner will be over 2k.

I looked at the Jackson Grills at Capital Iron - Jackson premier grill is about 3k. Anything comparable (any brand) to the COSTCO grill is at least 50% higher some as much as 300%.

Going to COSTCO tomorrow to pick one up.

I really like the grill on the Jackson though, the SS bars roll so that you move food around easily and can clean the grill easier.

[m0nkyman]

What I picture when I think barbeque:

[VicHockeyFan]

Propane is substandard to nat. gas. If you buy a grill and have net. gas at home, get the gas guys to hook it up. Beats going to the gas station for propane all the time, plus it burns hotter and cheaper.

Propane is the hotter burning fuel. Propane is a gas that is present in most natural gas and is the first product refined from crude petroleum. It contains approximately 2,500 Btu per cubic foot. Methane is the chief constituent of natural gas and has a heating value of about 1012 Btu per cubic foot. Therefore, propane has more than twice the heat value of natural gas per cubic foot.

Whoops, you got it right, I had it backwards... in any event, not running out of gas is cool.

[Rorschach]

You know there is nothing wrong with a Hibachi grill. I had one on my patio forever, but I think the mess and fire danger nowadays makes it a liability. Would any strata allow a charcoal grill? The one I like that replaced my Hibachi is called the "Little Green Egg." It's made out of ceramics and it makes great food, so if you want a small BBQ and want to stay with charcoal, go to the Internet and search for it. I only use mine for camping, but it's as good a rig I've seen of this variety.

Propane is a bit cleaner and easier and I can share some ideas to make it grill like charcoal. The barbeque flavor is from the vaporized meat drippings turning into smoke. Although I have to agree that charcoal makes a much better burger. It does taste different and better.

Natural gas permanantly connected sounds very sweet -- but I've never experienced such a situation and I don't know how it would cook. I'm wondering what flavors would be imparted by natural gas if you tried the indirect methods of truly barbequing instead of grilling directly over the heat? The cooler heat of natural gas seems tailor made for slow cooking barbeque.

[G-Man]

Pretty much every strata only allows propane BBQs

[t-mitch4]

The barbeque flavor is from the vaporized meat drippings turning into smoke. Although I have to agree that charcoal makes a much better burger. It does taste different and better.

That is partially true.

What we have been discussing is really "Grilling", not real BBQ. True BBQ is meat cooked slowly at a lower temperature over a much longer time. The BBQ flavour comes from the wood used as fuel. I have a Weber Smokey Mountain BBQ. I use lump charcoal as a base fire, and add various hardwoods to add flavours to the meat. I like Apple and Cherrywood with a Pork Butt or Chicken and Turkey, but prefer Mesquite with a large slab of Brisket.

I have done Briskets that can take 15 hours. Pork Butts usually require 6 to 8 hours.

Tom

[Rorschach]

To be specific, we're talking about grilling hamburgers. I'm pretty sure I made the distinction between grilling and barbeque somewhere in the thread. GRILLING hamburgers subjectively taste better to me over charcoal. However, I rarely use it any more. Right now, I use an infra-red grill. The discussed Costco grill has a nice infra-red burner. The very high temperature infra-red burner makes great burgers and steaks.

[Caramia]

Interesting, I was talking to a friend down in Georgia about that exact difference. When I say "My friends and I are going to BBQ tonight" I mean we are going to light up the "Barbeque" and grill whatever we have... burgers, steaks, chicken, fish... Down there, that would be "grilling" while BBQ is strictly what t-mitch said... and even more specifically, it refers only to pork, which is minced or pulled then sold through BBQ Shacks. Apparently secret receipies on how exactly do it, and what woods to use are passed down in families... a real art! So in his mind, you cannot BBQ Steak. But then we found that the definitions change depending on region, where the term BBQ starts refering to various other meats and methods, and finally to places where it can mean anything done on an open fire.

[Holden West]

Barbecue.

[VicHockeyFan]

Looks like there is a green BBQ:

http://www.tammock.c...solar_grill.htm

[Caramia]

Hey cool a solar BBQ!!!

/shrug... You say Tomato...

