That Time We Talked About Grills

This is episode number 44 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are glad you guys could be with us today in this I don't know, we're like in a post-4th of July week.

It's a haze.

Yeah.

People are, man, it was, it was so close to the end of the weekend, but not quite there.

Not quite there.

People having to go back on Friday were like, ugh, I hate life. That's why you're like me and take Fridays off.

That's right. We didn't like your birthday, America.

That's right.

Didn't come on a Saturday. Think again next time. If you're going to have a revolution—

Make it on Saturday every year.

We've got stuff to do.

Oh, man, that sounds ridiculous.

Oh, man, I'll tell you. We actually had a really cool thing happen. We actually had to go out of town for 4th of July.

Had to?

Yep.

Oh, man.

Well, it is an obligation, but it's fun.

Sure.

Every 4 years, the family reunion's in Louisiana. OK.

So, we went to Louisiana.

All right. And visited with the family and had a good time.

The family, you mean?

The family. But like our neighborhood's really big on particularly like, you know, patriotic holidays. And so there's always like a big 4th of July parade in the neighborhood. I think yours does one too, don't they? Yeah, we sure do.

Ours is golf carts.

Yeah, so, and ours is all kinds of stuff. You know, you never know what's gonna come rolling down the street. But anyway, I had one of the ladies in the neighborhood reach out to me this year and ask if they could use one of our horses for the parade. And, you know, that can be kind of tricky because, you know, if people don't know what they're doing, it can be dangerous.

Sure.

For them and the horse.

Yeah, and other people.

Right, and so I assumed, you're like, well, they want it to like pull a wagon or somebody wants to ride him or something like that. And so I talked to her for a while and Ended up being the coolest thing. So in my neighborhood, we had this 93-year-old man who just recently passed away.

Okay.

Who was a World War II veteran.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, active combat at D-Day.

Wow.

Veteran living in our neighborhood. I never got to meet him.

Okay.

But he just, and he passed away on this past D-Day.

Wow.

And so what they wanted to do, some of the ladies got together and said it would be really cool if we had a riderless horse at the end of the parade for the neighborhood parade. And so they called and asked if they could, you know, saddle up old Biscuit.

Biscuit.

And—

Called for duty. Called up for duty.

So Biscuit got to ride at the end of the parade and—

How cool.

And honor that veteran. So that was really, really cool. So even though we didn't get to be here and see it, we got some pictures and Yeah, uh, it was, it was a cool way to participate even though we couldn't, couldn't be in town.

Man, that's, that's really cool.

Yeah, we were, we were honored.

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I mean, that— it's funny you say that, and as you're— as I hear you talking about this 93-year-old man, my, my grandpa just turned, uh, 92 in June, and, um, and he was a World War II vet as well. Uh, and, and not too long ago, we were together as a family. And, um, and we, we just found ourselves sitting around listening to him talk.

Oh yeah.

About stuff that was happening. And some of it I'd heard before, but, uh, some of it I'd never heard in my life. But I mean, he drove tanks in World War II. That was what he did.

So was he, was he in the European theater?

Yeah.

Oh wow.

And so it was just amazing to, to hear him talk about just some of the ways that happened and how he got called up for duty and And different things like that. It was just, you know, it's, it's, it's amazing to just sit around and, and listen to some of those guys that, that fought, you know, really, really, really fought for, for our country and, and to keep us free and those sorts of things.

So, yeah.

Uh, yeah. What an honor for Biscuit to be able to do that. Yeah.

And he didn't even realize it.

He didn't even, he, he had no clue. He was like, where are they taking—

Spend the day with carrots.

Where are they taking me? I was fine where I was.

That's right.

I'm having to move.

So, well, anyway, this, this episode we were, we were kind of excited about— not kind of, we are really excited about this one because it's something you and I are both pretty passionate about.

Absolutely.

Because we felt like many of you might be living in the post-4th of July grill envy haze.

Yep.

And so we decided to have an episode where we talked about all the types of grills that we love.

Well, yeah. Well, all of the types of grills and then the ones we love.

And then the ones we love.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So this is, this is gonna be interesting as we just kind of go through and talk about different, different types, because I don't know if you know, it's, it's amazing to me whenever I talk about grilling, how many people don't understand the type of grill that I have.

Right.

I may say it and they don't, they don't understand. So I really enjoy, you know, talking about those sorts of things.

So, and most people don't care and just want a Weber, right? And there ain't nothing wrong with a Weber.

No, it does what it was intended to do. But, you know, maybe you want to do a little more, maybe you want to not do a little bit more. So we're just going to kind of talk through some pros and cons and some, some information about some, some what I would call newer technology and some technology that's been around for ages that people are just now kind of catching on to, uh, those sorts of things.

So yeah, and we'll probably bring up some, some oddballs here and there as well.

Absolutely.

But you know, the Weber is probably a good place to start. Okay, let's, let's, let's baseline this thing.

All right.

I mean, if you don't know what the Weber is, there's, you know, it's often imitated.

Yeah.

And that's just it. It's, I mean, like, there's, there's not much special going on here. It's a round lidded charcoal grill.

That's all it is.

And it's fantastic for burgers, hot dogs. I mean, I guess you could probably make a pretty good steak on it as well if you really wanted to.

I mean, you can get those things hot.

Oh yeah.

I mean, super hot. In fact, a few years ago, we were grilling with some friends. We were over at their house and that's what they were cooking burgers on.

Sure.

And all of a sudden we hear a curdling scream. And my son runs in and we're like, what's going on? What's going on? We couldn't tell. We couldn't tell what was going on. And he's screaming, he's holding his arm. And he had apparently tried to take the lid off of this thing.

