Originally Posted by CrazyOne
The only tricky part is pouring them out. The chimney gadget gets plenty hot. I have two silicone oven mitts that I use for this purpose.
Do you actually manage to do this just after you pour the coals and put the grate down (so you don't have to try to hold up the grate and oil it somehow) or is that just not possible? If so it's definitely the trick I've been looking for.
One of these days I'm going to try the cedar plank salmon. I have some cedar planks bought for that purpose, but we're kind of afraid to ruin good fish. Some of our fish grilling tries (they were on the old cheapo gas grill, though) came out so-so, and some not so great.
I've got a Weber chimney, and the handle's long enough and it's got enough of a heat shield between the handle and the body that I can pour carefully w/o mitts.
As far as oiling the grate, I throw it on, let it heat up good, then do the paper towel with tongs (I have long tongs that grip pretty tight at the end) - works great. Some grillers will actually use a piece of bacon fat, but I've never kept bacon fat around to try it with.
I actually have a bunch of cedar planks, somewhat unintentionally. We just put up a cedar fence at our house, and the pickets come 6' tall. Unfortunately, village ordinance keeps you from building a fence taller than 5', so I had about 350 pieces of 5.5"x0.5" cedar planks that were all between 12-18 inches long. We saved about 100, plus some scraps of 2x4 and 4x4 that I'll chop up tiny for the smoker box. I'll be doing a lot of cooking with cedar.
