Briquettes

Lump charcoal

Binchō-tan.
Probably the ultimate lump charcoal.
There are dishes where this charcoal
is used to grill and then some of it
is ground up and used to season the food. 

What kind of charcoal should I use?

Briquettes are what most people get when they buy "charcoal" from the grocery store. Briquettes are made from sawdust and are molded so that every chunk is exactly the same size and shape so they are easy to measure and package. They are mostly wood, but usually contain coal, limestone, borax and other NON-WOOD ingredients to make them light faster or burn longer. These binders and filler ingredients add strange tastes to the smoke from briquettes. These "off" tastes are especially pronounced when the charcoal is first lighting up. This is an inferior product. Once you taste foods grilled over real wood charcoal, you will immediately prefer it to the chemical taste. And please never use self-lighting charcoal. It is soaked with cheap flammable petrochemicals and is absolutely guaranteed to cause ruined food.


Lump charcoal. Always use lump. It is pieces of pure wood that are heated until they are transformed into charcoal. The chunks will be various sizes and shapes and will look like blackened wood chips. Some lump charcoal is made from scrap hardwoods left over from furniture making, and may be machined into fancy shapes. It all burns the same.

We strongly recommend that you use lump (pure wood) charcoal instead of briquettes. Why? Many people feel that briquettes give off a bad smoke, especially as they are igniting. And with slow cooking methods, there is a constant "light" going on. In our opinion, you get an "off" taste from the briquettes.

This is not as much of an issue if you are doing simple and pure high-temperature grilling (where the smoke flavor is not the main objective). If all you have is briquettes, you'll be OK. Just make sure the charcoal is completely lit before you put on the food. But even on a high heat sear, lump charcoal burns hotter and cleaner. (More than you ever wanted to know about charcoal.)

Lump charcoal is pure wood, and does not give off strange smoke, in fact it gives off a sweet white smoke with none of the coal/petroleum flavors of briquettes. You can choose many different types of lump charcoal that will enhance the flavors of different foods.
In this business we use the grill a lot, and after a day of using briquettes, my clothes smell like a house that burned down. After using lump all day, they smell like smoked ham or bacon. After many years of grilling almost daily, I have come to really dislike the taste from the standard Blue and White bag of charcoal from the grocery store. There is a world of difference.

You can take your charcoal snobbery as high as you want. There are charcoals made from coconut shells, grape vines, fruit trees and darn near anything else that will burn. For example, Binchō-tan or white charcoal is a traditional charcoal of Japan. It comes from one particular city and is always made in special caves using wood from one particular type of tree through a laborious process that is centuries old. It burns cooler with almost no smoke. Delightful stuff. It is used for seafood, vegetables and other amazing grilled creations. It is so expensive that they sometimes sell it by the individual piece!

Lump charcoal also burns hotter and faster than briquettes, which makes it "greener". Most charcoal fires are used for about one tenth of the time that they could be used. They are still burning away long after you are done eating and the dishes have been put away. This is a waste, and one of the reasons that some feel that gas is greener because as soon as you are done, you turn it off. Using lump, you can accomplish the same thing. Light up a smaller batch, get more heat when you need it, and it will burn out quickly. Or spray it with water to extinguish the fire and it will be perfectly dried out and ready to light next time.

Play around with different charcoals until you find one that you like.

Experiment with this ancient tradition.

You can't do this with a gas grill. 

The cooking grate flips up
so you can easily clean it

 
The self cleaning grate trick

How do I clean the cooking grate?

First of all, you really can't hurt the grate no matter what you try—unless maybe you used power tools or explosives. It's made of solid 304 stainless rod that is hand-welded and heavy. It doesn't rust, and it doesn't have any coatings that can chip off. So don't worry about hurting it.

We try to make it easier for you. The grate tips up inside the grill so you can brush/scrape off the bottom where the crud builds up. Or, it's easy to flip the grate over on the mounting brackets to clean the bottom. Everything falls into the firebox where you chase it down into the ash pan. The trick is to get in the habit of cleaning it with each use. It takes a few seconds, literally, to never have an unappetizing crusty grate.

One thing that helps, oddly enough, is using the grill a lot. If you are constantly grilling—applying oils and fats, it penetrates the metal and builds up a "seasoning" on the surface. This helps in keeping down the stickiness factor. Every time you use the grate, get it hot, wipe (or spray) oil onto the cooking surface and let it soak in and glaze up before you place your food.

Remember that "fat dissolves fat"  and most of the buildup on the grate is fat that has been dehydrated and solidified, so after the food comes off, while it's still hot, spray again with oil, and brush it with a good brush or abrasive pad. If you get into this habit, it gets much easier to keep it clean for usual day to day grilling. You are also "seasoning" the grate, like a cast iron pan so it is less prone to stickiness from here on out.

The challenge comes if we are going to use our grill for a lot more than this, and sugar, sauces, marinades, and other foods can be more difficult to keep under control.

I used to have a rule that was essentially, "no sugar on the grill". This includes sweet sauces, glazes and marinades. I always serve them on the side and never apply sauce while the food is on the grill. There are two reasons for this. The food should be cooked correctly before you apply any sauce; you should have a proper char on your food, and the inside should also be cooked perfectly, then apply the sauce. it's almost impossible to tell what's going on if you put it on too early, and it will almost certainly burn because of the sugar.

The second reason is that sugar can form the most amazingly tough coating under heat. It can be impossible to soak off once it gets to a certain stage and you have to literally scrape it off.

If you're not into sweet glazes, sugary barbecue sauce and such, this is a good rule to follow. But with this grill, you don't want to limit yourself in any way. So we've been experimenting, and I've found a way to keep things under control that works pretty darn well.

The self-cleaning grate trick. After you are done grilling, add enough charcoal to form a single layer under the part of the grate that needs attention. When the coals are hot, raise the heat control lever as high as it will go, directly under the grate, and throw on a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil. Close the lid and walk away. Next day, when the fire is out, you'll find that the crud has turned to dust and can be brushed off easily. The foil concentrates the heat onto the grate and raises the temperature to self cleaning oven levels. Oil it down before you use it again, because you have probably cooked the seasoning out of it.

Oven cleaners, solvents and GUNK. I've tried a lot of oven cleaners, grate cleaners, even engine cleaner from the auto parts store. They all work, except for some of the "green" environmentally friendly ones that are pretty pathetic. You lay out a bed of newspapers, put the grate on and spray it liberally with the solvent. Wrap it up and let it soak for a few hours. Most of the crud will soften up and come off easily. But they're an awful mess, and after you're done, you have to start over with seasoning the grate with oil. There are easier ways.

It's not that hard to keep the grate clean. Never let it get too crusty, spray it with oil and brush it while it's still hot every time you use it. Use the foil trick if you have a sugar buildup, and if all else fails, run it through a self cleaning oven.