Oh.

And in doing so, his forearm touched the top of this— well, touched the lid as he's grabbing the handle and burned on him. It was about a 4-inch section of his arm.

Oh my gosh, that's crazy painful.

4 inches is a long, a big space on any person's arm, but let alone a— he was 2 at the time.

Yeah.

And so, man—

Where were you this whole time?

We were inside.

What were you doing, man?

We were eating. Jeez.

He was actually— well— You're gonna get CPS called on the Homeowner Show.

Yeah, yeah, so honestly, The thing that's crazy about it is it had been off. I mean, we had been done and we had put the, you know, we had tried to put it out as much as we, we thought we had put it out, um, and moved it over to the side, uh, with where we thought it was gonna be outta the way of everybody. And yet, you know, he's 2.

Kids are gonna find it, man.

Absolutely they are. So, um, they, those things can get really, really hot. Um, but yeah, it's just a baseline. Uh, you, Put Match Light in there or, or, or whatever and light it up and there you go.

Yeah.

Nothing super special about it.

I mean, beyond that, I mean, I guess you could make some ribs on there if you really wanted to, but I mean, like outside of that, maybe some grilled chicken.

Yep.

I mean, but like nothing complicated.

No, no. And, and, and what you mean by complicated is nothing that takes much time, right? I mean, because basically it's not what it's built for. It's not what it's built for. However, You would be super surprised at the fact that just about 2 months ago, I smoked an entire brisket on one.

Really?

Yes. They make an insert for these things that basically you put all the charcoal on one side.

Okay.

So in the bottom of it, it basically, basically, it goes in half of it and you put the charcoal in and you start it burning from one end and it slowly burns the rest of the charcoal very slowly. And you put your smoke, your wood chips in there, whatever you want in there.

Chips, yeah.

And we smoked an entire brisket for 12 hours on one of those things. So You might be surprised. The thing, the reason we did that is because we were at a lake house and they didn't have a smoker there and we wanted to smoke a brisket. And so it was a, it was a portable option. It's not something I would do at my house all the time, but—

Right.

It was really interesting that they're making some retrofitted items in order to make those things a little more portable, I guess.

So how'd it turn out?

It was fantastic.

Yeah?

Yeah, it was really, really good. I was super skeptical whenever— I mean, it wasn't my grill. I just participated in the process of preparing the brisket and making sure we got it going and everything. But I was skeptical, I'll say, but I'm not a skeptic anymore. It was amazing. I need to find— if I can find that insert, I will link it up in the show notes because If you may have one of those, so you may think, hey, it's just for grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, but honestly, without something like that, that's all you're gonna really get from that grill.

Yeah.

So, um, probably moving just up from that, um, you're, you're getting into a different type of fuel, right? Right. Because just up from that, you're probably looking at, at propane. Um, so there's tons and tons of different brands out there that you can get propane grills for. Right. And, and they're, they do great. I mean, what, for me, have you had a propane grill before?

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So, so what for you was like the, the most beneficial thing about having a propane grill?

I mean, so I've always kind of had both. And, and, and so we haven't really talked about like the, the smoker barrel combo yet.

Right.

But I've always had a fuel source other than wood and charcoal as an option.

Okay.

And the reason I do is because one, it's hotter.

Yeah.

And more even.

Yeah.

And so that's where I like to come in with my finer meats that I actually want to get grill marks on and, and, and, and get it an even, and particularly like steaks.

Yeah.

You know, I, I want to, that way I can get that perfect medium rare.

Yeah.

On my, on my meat, like I like it.

Yeah.

'Cause I know exactly how much time on each side I can get the markings on that meat. I can get the caramelization that I want because I know that that temperature is going to be even all the way across the grill.

Yeah. And, and one of the things that I think I love most about a propane grill is how quickly they get hot.

Oh yeah, absolutely. You don't have to baby that at all.

You don't. I mean, you don't have to wait for your charcoal to burn down to the right, you know, right thing. You don't have to. I mean, a lot of people are using these chimneys. Now, um, you know what I'm talking about?

Oh yeah, yeah, no, they're very effective.

Yeah, they're great. And, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, just go to any, you know, any store. Walmart even has them. Go to the grilling section and there are these— they're, they're basically a bucket with a handle on it. You put your charcoal in there and light it, and it, it lights very quickly, gets hot very quickly, and then you just dump it into your, to your grill.

You do typically have to have some sort of like kindling or something to activate it at the bottom, but yeah. like newspaper or something like that.

But it still, it burns very quickly and in comparison to just lighting the charcoal. Right. But with propane, it's a simple process. You, in fact, a lot of them have electric starters on them. You turn the propane on, click the button, or turn the, turn the burner on, click the button and boom, you got, you got heat coming.

Yeah.

And it doesn't take long for it to get hot. And you know, if you are doing a steak, I mean, a lot of times you want that grill up 500 degrees. Plus, yeah, even, and propane will get there really, really quickly.

And it's, it's difficult to get that kind of heat with charcoal.

It is.

So I mean, it really is. And even if you have like a spot on the grill that's like 500 degrees, there's probably another spot on there that's like 300.

Sure.

And just, it's just not an even, yep, as, as even of a heat source. Yeah. And some people are probably gonna get mad at me and it's like, you're just not doing it right. I get it. You know, yeah, you're a charcoal god, whatever.

Yeah.

You know, but it's just not, it's not gonna be as even. Yeah.

So, ever. That sounds like a good name of a song.

Which one?

Charcoal God.

Charcoal God?

Somewhere that's the name of a song.

Who would sing that? I don't know. It doesn't sound like somebody I'd be a fan of.

