Rookie Mistake – Skip the Grille Cover
A rookie mistake made by amateur outdoor grillers is to skip the grill cover. One thing to understand up front is that a grill cover is not just an accessory. It is a neccessity. Here are the two main things you should purchase on the same day you buy your grill, or at least within the first month:
- Grill utensils – afterall, what you do you want to flip a burger with? You can try your fingers or that tiny spatula in the kitchen. Either way you’re going to burn your fingers or the hair off your knuckles. You need a nice set of utensils. No debate.
- Grill cover – The outside stainless steel or painted finish of your grill is not the only thing that should cover your grill. You need a cover. No debate. Let me tell you why.
Let me give you an example from a Weber grill my friend just bought. He bought a nice Weber Genesis E-330. It’s a real nice green color. He spent about $800 on the grill once you figure the tax. Nice side burner grill, everything looked nice.
He got himself a set of cool utensils and accessories that same day for another $100. He was all set.
What he did not get was a Weber Grill Cover. I believe a Weber brand specifically made for that grill is about $50. Since it is Weber brand, it would have been a bit more expensive.
Six weeks later, into the heat of the Texas summer, he realized why he needed one. Near his patio is a bird feeder and bird bath. With the extra heat and lack of rain, it attacted more birds than normal. Those birds began to look for places to roost. A few began to roost on his new grill.
Over a period of a few weeks, several birds began to poop over the surface of his green grill. With the 107 degree heat, it began to bake in. As my friend tried to clean it, it had damaged the paint and finish of the green grill. Furthermore, some bird poop had gotten down inside of the side burner.
Not having a cover ruined the surface of his grill and created an extra chore of cleaning out his burners.
While this is one example of what a good Weber grill cover could help prevent, there are many other reasons. My top 2 reasons are:
- To prevent oxidation of the grill grate. You don’t need your grate getting rusty because of excess moisture.
- To protect the outside of the grill from the elements, dirt, dust… and even birds.
How Many Burgers Big Is Your Grill?
I realize this is a website about cool grill covers, but I wanna talk about how big your new grill needs to be. Pretty funny when you go to Lowes or Home Depot looking at Grills… or even at the fancier BBQ grill stores… that when you read the sign describing the grill it will tell you how many burgers will fit on the grill.
This grill is a 20-burger grill, this infared is a 35-burger grill, or this mamoth is a 50-burger grill. Some of them are just downright huge. But, that led me to two questions when trying to figure out how many burgers big I wanted my grill:
- How big are the burgers that they are using for measurement? Are these standard burgers, White Castle slider size, or what?
- How close are these burgers together? I mean I need space between my burgers to flip them and not have them land on each other while I’m flipping them.
So, my advice – don’t worry about how many burgers big the grill size is because you will never, ever be able to fit that many burgers on your grill and cook with any sort of efficiency. In fact, if you have a 40-burger grill and you’re cooking 40 burgers on it, I don’t want one of your burgers.
Here’s what I would do instead…
Get the approximate size of your last grill and go bigger by about 10-20%. Who wants to go smaller. Make sure the new grill has the features you’re wanting, infared, rotisserie, side burner, storage, prep table, temperature guage, light, etc. While I want a bigger grill, I would give up some size to get the features I want.
To me, the number of burgers my grill will hold is somewhat irrelevant. When I’m having a party and I’ve got dogs and burgers going, I’m rotating out burgers, putting cheese on some, flipping others, taking off the ones that are done, putting on the new ones. I don’t need to cook 40 burgers at once. That’s too many for any one man to watch.
So, the next time you’re needing a new grill, go measure your old one, add 10-20%, pick out your features, and go. And, since this is a blog about cool grill covers, make sure you set aside an extra $30 for a premium grill cover. You’ll never regret it.
Grill Cover as a Gift
Recently I had occasion to buy a BBQ Grill Cover as a gift for a friend. He has just received a new grill, so I thought about purchasing a grill cover. It was a little tricky trying to find out details without letting him know what I was buying as his gift.
First, I needed to know the size of the grill. Each brand and each style have different dimensions, so it is very important to find out the length, width and height of the grill you want to cover. Next, I wanted to find out some of his favorite things, as grill covers come in about every color and pattern you can imagine. Sports teams are a popular cover, as well as college teams, and even some states have covers.
There are some covers available at your local hardware store or discount stores, maybe even department stores. There are also many websites that offer grill covers for sale. The internet is a good place to start looking for ideas, because it will save you time and gas of having to go to all of the different stores. I found some covers on-line that I liked and thought my friend would like as well, so I checked at some of the stores and found that one of the stores carried that style.
It is important to read about what material the cover is made from since some of the materials will not hold up as well as others. There are people who post reviews of products–yes, even grill covers–on the internet and they are helpful to read over before purchasing a cover. I did discover that some of the sports covers, specialty covers, etc. are not always made from a high quality material and will fade, shred and fall apart if the grill is in the sun or harsh weather.
It is nice to have a BBQ Grill Cover with Velcro straps or some other type of fastener on the sides to hold the cover in place on the grill. It keeps the cover in place when it is windy out. I am glad that the grill cover I purchased is still working well, has not fallen apart and is doing its job.
