Gas grill mod

I have a Webber Silver A. Good grill for what it is, it ain't charcoal! It's more like an oven than a broiler. There is a burner tube across the front and one across the rear that have 1/2" flames about 1/2" apart with angle iron "Flavor Bars" above the burner plane. It has a porcelain coated cast iron grill. It barely puts sear marks on the food after a 10 minute warm-up. All in all, it cooks food conveniently and fast, it's well made and reliable.

I'm thinking of how to crank up the heat. How hot can I get it without destroying it? 1,200 F seems about right! Unrealistic, but how high can I go and how to get there?

Reply to
Tom Gardner
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I run mine at 550 F for most things, and use a lab timer. At that temperature, things happen fast, and inattentive cooks eat charcoal. It does a very nice job.

Joe Gwinn

PS. Instead of a timer, you should chain an urchin to the grill, as for the child between the machines. The urchin gets the leftovers. JG.

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Had the same problem with a bottom of the line Home Depot Char Broiler ( I think) grill, put a different regulator on the unit and that made a world of difference. Dont know what kind of temps I'm running, but the grill gets hot now.

Reply to
Jonas Grumby

I had one of the cast aluminum grills quite awhile back... As it got older, the burners needed replacing and the stand didn't seem that sturdy anymore, but the cast aluminum top and bottom was still in great shape, so I decided to refurbish it with new burners and building my own not-so-moveable stand / table for it... Well, somewhere along the way, I lost the regulator, so I just decided to run it with unregulated LPG (propane)... It was quite impressive in it's ability to quickly heat up... It could sear the flavor into a piece of meat very quickly, leaving the middle nice and red / juicy if you so desired... I like my steaks that way, so it worked great for me... I could also turn it up and get over 4 ft of flame coming off the grill surface if I so desired... Eventually, I ended up with large areas of melted dripping aluminum... It seems that LPG can produce a hot enough flame to melt aluminum... I've determined that aluminum is not the proper metal to use for *serious* grills... Steel is so much better since you get color changes in the metal as it heats up which will give you an indication of the temperature of the metal...

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Aluminum pretty much just stays the same until you see it dripping into puddles at your feet...

These days, I use a combination of natural gas and wood for outdoor cooking... I have a brick cook area with a large bed of lava rocks over a metal support grid with a natural gas burner underneath it all... The cook area is probably about a foot from the top of the lava rocks... I also put some mesquite or hickory chunks on top of the lava rocks for smoke flavoring... They also add some heat input and if I so wanted, I could just use the gas to start them, shut the gas off, and let the meat cook from just the burning wood... it takes about an hour to cook a chicken that has been cut in half and put on the grill surface... I use 1/2" square solid steel bars for the grill surface... They are easy to replace since they can be bought for very little cost at local steel supply shops that cater to the fence building contractors... The combination of wood and gas works out pretty good... You get the flavor of wood cooking with the extra heat input of the gas... Quick grilling of a steak would require moving the grill surface closer to the lava rocks...

An even better solution would be to have a separate smoke box in which you burnt the wood and the smoke was piped into the normal grill area... This would allow you to move the grill area closer to the lava rocks without touching the burning wood... Adding a small gas starter to the smoke box would make it even more convenient...

Basically, get yourself some concrete, steel, and possibly some bricks and have fun... It doesn't take much effort and the result is better tasting meat than what you will get with most store bought grills...

Reply to
Grumman-581

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