Well.

I'm not saying it'd be a bad song, I just wouldn't listen to it.

It would be weird. It would be a weird song.

Yeah.

Yeah. Be talking about the unevenness.

I don't even like the kind of person that I'm talking about right now.

That's funny.

They drink like Lone Star beer sometimes.

Oh gosh, Keystone. Oh man, terrible.

We're isolating ourselves from all sorts of people today, aren't we? Yes, we are. Yes, yes, we are. Let's get away from that.

Okay, moving on.

Hang on, I do want to say this about propane, because it sounds like I'm sort of a fanboy. Here's my, here's my downside with propane. Like, rarely will I ever see a Weber grill out by the trash pile.

That's true.

I consistently see propane grills out by the trash pile, and I think part of it is because there's a lot of them out there that are just really terribly made, and they're— they only last like a year.

Thin metal.

Yeah, and so they, they rust and corrode, and the burners Just go to pot really, really easy. And, and, and so what I will say is that's not the case with all propane grills.

Correct.

You know, if you're willing to spend a little bit more money, you can get one that can last a really, really long time that has, you know, the burners are easy to replace. And, but most people tend to go the route of buying the $129 special from the grocery store or something. Right. And look, it's just not going to last. No.

And, and, and, and I guess that would be one of my recommendations. If you're gonna go with a propane grill, which let me tell you, they're, they're, they're popular, they're inexpensive, and they do a great job. If you wanna cook, you know, chicken or, or, or, you know, hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, whatever. Steaks, whatever. Yeah. They're, they're, they do a great job with that kind of stuff. Find a grill if you wanna keep it for a long time, find a grill that has thicker metal. And that has parts that, you know, are common and replaceable.

Yeah.

And, and those parts are gonna be things like the grill grates. Uh, not all grill grates are created equal.

Right.

Um, and the burners specifically, find, find something that you can replace those things on and you could potentially keep that grill for a very long time.

Yeah. And I don't, like, again, I think the, the product that you intend to create with this thing will determine the kind of grill you ultimately end up getting because like we said, you're probably not going to make a brisket on a propane grill.

Not one that you want to eat. It'll be tough and it will not be good. Right. So yeah. Now let's maybe take a step back because we did, we did not mention probably the most basic of all grills and that's just a fire.

A fire. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I, that's where I, first began doing any type of grilling because I was in Scouts, and in Scouts we cooked on a fire a lot.

Sure.

Uh, and so one of my favorite ways to cook even still today is with a Dutch oven.

I was gonna say, yeah, that's my— that's like my favorite.

Yeah, I mean, I, I— one of my favorite things to cook in a Dutch oven is a pineapple upside-down cake.

There you go.

Oh man, get the coals up there on the top and on the bottom. And I mean, you can do a lot of really cool things over a fire, um, so don't ever limit yourself.

Yeah, and you can, you can— I mean, like, it's cheap to make a fire.

Sure it is.

Safely.

Yeah.

Um, and a Dutch oven, like a good Dutch oven, you can pick it up for $40.

Yeah. I mean, and you can— I mean, you don't just have to use it for an oven. You can use it as a skillet if you want to.

Oh yeah, it's cast iron.

Absolutely.

You can do anything.

Yeah.

I've actually— pot of soup.

Yeah. I've actually rigged up, uh, just a skillet with a lid, you know, turn the lid upside down and make a skillet with it.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, there's a lot of things you can do with the Dutch oven. So don't limit yourself whenever it comes to that. Um, so another weird one that I don't, I don't see around very often, um, is an electric grill.

Okay.

Do you see electric grills very often?

No, not really. No. And I mean, and part of that is, so like, they exist.

Yep.

But like outside, not so much.

No.

Um, and that's kind of the issue is like, if you're gonna grill, it's typically gonna be on a source that you can do it outside because a grill typically makes a lot of smoke and different things like that. But yeah, they do exist.

Yeah.

I don't recommend them.

No, I don't either. So if you, if you see one, you really have to ask yourself a question. What am I trying to do with this grill?

Right.

And, and if you can answer that question with, I want to be outside at all. And I, you know, I want the— one of the beautiful things about using a grill is you're not, you're not heating up your home.

Right.

I mean, anytime you turn the stove on, anytime you turn the oven on, Those things create heat. And so, you know, you do it outside and it keeps all that outside.

So, and I mean, like, I mean, just speaking historically, I mean, like particularly around here, the kitchen used to be a separate building.

Yeah.

You know, like you did all your, because exactly for the reason you just mentioned, it was such an amount of heat that was produced. You don't want that in the house making everybody hot.

Yeah. Absolutely. So the next one that I, that I think I want to move up to next is a ceramic grill. All right.

So you have one of these, don't you?

I do. This is the one I was talking about earlier that there's a lot of people out there that don't know much about ceramic grills. And it's, it's really a genius product and it's kind of, I mean, it's a big, thick piece of ceramic like you would pot plants in.

Right.

Only it's about an inch thick. And typically you see them in the shape of an egg.

Right.

And so the most common one out there, the name that you would hear about is Big Green Egg.

Right.

I'm not endorsing Big Green Egg here. Big Green Egg, if you would like me to endorse you, send me some money and I'll do that. But for now, I'm just using your name as an example. And it's pretty simple technology. They've got a 1-inch ceramic that is in the shape of an egg. And at the bottom, there is a vent. And at the top, there's a vent. And in the middle, there's what's called a charcoal It's a charcoal bowl basically. And then on top of that sits a grill, a grill grate, and then you're, you're good to go. Uh, one of the things that you have to know about these ceramic grills is you cannot use regular charcoal in

them. You have to use lump charcoal. The really, the big difference is the lump charcoal is a more natural charcoal. Uh, and there's no chemicals in it.