How To Host A True Texas BBQ
Set the Backdrop
Texan BBQ gatherings will be a enjoyable – frolicking experience for you and your company. To be swept in the spirits of Texan style get together give up the fancy tableware and get towards the down-home strategy. So set the stage for the Texan atmosphere in your yard.
Begin with a dress rule of faded blue denim jeans or head-to-spur fringe to help keep the attendees in the Texan way of thinking. You could draw out some posters with naughty slogans similar to – ‘high noon until the cows come home’ or perhaps ‘eat barbecue without a napkin’ etc. Spread a desperado décor simply by transforming your yard into tumbleweed-strewn dust bowl with straw on the patio or deck and also hay bales for family and friends to sit down.
Unfold a red checked or even denim tablecloth. For napkins, have bright colored bandanas tied up with rope or even sheriff’s star would do the job incredibly at your Texan Barbecue Event. Create ‘guest name cards’ to set at the dining tables, leading them to feel special. Include ornamental centerpiece with clay pots with cactus or even hide a pot inside of an old pair of boots and some flowers inside the pots.
A Texan’s mouth waters just like the Colorado River for the piece of spareribs or a hunk of corn bread. Your meal becomes desirable using mouth-watering different types of unique hot sauce. For daring guests include tortilla chips as well as cool salt and peppershakers. If at all possible keep the beverages in old styled washtub filled up with ice.
Fun at the Barbecue Gathering
Guests could be unknown to one another. Bring in fun and make new friends with a dancing lesson. Ask family and friends on to the floor without shoes or perhaps with cowboy boots for a line dancing class.
Texas Hold’em is a quick and also amusing game for 2-10 persons. The objective would be to finish with the best poker hand and get the pot.
Cattle Corral is steer roping. Position a pint-sized wrangler just a few ft . away and attempt catching the cattle.
Squirt-gun-showdown to set a lit candle or an empty soda can and have your friends and relatives to shoot a water pistol either to knock out the flame or the can first.
Even though sun sets, it doesn’t suggest fun needs to end, set up a fire, which is famous with Texas cowboys, and invite someone to strum a song on the six string to reach to the climax of Texan Barbecue celebration.
The Best BBQ Cooks In The World
They are barbecuing celebrities in their own right. You might have found them on television and you also notice their cook books lined along the racks of your neighborhood book store. Some might have various backgrounds and a great diversity of cooking styles, but just like you, they all share exactly the same passion and that’s for grilling and barbeques.
Bobby Flay is among the most flourishing chefs who specialize in grilling and barbecues. In 1991, Flay’s restaurant, Mesa Grill opened and was called as the Best Restaurant by New York magazine. In 1993, Chef Bobby Flay was chosen as James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year. It had been during the same 12 months that his other restaurant, Bolo opened up. Bobby Flay’s relationship with the bbq grill might be best experienced through his Tv programs, BBQ with Bobby Flay, Hot Off the Grill with Bobby Flay, and Boy Meets Grills, along with his cook books Boy Meets Grill, and its sequel, Boy Gets Grill.
Larry Gerber a.k.a. The BarBeQue Man. Named as the Barbeque Man or simply Que, Larry Gerber has become the face and voice of pretty much nearly anything in connection with barbecuing and barbecues. His organization, Barbeque Man, does endorsements and also promotions of assorted barbecue-related products, functions, as well as issues. Apart from being a personal cook, he also writes for several national cooking publications, hosts a Tv show known as Culinary Adventures, and may be heard on a number of radio stations in the upper Midwest while he discusses the craft of barbequing and also grilling.
Mike Mills is often termed as The Legend in the world of grilling and bbqing as a result of his family’s valued barbecue sauce. Between 1989 and 1994, his team, the Apple City BBQ team earned a huge selection of prizes and also awards in numerous barbecue competitions. They even hold the record for being four-time World Champions and then for being three-time Grand World Champions, that not one other team has ever been capable to beat so far. Nowadays, Mike Mills has 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro, IL and has published a book titled, Peace, Love, and Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and also Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue in 2005.
Steven Raichlen is a journalist, cooking teacher, award winning author as well as PBS TV host. His best-selling Barbecue Bible cook book collection (more than 2 million copies in print) as well as Barbecue University Tv program on PBS has transformed the American bbq for the better. In August, 2003, Raichlen defeated Iron Chef Roksbura Michiba in a barbq battle on Japanese tv. Various other famous quotes about Raichlen include: Oprah named him the “Gladiator of Grilling” and “Howard Stern praised him as the “Michael Jordan of Barbecue.”
At this moment, aren’t you just inspired to get out there and prepare the most amazing bar-b-que recipes on your own? Not a problem – get your barbecue grill set, hit a local meats shop or grocery store and logon to InsaneChicken’s BBQ Sauce Catalog and obtain their own scrumptious dishes which range from barbecue to vegan tasty recipes. As well as, take a look at their great deal of sauces and also marinades to help make your barbecuing dinners insanely bold and even exciting.
