READY, SET, If you find yourself barbecuing more often, you're not alone. Outdoor grilling in Hawaii is more about lifestyle than the occasional picnicking.
GRILL!
Grill buyers face a sizzling
array of BBQ choicesOn the Fourth of July, forget charcoal,
forget gas -- switch on the electricityBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comAccording to a recent consumer survey by the Barbecue Industry Association, Americans are keeping barbecues burning brighter than ever with a record 3.1 billion cookouts held last year.
Three-fourths of all U.S. households own a grill of some sort and most own a charcoal and gas grill. And judging by what's available in stores or catalogs, Americans are upgrading their grills, buying larger models with more features.
Men are still most likely to decide which grill to buy, and most often than means a gas grill. Among grill owners, 60 percent own gas; 50 percent own charcoal grills, most of those in the South and West.
As for electric grills: Just 3 percent of grill owners have these, although women are most likely to decide to go electric.
When it comes to actually cooking, men are twice as likely to do the barbecuing, except when electric grills are used, then women take over.
Now that the statistics are out of the way, and with the July 4 holiday approaching, it's time to purchase a new grill. Go to stores such as Home Depot, City Mill, Lowes or Sears and you'll find at least a half-dozen choices.
How many BTU's do you need? What size? Who makes a reliable and easy to use grill? Do you want charcoal or gas?
BBQ grills today range in price from around $20 to $10,000. So before you start looking, decide how much use your grill will get, where you'll put it and how much you want to spend.
Determine the kind of cooking you'll do. There's a difference in the kind of equipment you need to cook a perfect burger or ribs.
Charcoal grills come in several sizes: large drum grills with 1,400 square-inch cooking surfaces, table-top models perfect for a pair of steaks and portable models for grilling hot dogs and hamburgers at the beach.
A charcoal grill should be able to hold heat and allow for indirect cooking.
My choice for a charcoal grill is the Weber Kettle Grill, $50 to $80, which come in 18- and 22-inch sizes. Versatile and easy to use, it's basically a large metal ball on legs. The round shape focuses the heat and reduces heat loss to the outside air. If you build your fire on only one side of the grill, you can even cook indirectly.
Weber recently introduced the Performer Grill, $300 to $400, which combines much of the simplicity of use and convenience of a gas grill with the real fire flavor of a charcoal grill. The Performer is a kettle grill, built into a large gas-grill-like stand. It also has a 5-gallon propane system for igniting charcoal, so no more lighter fluid. The removable ash can makes cleanup very easy.
And for the beach? Weber's Smokey Joe is excellent.
Looking for a gas grill? Do you understand BTUs, dual heat control, cooking surface?
I've used several makes and models of gas grills and guess what? The cheaper ones always rust and fall apart and the more expensive ones, like a Weber, last a very long time.
Gas grills range from $150 to $300. Weber's start around $350 and go as high as $6,000.
After price, consider features. A gas grill is nothing more than a heavy metal box with a lid. Inside is a series of propane jets fed by an external tank of compressed gas.
Over the burner is a rack that holds either lava rocks or some kind of bricks. The rocks even out the temprerature by creating a heat deposit that holds and releases heat. They also separate the heat source from the food.
Don't worry too much about the BTU (British thermal unit) rating. This is a measure of the potential heat the barbecue can put out, but unless you eat your food charred, BTUs aren't going to matter much.
Some propane grills (not "propane barecues") produce more BTUs than others because they permit more gas to be burned. Get a grill that can produce at least 30,000 BTUs.
Let's talk cooking grate, which means size. The size of grill you buy should be determined by how much and what kind of grilling you want to do. Imagine your largest grilling job: If you plan on rotisserie cooking a pig, you'll want to be sure the grill is deep enough to allow you to spin the beast. If you plan on cooking 25 slabs of ribs at a time you need a large grate surface.
There's also the dual heat control, which means that the right and left burners are controlled separately and you can turn one side off if you don't need it or if you just want to keep something warm. Very convenient.
Sunbeam markets a large number of under-$200 gas grills, but their new Coleman line is in the $350 to $500 range.On the really high end, bigger is definitely better. Manufacturers such as Lynx and Viking have built their grills into islands costing up to $10,000. Charcoal grill manufacturers also seem to be working toward a grill that can stand up to the weather and provide years of reliable use. Weber has added a "One Touch Cleaning System," a switch on their Silver Series kettle grills that drops ashes out the bottom.
The Gold and Platinum Series grills have removable ash catchers that make cleanup a breeze. Wooden handles have been replaced with heat-resistant nylon.
Electric barbecues are easy to use, efficient, small, affordable and reliable, at $80 to $160.
They must be protected from moisture, howver, and usually they're smaller, with less cooking capacity than charcoal or gas grills.
Current models are 115-volt appliances that plug into an ordinary exterior electric outlet. Cooking is through an electric heating element similar to that on a kitchen range.
Barbecuing is a guy thing. Or is it? For years I had the fever, always searching for the right grill. Bigger is better was my anthem. "The food is only as good as my grill," I told my wife. On the Fourth of July, forget
charcoal, forget gas --
switch on the electricityBy Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comI lusted after those $500 gas grills and $300 charcoal kettle models, but always bought something that had a name like "Kahuna Grill," with a lifetime guarantee though manufactured somewhere in Mongolia.
Charcoal captured all the memories and traditions of picnics, but it took sooo long to get the briquettes started. Lighter fluid sped the process up but I never got used to that fuel taste on my hot dogs.
Charcoal is also a tad smokey and annoyed more than a few neighbors; and it's expensive -- at least the way I cook, with a half bag for a single burger.
So I graduated to gas -- a cheapie no-name brand that I had to assemble. I could never ever get the ignitor to function. Grease fires became a regular occurrence. Eventually and fortunately, it rusted away before I burned down the house.
Next came a more expensive, and reliable, brand that worked great. But it was huge, had far more grilling area and gas jets than I needed, and I got tired of lugging gas canisters up the 48 steps to my lanai.
So I, well we, decided on an electric barbecue -- The Charbroil Patio Caddie Electric, $150 at Home Depot. Only later did I learn that electric grills are the favorite choice of people over 60 and women in general. That's a bad thing since I'm still well in my 50s and a guy. The good thing is that more women actually do the barbecuing on electric than men.
:-) That's me smiling while I watch a Lakers' game as my wife grills me a dog.
The Charbroil Electric has a much smaller footprint than the traditional gas grill, which means a smaller cooking surface. But I have never felt undersized.
And it's easy to use. The heating element is red hot in just a few minutes. All I have to do is set the temperature control, similar to an electric range. And electric grills have few parts to wear out or break. Ceramic briquettes hold and distribute heat and vaporize drippings to produce grilled flavor. A grease cup collects excess drippings. An insulation bowl spreads and intensifies heat for uniform, efficient cooking.
There are disadvantages.
Electric grills are not suited for large outdoor meals. They require an exterior outlet, which in our case means we must wind a massive extensive cord through the living room. I still have no idea how much electricity it uses.
Finally, most electric's cannot be equipped with side burners, smoking attachments or other accessories available for charcoal and gas grills.
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