I actually prefer lump charcoal anyway.

I do too. I think it burns better. One of the things that's beautiful about lump charcoal that a lot of people are unaware of is you can reuse lump charcoal. So for instance, whenever I'm done grilling, I'll just shut the vents off and it, it snuffs out the, the fire and whatever's left, I just light it up again.

Right.

And it can reuse it, add what I need, and then they're good to go. But here's what's really unique. about this type of grill. Because of the thick wall of the ceramic, one of the things that makes it so unique from just a metal, a thin metal grill, is it holds its temperature really, really well.

Yeah.

So let's say, for example, you want to cook something on 350 degrees, whatever it is, chicken. You want to cook it 350 degrees. You can set this thing you know, based on the vents, set it to where the temperature comes up to 350 degrees, set your vents just right, and it'll hold that temperature for hours.

Mm-hmm.

Which makes it exceptionally good at doing things like smoking, and you can bake on it. I regularly— I would much rather cook a pizza on my egg than I would in my oven.

Yeah.

Uh, for lots of reasons. It, you know, if you've ever, if you've ever taken a frozen pizza and put it in your oven, um, do you do this very often?

No.

No.

So if you do, but I'm weird like that.

I, that's okay.

I like to make the dough. I like to make the sauce.

I like that too. But sometimes expediency is of the essence. So These things tell you to just put 'em directly on the grate.

Right.

And there's a reason for that because they want the, the, the dough to get crispy.

Right.

So you have a crust. Uh, if you put it on a, a pie sheet or whatever, um, it, it just doesn't get crispy the same way. Well, when you do that, stuff falls off sometimes.

Right.

It's in the bottom of your oven and, you know, then it's there forever and it's, it's awful.

Yeah.

You do that in a grill. No big deal.

Burns it up.

Falls down, burns it up. No big deal. I've cooked casseroles on my grill. I have not done this, but I went to a demonstration one time and they were cooking cookies, chocolate chip cookies on the grill. Because again, these things hold their temperature so well, like an oven, right? That it gives you a consistent temperature in there at all times. So it's, it's a beautiful thing. But you can also smoke on these things. So they have what's called a deflector plate that you put down on top of, on top of the charcoal bowl.

Mm-hmm.

That deflects the direct heat. So you get indirect heat instead of direct heat. Direct heat is what you're getting from a flame. just comes straight up, touches your food, whatever, direct heat. Indirect heat's gonna kind of create more of that oven effect. And so you put your wood chips down to the bottom and big pile of charcoal, and you can cook for 12 hours and it's gonna hold its temperature really, really well. I've smoked, I've smoked multiple briskets. ribs. I've smoked a ham.

There you go.

A lot of fun.

Yeah.

Um, I've smoked chickens before, um, pork butts, all those sorts of things, and they consistently turn out incredibly good. Um, have you, have you done—

and then this is kind of a little bit of tangent and, and may really more apply to like the propane grill we were talking about.

Okay.

You've done much fish?

I, I don't like fish all that much.

Huh. Yeah.

I like shellfish quite a bit. Sure. But like just regular fish, I don't cook much of it cuz I don't prefer it.

Yeah.

So, uh, I really can't speak towards fish very much.

Now, have you, have you ever, and I'm, I'm asking this for a reason, have you ever like caught a fish that day, cleaned it, and then thrown it on the grill?

Yes, but not on my grill. I've done it over at other people's house.

And you still didn't like it?

Still, I, no, I actually do like that.

Okay.

And, and, and what, yeah.

Because that made a significant difference to me. Oh yeah.

The, the more fresh the fish is, the more I like it. In fact, we were up in Alaska one, uh, one year for vacation. And I mean, you know, people either like salmon or they don't typically, because it's got a kind of a strong taste to it.

Sure.

Um, and that stuff that came fresh out of the water, so good.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was so good. So yeah, I, I, that does make a big difference.

So, yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, like grilled fish, fresh grilled fish. Phenomenal. Yeah, absolutely phenomenal. Yeah. If, I mean, like, if you can, if you can do it. Yeah.

If you can find it.

Well, I mean, it's, it's not easy to prepare either. I mean, like you can overcook it and then it's just nasty. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So, um, one of the things I love about this grill too is, uh, you can get it really hot. It is not difficult for me to get this thing to 600 degrees.

Oh, wow.

For steaks, for example. And the reason you get it that hot is because you don't want the inside to cook. You want the inside to be, you know, not cooked as much. So you get it really hot, you flip it, you're good to go. Just a few minutes and you've got Good steaks.

Yeah.

The thing, one of the, one of the real big downsides to these grills, couple of them. One of them is that they're, they take forever to cool down.

I was going to say, yeah.

They take forever to cool down. I mean, it's not unusual if I'm, for instance, if let's say I'm just doing chicken breast, I'll typically, personally, I cook that on about 350. And I'll go out there 3 hours later and it's still 100 degrees. And that's 3 hours after I'm done. They just, they, they take forever to cool down. So part of the problem for me is I, I have mine covered. Well, I have to remember hours and hours later to go back out and cover it. Where a lot of these, you, you know, a propane grill, for example, you, you cook your meat, go inside, you eat. By the time you're done, Go cover it back up.

Yeah.

I will say this. There's another benefit that you get from, from these ceramic grills that I have not found with any other grill. And that is because of the thickness of the grill itself. They retain moisture in meat really, really well. I've overcooked chicken accidentally and it still comes out moist. You know, typically you're, you're cooking chicken to 160 degrees.

Yeah.

