Venturing into charcoal cooking - which one?

[12x7]

There's different types of charcoal you can buy from Emberpak and they burn differently too.
Yes, David Lim explained the differences, but I checked out after he said none of the others produced a smokey flavour, and that he used Standard lump in his Weber (as does his son Chris)

The charcoal without any smoke taste is good for using smoking woods like hickory as it doesn't interfere with the flavour.

In some cases you want the super high temps you can get from charcoal without the smoke taste. eg steak searing.

Other days it is due to practicalities like you have the washing out and you want to BBQ and not have your clothes smell like BBQ all week.

[FenceFurniture]

I happened to be at someone's place this arvo, and they were gearing up for a Weber cook tonight, using Heatbeads. He had the usual Firelighters (white, and Kerosene based he said). The black smoke coming off the lighting chimney was atrocious! Like hanging around a bitumen truck. Of course that settled back once the stinky Firelighters were exhausted but I have to wonder about the effect on the heatbeads themselves.

It was good to see this rig in action - he had the large capacity ash catcher. An idea came to me a few days ago, to replicate this. I have two 10 litre stainless steel buckets that I use for emptying the slow combustion heater in the house. No reason I can't stand one of these under the Weber in place of the disc, leaving enough room for air flow through the vents.......hang on a sec, just going down to test the height.........yep, thought so, a good fit.

Anyhoo, a little research shows that the beads themselves seem to be relatively harmless (I had always thought there was a coal element to them for some reason). Their composition according to their website:
https://heatbeads.com.au/hints-and-tips ... ttes-made/

is hardwood charcoal fines, mineral carbon, and a food starch binder. That makes me feel friendlier to them, so I'll give some a burst.

The lighters that I purchased were wax and sawdust(?) which don't burn as effectively as the petrochemical type but don't let off the same disgusting pollution either.

What I noticed this arvo was that the temperature seemed to be considerably higher than straight charcoal - not so good for direct cooking as I noticed his chicken was charring way too quickly - black bits after only perhaps 5 minutes, but no doubt very good for indirect cooking. However, that high temp is probably better for doing steaks med-rare.

O'course what is good about heat beads for direct cooking is their uniformity of size, allowing for the heat to be the same distance from the cooking grill - difficult if not impossible to achieve with lump.



This week I'm going to do some Atlantic Salmon (or preferably Ocean Trout) indirect. I'll probably use some of the Mesquite chips I purchased on the charcoal.

[12x7]

Don't mess around with those messy smelly chemical laden firelighters when you can get these natural firelighters which won't stink up the place or your charcoal.

They are a good price. Easy to buy. eg Bunnings has lots of them.

https://www.aussiebbq.info/forum/postin ... a052881c9d

[FenceFurniture]

Yes they look identical to the ones I bought which are branded "Ember".

Bought some large fillets of Atlantic Salmon today and a steak (Angus 100 day grain fed Rump from Coles - hard to beat). Cooked it all indirect on Heatbeads, and added some small pieces of Mesquite. I think perhaps I left them on for a little long, but that's all part of the learning curve.

The steak was mainly for a freezing/reheating experiment.


Later.....had some of the fish, and it was a little bit dry. Probably used a little too much Mesquite too. Damned tasty though.

[12x7]

Treat smoke like a spice. Too much can be overpowering. Eg especially with fish. Cook fish low temp.

Smoked salmon. Tasty!

For the dryness problem, experiment with a water tray and spritzing.

[FenceFurniture]

I'm quite sure the dryness was just too long in there, but certainly take on board the water tray & spritzing idea - cheers!


Today was Octopus & sausage day. The prime mover was doing some Occy, but to make good use of the coals I reckoned on doing some Kanga Bangas (an excellent product with virtually nil fat), some Chorizos, and some Chicken snags. I really do wish they had a scratch & smell test on the chicken snags packets - once opened it was the usual smell of 621/622 (MSG). Anyway, only a half doz to try, but a hearty 32 Kanga Bangas which is probably 8 meals.

