Steel Wool and elbow grease. Warm water, a little soap on the scouring pad and scrub scrub scrub til you get rid of the surface rust.
Once you get rid of all the surface rust rinse it out completely and dry with paper towels. Light spray with avocado oil or something with a high smoke point and into a 500 degree pre-heated oven to season. Make sure there’s just a light coating of oil.
BeforeBeforeAfter
Fits on a 22 inch Weber kettle with space to access the flip up grates to add coals on either side of the pan when it’s centered.
When we had those single digit days just before the storm I had some chicken thighs but I wasn’t about to try to be outdoors manning the grill so I tried chicken thighs in the crock pot (well the crock pot and other things).
First I cooked a pound of bacon for breakfast for the family and left the bacon fat in the pan on the stove.
Then I pat dry all the chicken thighs with paper towels and lightly seasoned them with salt and pepper.
Next tossed them a couple of minutes on each side in the pan of bacon fat to crisp up the skin.
After that I chopped up a couple of cloves of garlic and put the chicken thighs in the bottom of the crock pot and again seasoned with salt pepper and tossed in teh garlic and then covered with store bought Thai Peanut sauce.
No braising liquid is needed as the chicken thighs throw plenty of fat as it renders down.
I also had a couple of strips of bacon left over from earlier so I placed them on top of two of the thighs.
On high for 3 hours.
Next remove and place on a foiled cookie sheet and under the broiler for three minutes to crisp up the skin.
I Frenched it, cut the ribs off and re-tied them back on.Made a rub with fresh chopped rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic, coarse salt crushed pepperThere were a few sprigs of garlic left so i tucked them under the butcher’s twineGrill setup- Offset coals with peach wood. 275 grill temp vents half way once we hit 200 on the grill thermometerAt 105F internal Tempat 125 F internal
Watch the video above for the cut. It was absolute perfection.
Using an old beat up Igloo cooler, I disassembled the grill and put the wood handle aside and then tossed all the parts in the cooler with some warm water and dish soap.
Then heated up more water in the electric water kettle and poured that it and shook it all up to coat the lid and vents and legs with the soapy hot water.
Placed the lid on and let it sit for twenty minutes and then went back to it and used a piece of fine steel wool to scrub her down using the soapy hot water.
Even though the grill started out caked up with dirt and gristle the technique loosened up everything to make light work of it.
I highly recommend this method. If you don’t have an old beater cooler laying around to use, there are usually tons of them for sale on Facebook marketplace. You should be able to find one for under $10.
The Weber Char-Q was only produced for 3 years between 2008-2011.
It’s a well built charcoal grill with porcelain coated grates and a cast aluminum body.
Because of it’s funky bottom vent I wan’t sure if I would be able to hold steady temps under 300 degrees.
Using the snake method it proved to be an excellent smoker holding temps under 300 the entire time with barely any vent adjustments and it barely used any charcoal.
Watch the video to see how it performed and the grill set-up to achieve pit temps between 230-290 throughout the cook without having to fuss with the vents much..
Last night’s dinner was a collaboration with my beautiful wife Kate. Quarantining has been pretty great when you love being with the ones you’re quarantined with.
Two lbs 80/20 chuck (if I had veal and pork I would have used those too)
Chopped Basil
Chopped parsley
Two Cloves Garlic Minced
2/3 cup Parmeseasn
2/3 cup Riccotta
2/3 Cup Panko
Red Pepper Flakes and Black Pepper
Indirect cook 400F for 30 minutes
Transfer to pot with Kate’s sugo to simmer for a half hour on the stove
Northeast BBQ 