Um, I've, I've actually had it at 180 before and I was just so mad. I just got busy inside cooking the other stuff and I come out and I'm like, 180 degrees, this is ruined.

Right.

You know, take it in, cut it up. One of the best I ever had, but it was still moist.

Yeah.

Which is ridiculous that you would have any juice left at 180 degrees.

Chicken's not very forgiving.

It's not. And so, um, it's just something with that ceramic that, that allows you to do that.

Um, you could have just had a fat bird.

Actually, the fatter they are, the worse they are. That's, uh, something I learned not too long ago from a friend of mine who worked at a chicken place. The fatter they are, the more muscle they have on them. And so they're, they're not as good. Okay. So I told you one con about them, which is just that they, they take forever to, to cool down. Another con, uh, specifically with the Big Green Egg is cleaning them out.

Mm-hmm.

Is you gotta go in there and you gotta clean the, the ashes out. And basically that's a process because you gotta take everything out and dig them out.

Hmm. Um, can't stick like a Shop-Vac down in there and—

I mean, I guess you could.

Yeah.

But you still, it's still something you have to, you have to take the grill grate out. You gotta, you know, it's just, it's a process. Whereas there are other companies out there. For instance, I don't have a Big Green Egg. I have an off-brand. Right. And part of the reason I have an off-brand is because the Big Green Eggs are extremely expensive.

How much are they going for?

So if you're just looking at just basic price of a regular kind of what they call their large egg, which is what most people would probably go out and buy just because of the cooking surface, that it, you know, the size of the cooking surface, you're looking at $800 or more.

Oh, wow.

If you go with the extra large, which is really pretty big, they're running between $1,000 and $1,100. And so these things are really, really expensive to where the one I got, I got on, you know, in August, so at the end of the season.

Yeah.

And I paid $300 for it.

Oh wow.

Which is not much more than some propane grills would be.

A good one.

Yeah. In fact, some propane grills are more than that. Yeah.

Even, um, you have all the fancy doodads and whatnot on it.

Yeah, exactly. But here's what's crazy is the one that I have, it has features on it, uh, that the Big Green Egg doesn't have on it. Um, and it came with more accessories. The Big Green Egg, you're gonna have to pay for side tables, and you're gonna have to pay for what they call a nest, which is just what you, you know, you set in. It's a stand, basically. You got to pay for a cover separately, whereas, uh, the one I got, all those accessories came with it for $300.

Nice.

Oh yeah, it's a great deal. But one of the things that it has is it has a removable ashtray. Okay, so you literally just loosen a couple of knobs, pull the ashtray out, dump it, and you're, you're good to go. The other thing that's really super interesting is they just— the, the one that I've got, it's a Vision. The brand is Vision. They sell them at Home Depot, they sell them at Sam's. The one I got was at Sam's Club. Um, they, they now created a propane and natural gas insert.

Oh.

So basically you just take that ashtray out and put this insert in, and if you want You want propane, you got propane.

So nice.

Yeah. Brilliant. Um, so there's some deficiencies the Big Green Egg has. Um, but this technology has been around for a long time.

Yeah.

The Big Green Egg has been around for 20 or 30 years. Yeah.

Um, my, my big question was, you know, so say I need it at 350 and I accidentally get it up to like 400.

Yeah.

How do I get it down to—

Well, you, you close, you close down the vents.

Yeah.

And it takes time.

Yeah. I was gonna say you're, you're setting yourself back probably an hour or 2 at that point.

Not quite an hour, but it's easy 30 minutes for it to go 50 degrees. This is another thing whenever it comes to smoking in these things is, you know, you want to smoke around 225, 250 at the most.

Yeah.

And so when you're smoking, It doesn't take long for it to get up to that temperature and you got to close the vents down and you kind of, you kind of got to watch it because it's easy to get it too hot.

You got to kind of baby it. Yeah.

Yeah. To begin with, once you get it closed down with the vents, you're good to go. But that is something that you have to be really careful with these grills is they get really, really hot really easily. Any other questions about the Egg?

No, I don't think so. I mean, it sort of leads me into, and I know we wanted to talk about some of the pellet grills, but they do make the propane smokers as well. Yeah, they do. And there's electric ones as well. I don't really let those count.

I don't either.

Yeah, but they do make natural gas and propane smokers that you add wood chips and things to. And so to me, there's good and bad about that, right? The good being really easy to keep a consistent temperature to evenly cook that meat like you're supposed to. The downside being that there's really not that much art to it.

No.

And, you know, and if you like actually enjoy kind of getting your hands into the art of barbecue and playing around with the wood and stoking your fire and making sure that you're your boxes right, you know, then it's probably not for you.

Right.

But if you're just looking to like easily pump out some pretty consistent brisket and ribs and hams and turkeys and all these different things that you might smoke, then it's a good option. And it's a pretty affordable one too.

It is.

I mean, I think you can usually get into one of those things for like $200.

Yeah.

So, and it'll cook the meat right.

Sure, it will.

And you don't have to baby it.

It comes down to what do you want to do? And, and this is a good time, I think, to insert another type of grill, which is just an old-school smoker.

Right.

I mean, where you've got— it's a round barrel with a side box on it and a chimney, and you put your wood over in the side box and let it smoke its way over into the barrel and then comes out through the chimney.

Which is my go-to.

Sure. That's what you've got here at your house.

Absolutely. And part of the reason it's my go-to And it's a barrel design, but it's not a barrel. It's like a big whatever. I don't know what it's made out of. I don't either. Big thick metal is what it is.

Yep.

But I like it because I can, I can put a ton of food on that thing and cook it all at the same time.

Yep.