I got 2½kg of pussy, and divided it up into 2 portions of legs and 1 portion of bodies. The brain & guts takes out 20% of the weight (yep, I'm very intimate with the anatomy of pu....octopus now). (sorry Mods, it's just too good a joke to resist)

One portion of legs was done in a "BBQ" sauce which is equal portions of soy, tomato & sweet chilli sauces, the other in "my" marinade which is essentially oil, coriander, chilli, garlic, ginger, lime juice, lime zest. The bodies were done in Teryaki - home made version - first ever - and by crikey it smelt good, as a marinade. For the BBQ marinade, the ratio of soy : tomato : sweet chilli needs to be 2:1:2 rather than 1:1:1 (i.e. pull back on the tomato sauce).

The various recipes called for varying amounts of boiling before the BBQ. The "BBQ" recipe said to boil the pussy in red wine and Balsamic (15:2) for 20 minutes, and some other recipe which I bastardised into "my" marinade said to boil them in salted water for 5 minutes, whilst the Terry recipe didn't mention boiling.

So in keeping with my methods, I followed the instructions as directed for each, with adjustments to be made nexta time.

Adjustments: 20 minutes boiling is waaaay too long - stiff and dry before it even hits the BBQ - and 5 minutes would seem to be appropriate. The Terry that wasn't boiled actually needed it. The boiling just takes out a little of the flesh moisture, and a lot of the chewiness, and 5 minutes seems to be spot on for the thicker legs. For the thinner bodies I think 3 minutes would be good, and will use that nexta time. I gave all of them a good thumping with a food mallet beforehand.

As far as the cooking process goes: crikey, gotta keep that lid on! All cooking today was direct.

just 4-5 mins with the lid off resulted in burnt snags (not too badly) using charcoal - I got distracted - but with the lid on and less oxygen things were much better behaved.

Yer wouldn't think such a simple thing like BBQ could be so intricate! But that's the beauty and subtlety of it all, just like cooking in general.





All 3 versions of pussy were were quite tasty in 3 very different ways, and it will be interesting to see how they come up after freezing - I suspect they will be just fine.

[12x7]

What a feast. Photos please.

Have a look at this video about cooking octopus with the kettle.

It shows you how to set-up the charcoal so you can cook direct and rest the food indirect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu4gsWZjcEQ



I find cooking snags easier using a cast iron plate.

[FenceFurniture]

I find cooking snags easier using a cast iron plate.

Is that because of all the fat that releases and flares up? The thing with Kanga Bangas is there is virtually nil fat so they worked well on the wire.

Interesting video. The one that came up after it was a couple of American dudes thinking they know a bit about cooking octopus. In the comments there were many catcalls about how long it should be boiled for, but one person seemed to get the result that I got: 5 minutes boiling makes it tender, but 20 minutes makes it tough again. Apparently quite few people boil it for an hour and more, but hell, it's Octopus, there's going to be a little toughness so get over it and don't cook the bejesus out of it!

In Wollies yesterday I saw the same stainless steel wire brushes for $6 compared to the $27 that Weber wants. There appeared to be very little difference between them.....even if it only lasts half as long I'll be way in front.

Photos? Oops, nexta time.

[AntinOz]

In Wollies yesterday I saw the same stainless steel wire brushes for $6 compared to the $27 that Weber wants. There appeared to be very little difference between them.....even if it only lasts half as long I'll be way in front.

Photos? Oops, nexta time.

Only concern I have heard of with the cheaper brushes is that the bristles may be inserted rather than folded over (wish I had pics). The short version is that bristles may come out on your grill which is not a healthy outcome if not noticed.

[FenceFurniture]

Yes, I know what you mean about inserted. To be honest I think that is probably scare mongering by those who wish to sell a vastly inflated product. I've been using cheap BBQ brushes all my life, and never had a bristle come loose that was undetected - come to think of it, I'm not too sure there have ever been any at all that have stayed on the cooking surface (esp a wire grill).

[AntinOz]

I'll feel less worried about using the brush I have now. Not even sure where it came from. Could be a cheapy, could be expensive.

[FenceFurniture]

Well I just had another look at the brush in Wollies, and the bristles seem to be folded through the spiral wires. Certainly they are not plugged into a series of holes. Now $5.

So then I had another look at the $22 Weber Platinum coated one I have here - without having them side by side, I swear that they are identical except for the Weber logo. So if that (rather hard to see) logo is worth $17 to anyone.....

The Wollies one may not have the little leather strap through the end, but I reckon I'll live.