Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

[Burns11]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Oh burnsy so undereducated when it comes to food.

Instead of saying what I want here and violate the TOS, I'll just leave it as don't be condescending. Being an engineer, by profession, training, and at heart, I did my homework here.

Cooking times are actually elevated because of the injection of steam to the critical points of the bird.

The beer in the can isn't going to get hot enough to inject steam into anything. In fact, if you get the beer hot enough to produce steam your bird is charcoal. Contents of the can get to just under 180 by the end of cook time, no matter what cooking temperature I tried, and that's not hot enough to do anything but very slightly raise evaporation point, and you aren't going to leave the bird on for any amount of time to lead to any sort of meaningful evaporation.

On top of that it adds a bit of flavor and moisture.

You would add more flavor simply by marinating the chicken in beer beforehand. When I did my beer can bird experiments, we used absolutely bare chickens and even went as far as to replace the beer in the can with the most flavorful liquids we could find. Lighter liquids yielded no difference, more flavorful liquids gave a slight hint (and half of those in attendance couldn't even taste that). Simply dipping the birds in their respective liquids before roasting would have given a much more flavorful result.

Moisture I will chock up to placebo. I've done chickens on cans before and it was not any more moist, in fact the outer appendages (legs, wings) were always drier.

My birds reach proper temps quite quickly vs dry roast. But I like to keep it slow and low after temps to reach "pull"quality.

Every bird I tried canned took longer, about 20% longer IIRC. Reason being, water is an insulator. Basically you are taking about 30% of the surface area of the bird and exposing it to lower temperatures. That's also 30% of the surface that isn't going to absorb smoke (if using), nor is it going to brown at all (which isn't good).

And the breast stays nice and moist because of the flavorful steam.

See above, no steam without boiling.

Having the chicken vertical makes a positive difference, just don't shove a can full of beer up there and take all the negatives, buy a wire rack or just sit the bird up.

Want beer flavor in a chicken? Use it as part of a brine/marinade/injection, it will waste a lot less beer.

So I reiterate, beer can chicken is a waste of beer.

[Curahee]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Before this gets out of hand and gets into an argument, Im going to step in.

Burns, Im sorry, but Matt is right on this one.

The whole point of the beer can is to produce the steam to flavor the meat. ofcourse you can marinate the meat, but thats not the point of the beer can nor the method being used.
Your chicken only needs to be 165°. Water boils at 100 and doesnt even need to be THAT hot to produce steam. Which is why the beer can does what it does.

Now if you guys wanna argue it out or cant discuss it here without taking offense or making things personal, then I suggest you either let it go or have it out in PMs.

No one needs to get booted over beer!

[Chef Matt]

Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Burnsy, always love your posts, my friend.

[Chef Matt]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Also, while we in the west may be dealing the crappy drought it has been in an absolute grill fest out here!

OT
Sports wise: Funny how two west side teams are heading to the east for the Super Bowl. Should be interesting!!

[Burns11]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Before this gets out of hand and gets into an argument, Im going to step in.

Burns, Im sorry, but Matt is right on this one.

The whole point of the beer can is to produce the steam to flavor the meat. ofcourse you can marinate the meat, but thats not the point of the beer can nor the method being used.
Your chicken only needs to be 165°. Water boils at 100 and doesnt even need to be THAT hot to produce steam. Which is why the beer can does what it does.

Now if you guys wanna argue it out or cant discuss it here without taking offense or making things personal, then I suggest you either let it go or have it out in PMs.

No one needs to get booted over beer!

Water boils at 212, because of the alcohol beer is likely to boil a couple degrees less than that, about 210. At 180 it's physically impossible to get steam of any real significance from beer.

To get water to boil at 100 degrees, since boiling point drops a degree about every 500 feet of elevation, you'd need to be about 10 miles up.

[FlyingFinn]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Water boils at 212, because of the alcohol beer is likely to boil a couple degrees less than that, about 210. At 180 it's physically impossible to get steam of any real significance from beer.

To get water to boil at 100 degrees, since boiling point drops a degree about every 500 feet of elevation, you'd need to be about 10 miles up.

So why wouldn't the beer boil? The grill would be around 350 degrees... Even at slow and low temps (225 to 250) the beer should still boil.

[Curahee]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

So why wouldn't the beer boil? The grill would be around 350 degrees... Even at slow and low temps (225 to 250) the beer should still boil.

Thats the point though. It doesnt NEED to boil. It only needs to steam.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

I had something like this in mind: http://www.amazon.com/Char-Griller-2...=operasport-20.


Once warmer weather starts coming back then I'll start hovering around Lowes and see what they have.

(things over my head)

The lady and myself went to Lowes this weekend for - I don't remember, but there were a handful of grills out so I took a gander.

There's a pretty nice looking Char-Griller for ~130 very similar to the one in the quote. The only difference I can see is the one in the quote has a basket for condiments and the one at Lowes has a wood rack in the front. Either way I can see them getting to my way more than being useful.