And typically if I'm smoking, which is what I like to do on there, I'd rather do a lot of meat all at once rather than like 1 or 2 things. And it's usually because I like, I like having big groups of people over that I can cook for. Yeah. And so the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned when it comes to that. Um, so it's, it's a, you know, it's a production at that point, you know, how much can I put out?

Yeah. And that's definitely a disadvantage to an egg is, I mean, depending on what kind of, what size egg you have, it really limits the amount of meat that you can put on there at once.

Yeah. 'Cause I can, I can on, On mine, and mine's pretty typical for the size, I can probably fit, you know, 6 to 7 good-sized briskets on that thing.

Yeah.

You know, and cook them all really well.

Yeah.

So, but, you know, but that's me. I mean, that's, and that's, you know, I can, and I could do, you know, many more racks of ribs than that, you know, several turkeys, whatever, you know. I could fit a lot of meat on that surface and, get it all done at the same time. It's just a more efficient use of your fuel.

It is. It's, if you're going, but there's a couple of downsides. One of them is size.

Sure.

It's, it's almost too big if you're not wanting to cook a lot at one time.

Yeah.

And you have to have a place to store that thing.

Yeah.

You know, if, if you, if you want to have a—

It's a lot of real estate.

It is. Um, if you have the real estate, they're great options and they last forever. Yeah, you know, so no, those things are awesome for sure.

Well, in, in conjunction that would— I mean, like, what I'd eventually like to have, I'd really like to have a, a brick oven.

Yeah, um, for pizzas and breads.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, and, and honestly, like, brick ovens are a great place to finish steaks.

Yes, they are.

Um, so I mean, I, I'd love to have one just, I mean, for old world cookery.

Yeah.

Which is what I'm into, man. I love the old style of thing. I love, you know, putting things on top of the fire. You know, I just, I like getting down into like the simplicity of it and then making it taste great. And like, I love that those options are still available, but like, man, those things are expensive.

Yes.

The brick ovens. Yes.

Man.

I mean, like there's guys offering to build them for you.

Yeah.

You're looking at like 10 grand.

I know.

To get like a really nice one.

Yeah. A lot of people are starting to put those into an outdoor kitchen.

Yes.

Yeah, it's very popular these days.

It ought to be, man. It makes fantastic food.

Yes, it does.

Um, so yeah, but again, it's expensive to operate it as well. Yeah, it takes a lot of wood. Yes, to get that, you know, half circle of fire going in those things, and then you got to maintain it, and it's just a whole ordeal. But you know, if you're having a big party, you know, it's, it's a nice piece.

Yeah. And there, there's a reason why, you know, these brick oven pizza companies are, are really popular and why they charge what they do.

Um, and man, the crust just tastes different coming out of one of those.

It does. So, and yeah, you get a completely different style of pizza that way.

Yeah. So we actually have one not far from here.

Yeah.

And it's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're around here, a lot of them. There's, there's some chains of them as well. So yeah, good, good, good stuff.

Sorry, we needed to talk about pellet grills.

Yeah, let's, let's move over to those. So the name in pellet grills is Traeger. If you've ever heard anyone talk about a Traeger, you're, you're hearing them talk about these pellet grills.

And you know, I think, I think the Traeger has almost taken that status symbol away from the Big Green Egg.

Oh, absolutely it has. Because for years and years and years, your best option at controlling your heat and, and, and having a consistent, good smoked meat is coming from an egg.

Right.

And that was, that was your best option. Um, unless you went with a, one of these electric smokers.

Right.

Um, those are gonna do what they do. Um, but all of a sudden—

This is blasphemy.

I know. All of a sudden, uh, Traeger comes along. along and they build something different. They build what's called a pellet grill. Um, so, so these pellets are the smoke. They're the fire, they're the smoke. Yeah. They're, they're, they are what cooks the meat. Um, and so it really kind of looks like, um, bait. Yeah.

It looks like fish food that you're pumping into the thing.

Yeah. So what, what these things look like, they've, they've actually just redesigned these Traegers. They used to look like barrels, just like, um, So they were round, right? Um, but they've redesigned them and they look— they're more egg-shaped.

Okay.

Um, they're still, you know, kind of elongated. Um, uh, but they, they're now got a little bit of a, an egg shape if you're looking at them from the side. They've redesigned that because they say that the, the way this— the smoke rolls in there rolls a little bit different. But most of the knockoffs that you find, they're just round.

Okay.

Um, and basically the way these work is on the side, just like you would have a, a firebox on, on a regular old school smoker, these have a little box over to the side. You pour the pellets in there and it, it's, it's a hopper.

Yeah.

And so this thing, uh, it turns and when it does, it feeds these pellets into the actual cooking area. And, um, what's really amazing about these things is that it's a set it and forget it type of thing.

Yeah.

So they're electric. Um, and so, well, they're electric, but they're still burning. Oh yeah.

It's weird.

The, the, what's electric about them is the hopper. Yeah. The hopper is electric. And so on the outside of the hopper, you've got some, well, They're not all, not all of them are electric as far as the knobs go, but basically you've got some settings and you can set the amount of heat that you want. So you can tell it, I want it to be this, this degree, and then you can set the amount of smoke you want. And a lot of them, the, the more reasonably priced ones, I'll say that, are, are kind of like a light, medium, and heavy amount of smoke. So depending on what you're doing, you may want a lot of smoke at the

beginning.

Yeah.

And a lot less smoke at the end. A lot of brisket is done that way.

Yeah.

You know, in fact, most people, they'll, they'll wrap their brisket and that keeps the smoke from, from continuing, but you're just cooking the inside at that point.

Yeah.