I don't care either way, and sure Barbecue is the more popular spelling, especially in America (Google the word Barbeque and I come up with mostly Canadian sites.) I have seen it spelled both ways.

Here is a nice little excerpt from a lovely whimsical write up... Enjoy the entire essay at http://www.storysout...3/bbqframe.html

The best etymology now suggests that barbecue originates in the Caribbean, moving from Carib through Spanish, into French and English in the Americas, where it has slowly evolved from barbacoa to barbecue and barbeque and bar-b-que and bar-b-q and bbq.

Along the way, it has harbored many senses. The primary Spanish sense, indicated by most dictionaries, is the grill — probably originally a hatch of saplings used to suspend meat over a fire — though barbacoa in contemporary new-world Spanish describes a slow-cooked meat and the method used to make it, usually a low-temperature long application of heat in a subterranean pit. At least one barbecue scholar suggests that this practice suggests the true meaning of the word; Smoky Hale, author of The Great American Barbecue and Grilling Manual (Abacus Publishing, 2000) has traced the word back to its roots in Taino, a Caribbean language, where in one form, barabicoa, it indicates a wooden grill, a mesh of sticks, and in another, barabicu, a “sacred fire pit.” Hale dismisses the other supposed lineages, including the French claim deriving barbecue from the phrase barbe à queue, from beard to tail, perhaps a description of a pig on a spit; Hale calls this etymology “flagrantly fatuous Franco-poop.” He also dismisses the argument that the word’s origins lie in the South American mainland, in the practices of now-extinct cannibal tribes. Hale is probably right, but his demonstration shows that, in its descent, the word has been everything to everyone.

But incarnations like bbq suggest that, whatever the derivation or elaboration, it’s what’s on the tongue that’s important — the three sounds that not only survive all explanation and variance but assert themselves, consuming all instances into rule.

In this way, the word identifies itself as American. Indo-European languages developed by transmitting and elaborating a common tongue, each growing further from the root into its distinctive flower by adapting to local climates; in certain words you can detect the root’s work at a distance, but you can never touch it directly. In the Americas, however, in barbecue, the process has been reversed. In the barbecue pits of American English the literal senses evolved in European languages have been set ablaze, then banked so we can reduce the word to essence, its most potent and most static flavor — something like what Whitman’s divine “average,” a truth expounded by all exponents, an E pluribus unum that’s remade daily.

So it almost doesn’t matter where or what you eat: as long as you’re eating something with a tie to the tradition (however tenuous), you’re eating — or eating toward — barbecue.

From Mother Tongue annoyances at http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=264

Before we crack open the OED, let us run down a list of some of the myriad spellings and abbreviations of barbecue:

* Barbeque
* BBQ
* Bar-b-que
* Bar-B-Q
* Barbie
* Que
* Q

Good old Wikipedia has a great article on the various traditions of BBQ including what we were talking about earlier... the difference between grilling and BBQ.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ another etymology variant is that it derives from "barbe au queu" (now I'm not sure I spelled that right!), French for "beard (or snout) to tail". (edit/add: meaning all parts of the pig or beast were for the grill...)

Oops, Edit: I skimmed C's entry too quickly and see that the above variant is dismissed as "Franco-poop"!! That's hilarious...

[Holden West]

Don't annoy the spelling nazi!

[Rorschach]

I have actually used one of those solar barbeCUE things and it was pretty much useless. And I have also tried slow-cook barbecuing burgers and steaks with Hickory wood and it adds very powerful flavors to the meat -- but who wants to wait that long? I have an excellent recipe for barbecue salmon that is very easy and is a good example of how much better things taste slow-cooked on your barbecue. I have to start another thread about who cooks the best salmon in Victoria. I had some maple glazed salmon somewhere that was excellent, but I can't remember exactly where. Recipe to come in new topic...

P.S. My dictionary says, "barbecue also barbeque" so if this was scrabble I think the challenge would be lost.

[Holden West]

Damn backsliding dictionaries. Don't trust 'em.

I bet the best salmon barbecue is the Native one done in Beacon Hill Park but don't tell Betty Gibbens.