What do you guys store your charcoal and grilling accessories in? The charcoal bins are nice, but I kind of want something that also has storage for other things like gloves, brushes, etc.

[Burns11]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

So why wouldn't the beer boil? The grill would be around 350 degrees... Even at slow and low temps (225 to 250) the beer should still boil.

Heat transfer doesn't work like that, it takes a burner putting out a much hotter flame to get water to boil in a pan. Water has a huge heat capacity, so it absorbs a ton of heat, but it also readily evaporates releasing a ton of heat. So water needs a lot of heat to boil, more heat that a simple hot oven can produce. In a stack smoker, where you have a water pan directly over the charcoal, I've only ever seen that boil when people have their fires too hot so the charcoal is directly feeding the pot. In my barrel smoker, I use water pans as a heat sink (and easier cleanup) and even when I up the smoker temperature to bake at 400+ that water doesn't boil because there is simply not enough heat coming directly at the water.

For beer can chicken, you can imagine that water and the bird meat will heat at nearly the same rate, so by the time water boils at 212 your bird is way overcooked.

Thats the point though. It doesnt NEED to boil. It only needs to steam.

That's it though, water doesn't produce steam without getting to the boiling point, that's what the boiling point is, the physical temperature where water will turn to steam. Even the barest simmer the surface of the liquid will be over 200 degrees and down where the metal pan comes in contact with the heat source you will get spikes up to the boiling point of the liquid which then produces the bubbles.

(things over my head)

The lady and myself went to Lowes this weekend for - I don't remember, but there were a handful of grills out so I took a gander.

There's a pretty nice looking Char-Griller for ~130 very similar to the one in the quote. The only difference I can see is the one in the quote has a basket for condiments and the one at Lowes has a wood rack in the front. Either way I can see them getting to my way more than being useful.

What do you guys store your charcoal and grilling accessories in? The charcoal bins are nice, but I kind of want something that also has storage for other things like gloves, brushes, etc.

The grills are the same, just different front shelves. There is also a third identical grill that has no bin or shelf on the front at all. I emailed Char-Griller last year while shopping for my latest grill because of the confusing descriptions. I ended up with one without front shelf from Kroger. There are other variations, there are two smaller grills and a bigger one, but the two you are looking at are the same. Also, the front basket/shelf isn't structural at all, if you don't like you can leave off or take off later no problem.

[Curahee]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

That's it though, water doesn't produce steam without getting to the boiling point,

Thats not true and I lterally JUST tested it. Water begins to produce steam at or around 95° F.
Seriously, I just tested it on my grill with a digital thermometer.

I should have taken pics! :P

[Redacted01]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Thats not true and I lterally JUST tested it. Water begins to produce steam at or around 95° F.
Seriously, I just tested it on my grill with a digital thermometer.

I should have taken pics! :P

...oh boy. Now that the chemist is in the thread, no, that's still not true. The water which you measured was 95 degrees. The whole pan of water is not the same temperature. The steam is 212, sure, but all of the water is not the same temperature.

This is why when I worked in the lab, we would always have magnetic stirrers so that liquids would heat evenly. You wouldn't want to boil away your solvent because you thermometer was measuring the temp of cooler liquid.

[Curahee]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

...oh boy. Now that the chemist is in the thread, no, that's still not true. The water which you measured was 95 degrees. The whole pan of water is not the same temperature. The steam is 212, sure, but all of the water is not the same temperature.

This is why when I worked in the lab, we would always have magnetic stirrers so that liquids would heat evenly. You wouldn't want to boil away your solvent because you thermometer was measuring the temp of cooler liquid.

HUH?!

Look Im no chemist nor do I pretend to be.
Im a Chef and I know the whole point of the beer can is to steam marinate the chicken.
And all I know is I had water on the grill with a thermometer in it, when the steam began to rise, I stirred it and checked the temp. It said 95° F.

Apparently I shouldnt have started this discussion! =/

[Curahee]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

So.... Moving on to a TOTALLY different subject!

PULLED PORK AND WAFFLE SLIDERS WITH MAPLE CHIPOTLE BARBECUE SAUCE

[Holic]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

Changing the subject here. Got the old Weber Smoker out and cleaned her up for some grub this past weekend. Picked up a two pack of chuck roasts and cooked them at 225 for 5 and a half hours. Turned out great.

Took this pic about 3 hours in or so.uploadfromtaptalk1390439224276.jpg

[Burns11]

Re: Official OS BBQ/Grilling Thread

...oh boy. Now that the chemist is in the thread, no, that's still not true. The water which you measured was 95 degrees. The whole pan of water is not the same temperature. The steam is 212, sure, but all of the water is not the same temperature.

This is why when I worked in the lab, we would always have magnetic stirrers so that liquids would heat evenly. You wouldn't want to boil away your solvent because you thermometer was measuring the temp of cooler liquid.

Not to mention you can't see steam. What he likely saw was heat induced evaporation hitting cooler air and causing the vapor pressure to drop causing the water to condense. It's the same mechanic that causes clouds to form, and that causes you to be able to see your breath in the cold.