But you know, with some of these, you don't necessarily have to do that.

Right.

Because you can turn the smoke off, you can lighten the amount that you get.

Well, and for me, like I wrap my brisket and it has nothing to do with smoke. It has everything to do with seasoning.

Sure.

I want, I want every bit of that seasoning that I put on that Boogerd to seal in there.

Right.

And then I want to bring the smoke on.

Sure.

So that, I mean, that's, that's my reasoning. Sure. But I know plenty of guys that just, you know, full on expose that brisket and rub him down as he goes.

Yep. So you can use a lot of different things. Yeah. So what's really interesting is Traeger has decided to go all in. And they have now got Wi-Fi options for theirs. I'm not kidding. But when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because basically, um, it's one of those deals where, I mean, if you're, if you're going to cook a brisket for 12 hours, right, you, you have stuff to do.

Yeah.

You've got a life to live and maybe you do want to, you want to put that thing on at, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning. And you want to go on about your business and you want to go buy the rest of the stuff, or you've got clothes to shop for, or, you know, got to get the oil changed in your car or whatever. All you have to do now is look at your phone and it'll tell you exactly what your grill's doing.

Yeah.

And so, um, they've, and then you can, I'm sorry.

There's just, there's just something so wrong about that.

I agree.

And I understand that I'm, I'm probably being a little hypocritical. A couple episodes ago, I was like, I got Bluetooth on my lawnmower. But like, you know, this is just, there's just something about it that like, if you're gonna do this for me, like, man, you need to like slow down.

Yeah.

And enjoy what you're participating in and just really experience it. And like, part of that is being quiet and not having my phone and just, You know, like, you know, being involved with fire.

Sure.

And meat and life and just letting that be what you're doing at that moment. You know, and not to get like all preachy or whatever, but like, you know, we all need that reason to step away. And this is just a really good excuse. And so like, phooey on you, Traeger, and your bungled hopper and your Wi-Fi. I don't want any part of it, although I'm very intrigued by your product.

Yes. Send me one and I will test it.

Um, I won't, I'll let somebody else do it. I'll do it.

Yeah. Um, but it, one, one of the things that, that is amazing about that though, is you can change it from right there.

Yeah, you can adjust it there. You can, you don't have to be there at, I, I, I get it. Like, yeah, it, it, it's very convenient.

It makes sense from a convenience standpoint. Um, you're not getting the same experience that you're talking about, but You know, if you've got a busy lifestyle and you are choosing to also want to smoke meat, this is the best of both worlds.

You could just go to a barbecue place.

There's that. There's definitely that.

If you're that busy, that's true. Just go out to eat.

It is amazing what these grills will do though. So they look and feel more like a traditional charcoal grill and they're a lot lighter. And one of the downsides of an egg is they're heavy.

Oh yeah, that's true.

I mean, they might, I think mine is like 250 pounds.

Yeah.

That I'm not moving that thing very far.

And something I forgot to mention earlier when we were talking about ceramic grills, like something that I've seen, and this is like an efficiency thing in like a home for people that live in like colder climates, but I've I've seen, you can go on YouTube and find these guys that build room heaters out of like 2 ceramic pots and a candle.

Wow.

And it's because that ceramic allows you through that candle to like radiate heat throughout that room efficiently.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah, and it's like, it's crazy what that can do to a room.

Sure.

And so you put that on a bigger scale with like an egg, man, it's like those things, you're right, they're very efficient. in their use of heat and maintaining heat. So those videos are worth looking up for guys that do that all. I mean, it's, it's pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, go look at the Traegers. I'll tell you this, uh, to get, you know, their, their smaller, just very basic type of stuff, you're talking anywhere from $500 to $700.

Okay.

If you want to get some of their bigger dudes and especially some of those that wind up getting, uh, Wi-Fi, you can spend anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 real quick. Well, and here's the thing, they have some that are custom that are even more expensive than that.

Yeah. And the other thing I was gonna say is like, you have to use their pellets.

You do. You do have to.

And I don't remember what those cost, but they're not cheap.

They're proprietary. Um, so, so if you look for a bag of those, um, and I'm not exactly at— this is I'm, I'm not the best person to ask on how long they last, but a bag of 'em are, you know, $20 roughly to get a bag of their pellets.

Now, from, from what I've heard, and I've, I've, I've talked to plenty of guys that have these and they, they all love it.

Sure. They absolutely love it. I've got a, my brother-in-law has one. He, he, he loves it.

Yeah. I, I've heard that the pellet, I mean, like part of the reason it's, it's such a cool design is that apparently the, the pellets are very efficient. Yeah. And so it doesn't take a whole lot of them in order to, to keep that temp. Yep. And, and like you said, it's a smart hopper that adjusts.

It's awesome. So in a lot of ways now we have to transition for a moment. I don't know where we're at on time, but we have to transition for a moment. And I gotta tell you about the smoker I built.

Okay. Yeah. You, you shouldn't show me pictures of this thing. It's, it's pretty awesome.

Yeah. So, some of my, my wife's side of the family, they've got a, a lake house. which is a really loosely defined term. They've got a house on a lake, and it's a natural lake here in Texas, Lake Caddo.

That was a little pointed at our lake. I don't know that I appreciate that.

Well, it's the only natural lake in Texas.

The only natural lake?

Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in Texas.

I'm fact-checking you on that.

Do it. I promise everyone, every else, everyone else is manmade. So, all right. That being said, um, every Thanksgiving we go and we speak, uh, spend a week out, out at this place. And so for years and years, um, one of the family members, uh, who's about my age, he would bring a smoker. And we would smoke whatever we wanted to for a while. Um, and we kind of got to the point where we're like, huh, there's an old refrigerator here. And when I say old refrigerator, I'm talking like '50s refrigerator, metal. Um, looks like a spaceship. This thing is, is old. It's got that, the, the kind of lock you could lock people in

the refrigerator because it had a latch on it.

