Here are some useful tips for winter grilling in cold weather.
Pre-Cook
Keep plenty of propane around. Consider keeping a filled spare tank in reserve. Tanks may not work reliably when temps dip below freezing, so store propane tanks where they won’t freeze.
Wind is the enemy of grilling, regardless of time of year. Operate your grill in a sheltered location or setup a wind break.
Allow more time to pre-heat the grill. It may take up to twice as long to pre-heat during winter than during summer.
Don’t force the lid or knobs if frozen in place. Thaw the grill in the garage or carefully defrost stuck parts with a blow dryer.
To avoid carbon monoxide risks, don’t operate your grill in enclosed locations.
In a post from earlier this year, I mentioned visiting Lakewood Meats in Lodi, CA where I purchased some quality Creekstone Farms steaks. In that post, I reverse seared ribeye steaks in a cast iron skillet and concluded by saying, “It’s easier getting steaks on and off a cast iron griddle vs. a cast iron skillet, so next time I’ll use my griddle instead.”
Well, last weekend I found two Creekstone Farms NY strip steaks from Lakewood Meats at the back of the freezer and did the reverse sear on them, too, but this time finishing on the griddle.
I picked up a couple of high quality Creekstone Farms ribeye steaks at Lakewood Meats in Lodi, CA while in town judging a barbecue contest.
These steaks were about 1″ thick. I wish they’d been 1-1/2″ thick, which would have been a better thickness for the reverse sear cooking method used here.
I sprinkled the steaks with kosher salt on both sides and refrigerated them on a cooling rack over a rimmed baking sheet pan for 2 hours. Right before grilling, I applied freshly ground black pepper to both sides and pressed it on with my hands.
I setup the Summit 450 gas grill for indirect cooking, with two burners OFF on the left side and two burners on HIGH on the right side. I placed a 12″ cast iron skillet on the hot side of the grill to pre-heat.
In a previous post, I wrote about the two types of skirt steak—outside skirt steak and inside skirt steak—and showed an example of grilling inside skirt steak with a spicy Korean marinade on my Weber Summit 450 gas grill.
In that post, I casually mentioned that both cuts of skirt steak can be a very long piece of meat (especially the more desirable outside skirt steak) and that it can be advantageous to cut it into smaller pieces before marinating and grilling.
I wanted to show you an example of a really long piece of outside skirt steak, one that I bought recently at a quality butcher counter here in San Jose. Continue reading Skirt Steak: Part 2→
It may not seem intuitive at first, but when grilling large cuts of meat, it can be helpful to use both a probe thermometer and an instant-read thermometer to measure internal meat temperature.
You fire-up your Weber gas grill and it’s not coming up to temp like it normally does and the flames don’t look right. Here are the things you should be looking at to troubleshoot and solve this problem.
Check The Fuel Level
If the heat and flame pattern in your grill seem low and you’ve got a propane grill, your first instinct is probably to check the fuel level of the tank. That’s a good start…maybe it’s time for a propane tank refill.
Clean Or Replace The Burners
Remove the cooking grates and Flavorizer bars and check the condition of the burners. They may be clogged with cooking debris or corrosion. The burner holes can usually be cleaned and cleared and returned to good working order. In the worst case scenario, the burners may need to be replaced. You should also check the spider screens to make sure nothing is blocking them.
The Toast Test is a great way to visualize any hot spots on your gas grill’s cooking surface. I’ve known for some time that my 2002 Weber Summit 450 4-burner gas grill has some hot spots…I grill a bunch of burgers and some seem to cook faster than others. In fact, I may end up overcooking a few burgers in the process. You’d think I would know the quirks of my grill, having cooked on it for almost 15 years, but I keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
I saw the toast test performed on an episode of America’s Test Kitchen and I tried it on my Weber Summit.
Here’s a quick tip: When you purchase any herb, spice, rub or pantry ingredient and you care about the freshness of that ingredient, simply write the month/year somewhere on the bottle or package as a reminder of when you purchased it.
Now you can easily check any ingredient to see how old it is. I replace all my ground spices every two years; whole spices like peppercorns and nutmeg every four years. Baking ingredients like baking soda and baking powder I replace annually. Salt is the exception—it never goes bad and doesn’t need to be replaced.
If you can’t write directly on the side or lid of a container, apply a sticker to the container and write the date on the sticker.
This video from our companion site The Virtual Weber Bullet provides a quick tutorial on how to separate a tri-tip roast along its natural fat seam and slice each portion across the grain.
Are you looking for meat charts? Want to learn where a porterhouse steak comes from on a cow? Where a pork chop comes from on a pig? What’s the difference between the short loin and the sirloin?
