"charcoal" news and stories

Grilling and the summer season go hand-in-hand. So it's only natural that, once Memorial Day arrives, you break out the grill and the coals and the burgers (or, if you're me, the latter is of the faux variety).

But what if you're not too keen on that lighter fluid/coal taste on your food, and you don't want to invest in a gas grill? No problem - get yourself a Baja BBQ Firepack from Mike and Maaike. It's a great eco alternative to your typical grills, (46,200 tons of lighter fluid are sold each year, and they emit 14,500 tons of VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds, which can deplete the ozone layer and are generally unhealthy for our lungs).

So, how does the Baja BBQ work? Simple: Light the chemical-free, 100% recycled and biodegradable paper pulp container that contains 2 pounds of charcoal. It burns down on its own and after 15-20 minutes, you'll have a pile of charcoal that will perfectly grill your meat, veggies, or dessert without any of the added chemicals or gross lighter fluid taste.

via [joshspear]

When it comes to cooking, grills are no more than tools. As long as the tool you have is functional, it's how you use it that counts when cooking. A taste test between rib-eye steaks cooked on a $1,600 Firestone Legacy grill and a Big Green Egg charcoal grill/smoker that was less than half of that price confirms this theory: almost all tasters preferred the meat cooked with the Egg.

Of course, the reason that tasters preferred the Egg steaks was because they had a slightly smoky/woodsy flavor from the charcoal, which was not present with the larger gas grill, and the tasters liked their meat that way. The point is that both grills performed well, cooking the steaks evenly despite their differences in price. The specific flavor preference of the tasters, while an interesting addendum to the gas vs. charcoal debate, has nothing to do with the functionality of the grill.

I'm sticking with my gas grill because I like the way it works and am not a huge fan of charcoal flavors in my everyday foods. But whether you like charcoal or gas, as long as you buy a well-made grill and not necessarily an expensive one, you are bound to have more than a few good meals.

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