I like that terrible scene from the Indiana Jones movie.

Exactly. And so—

Nuclear blast refrigerator. That's right. All right.

So, uh, so we took this thing and, and we gutted it out from the inside, took all the insulation out, and, um, they're metal on the inside. And so we created a smoker out of this refrigerator. And so you want to talk— I mean, you're, you're talking about you can put a lot of meat Yeah, on your smoker. Um, imagine what you can put in a refrigerator. It is unbelievable the amount of meat that we can smoke at one time.

It's already got the built-in racks.

It does, it's got the built-in racks. And then even the door— these old things, they had like, um, the racks in the door, uh, were like holes for eggs.

Yeah.

And so they're perfect for jalapeño poppers. You take your jalapeño, you You stuff it with cream cheese or whatever kind of cheese you want, wrap that sucker in bacon, put a toothpick in it, set it in a hole.

Nice.

You do like 30 of them all at once, which is awesome. So, you know, we built it out of a— we use propane for this.

Okay.

So we've got a little propane starter at the bottom to regulate the heat, put your water pan in there. wood chips in there as well. And we vented it up at the top. We cut a hole in the top. Very difficult to do, by the way, to put a hole in the top of a refrigerator, um, and vent it. But, uh, but we did that. And dude, every single year— we even put wheels on it.

Yeah.

On the— and, and like, um, handles, so we move it around like a dolly. Uh, the thing is, it weighs a ton.

Y'all still have it?

Oh yeah.

Yeah? Still in use?

It gets used every year.

That's awesome.

We've been using it now for, I guess it's been about 4 years now.

Dude, you got to put some pictures up on our Instagram page about this thing.

I've got it.

People need to see this.

I'll do it. Now, here's what's amazing. So we're in this, you know, Podunk area of Texas. We go to this little bitty town outside of Caddo Lake trying to find some parts. Uh, for like the wheels and everything so we can move this thing. We walk into this old school hardware store, um, the kind where, you know, the guy greets you at the front door, can I help you? And he knows where everything is. So we walk in and the guy, you know, greets us. Hey, how's it going? Can I help you? Uh, yeah, so here's the thing. Like, we've got this old refrigerator And we're gonna make it into a smoker. And he goes, oh dude, follow me. I know exactly what you need.

And he starts taking me around. He's me and me and, uh, my other relative here. We, he starts taking us around and showing us, oh, you should probably get this and this and this. And you can probably do it this way. And, and it was like, this guy had already thought this out way more than we had.

He'd been down this road a few times.

That's right. And he said one of the most amazing things ever. He said, you know, this is really cool and I'm excited for you for this, but I'll just have to tell you, the coolest smoker I ever saw was made out of a dishwasher. We're like, a dishwasher? And he goes, yeah, man, think about it. The racks just roll right out and they've already got the little space. You just put racks of ribs in there where the glasses should go and you can He said you can literally do about 40 racks of ribs in one of those things.

Oh my gosh. That's probably one of the most hillbilly things I've ever heard. Dude.

And no, I completely agree with you. And at the same time, I'm going, I gotta find me an old dishwasher because that would be awesome. So I haven't done it yet.

No, just don't.

No, it would be fantastic.

I think it would be better just like to build something that was in the shape of a dishwasher.

Not the same. Does it have the racks that just pull out?

Well, yeah, you can do that. I mean, like, that's doable.

Okay.

But I just—

does it say Maytag on the front?

No, you can't. You can't.

I don't know. It's, you know, it's clean.

I immediately don't trust this man.

Anyway, it was a ton of fun to build the refrigerator smoker and—

I built an oven out of an old septic system.

No, although I will tell you that on, on this property we had an old, uh, like massive propane tank that, um, that is not in use anymore. Um, but we've considered, is there a way we could turn that into a smoker? Yeah, I don't know.

I will tell you, I've seen some, uh, there's a place in San Antonio called The Pearl.

Oh yeah.

Um, and they use big old propane tanks as planters and they are Awesome looking.

Yeah, so I've seen those.

That's appropriate.

Yeah, there you go. Well, you know, this obviously was not the most exhaustive thing about grills ever, but just to kind of give you an idea of different types of grills and things that are out there.

Innovations in the marketplace.

Absolutely. And Craig and I love to cook. Yes, we really love to cook on grills. So, you know, if you have any questions about grills or, you know, We, we may or may not have the answer, but we'll do our best to answer your questions. So send those in.

Yeah, and we probably missed something. So if we did, feel free to publicly shame us.

Yes.

By sending us a message.

Do your worst.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can send it to Twitter.

We probably won't respond. Nope.

But it'll be there.

Yep, someone will look at it.

For someone to be like, those idiots.

Yeah. Oh, they never responded to me. It's been 14 years. That's the way it goes.

You're very optimistic in the longevity of Twitter.

Yeah, and this show. You never know.

Yeah, this will be the show that takes us down.

That's right, that's right.

It was the grilling one.

That's right.

Yeah, so send us a message. If you haven't yet, go ahead and hit the subscribe button there in Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are available.

Yep.

In the app of your choice.

Yes.

Um, but also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and any other place that social things are happening online. Yeah.

Thanks for joining us. It's been a fun episode. Yep.

All right.

Well, uh, we're here every Tuesday. You can catch us at homeownershow.com or send us a message at info@homeownershow.com. Until then, we'll see you next time.

See ya!