Cooking on the Weber Q Series

Second Lot

Susie Wrote

WOW!! Thank you 'Captain Cook'.

Straight away I can see why I am still getting black sear marks on the meat - it's the olive oil that I've been using!! I thought that the preheatingwas making the griddle far too hot but, I daren't miss this bit out in case I poisoned the family in addition to serving them charred meats! I tried preheating then opening the lid and cooling it down and still got blacken meat, now I know why!

I shall buy some steak and a different oil this weekend and follow your instructions Fingers crossed now.

and then Susie wrote this

OK, I practised on some chicken thighs, the steaks I just did were a big improvement - not good enough for a photo but not burned either!

Thanks so much everyone for all your advice.

Tomorrow I am getting really brave and attempting a whole chicken! Watch this space.





The Captain Replied

Hi Susie Q

Next lot of advice from the Captain.

This is not only for you but for all other users of the Q series as well

You have followed the advice about cooking steaks etc. using the direct heat method and are now starting to control the heat and timing the cook to get the meat cooked perfectly. So a lot of the grilling technique is under control.

The next step in using the Q is cooking using indirect heat. I won’t call it roasting as it is really a form of convection cooking.
The mechanics of this is simple we need to place a barrier between the direct heat from the burner and the food ( I say food rather than meat as you can cook bread, deserts, vegetables anything really using this method). This can be achieved by simply placing a doubled over sheet of foil on the grill which acts as a reflective barrier. You need to ensure that you leave an air gap of at least 1 ½” (35 mm) between the edges of the foil and the 4 sides of the Q. This will reflect the direct hear away from the food. The other thing that you need to do is raise the food above the foil by at least ¾” (19 mm). The easiest way to do this is to use a wire trivet with legs that will sit across the grill bars. If this is not available you can use any type of wire rack that will fit and sit it on 4 balls of foil about 1” (25 mm) high. This allows the hot air to flow around the food and cook it using the convection method. The convection airflow is created by the design of the lid of the Q. The reason for the doubled over sheet is to allow heat dissapation through the air layer between the sheets.

When roasting using the trivet place a small hole with the tip of a knife under the meat to allow the fat/juices to drain off the foil and into the drip tray below. A lot of fat and juices will drip onto the foil and boil off, this imparts that beautiful BBQ flavour that you don’t get in a conventional oven.

For your temperature settings – Preheat with both burners on high for 10 minutes and then turn off the centre burner and adjust the outer burner down about 2 strokes from high. You need to set the temperature at about 10 -15 Degrees C above the setting that you would normally use to cook with in a conventional oven .
Note - Preheat first, then set up for indirect cooking

When you want to cook things like honey and soy chicken wings or food with a high sugar content in the marinade, use the indirect method, you can baste the food several times when cooking and build up the flavours on the outside and you don’t get that burnt bitter taste. This also works well when using commercial BBQ sauces as a baste/marinade.

Cakes and muffins are done using the same method - the timing is something that will need some consideration. This is why I generally set the Q on 2 or three strokes below high on the gas control and then cook for a set amount of time depending on the dish and then check for doneness and adjust cooking time as required.

One of the good things about using this method on the Q320 is you are not restricted to a small area in the centre. You can also just use the centre burner on low with this indirect method for low and slow cooking.

Here are a couple of photos showing Two chickens on a trivet in the Q220 and



A chicken with roast veggies on a trivet on a Q220, and finally,



5 chickens using the foil and trivet indirect method on a Genesis E320.



The next instalment will be cooking using a combination indirect and direct cook on the Q.

Cheers

Brilliant
From burning steaks to she cannot believe the chicken is done because it's so juicy, That's gold.
Being that this information is also universal to many gas BBQ's , It should be a sticky.

Apart from using EVOO for the obvious things, we would normally use Peanut Oil for stir fries, BBQ, and any high temp cooking. Noticing the rise in popularity of Rice Bran oil among fellow BBQers we have swung over to it and are very pleased with the results.

Heh,

The debate about canola is one of those ongoing Internet things that is probably never going to go away. There is evidence on both sides but when there are choices I'd prefer to just go for the alternative.

To summarise there is no such thing as a canola plant, the name comes about from a contraction of "Canada" and "oil" which was chosen by its original manufacturers because it is derived from rapeseed and they didn't want that association. It's an hydrogenated oil rather than a straight press which also stirs up the health mavens and it is very, very cheap to produce which makes it attractive to manufacturers.

The original marketing made a big deal, probably too big, about it being really healthy because of a low fat content but that only tells part of the truth. In reality it's analogous to margarine, which is something else that I choose to keep out of the house.

When there are very suitable alternatives, rice bran and peanut in particular for high temperature cooking where olive oil is not ideal I just can't justify canola with the jury rather solidly on the fence.

I do avoid peanut, more by habit than anything else, used to be married to someone with an extreme peanut allergy. Peanut oil does not actually kick off anaphylactic shock in those allergy sufferers but better safe than sorry.

Simply put rice bran does the job well, is neutral and not expensive. It and EVOO are the only oils we use.

Cheers

I did leave out the taste, yeah never used it much at all but no, didn't like it.

I did neglect to say we do keep sesame and coconut oil on hand, been cooking a bit with the latter, sesame no, used very sparingly for flavour.

In WA I don't think I've ever seen Avocado or Carotino, or Macadamia for that matter but really I don't use any oil THAT much in cooking, unless you count butter

Cheers

Agreed

Coconut oil is pretty impressive, funny thing is I had to rescue it from the bathroom, my very alternate medicine wife only bought it for her hair and something called oil pulling which if I understand means swirling it around your mouth for 20 minutes to pull toxins

Some of that alternative stuff is interesting but when I asked her why don't I just get you a whole coconut and you can chew on a piece she suddenly wanted to change the subject

I tend to find that coconut products are a bit of a rip-off, but then I've lived places where all you had to do was scoot up a tree and get a couple or sunbathe out of the drop-zone and wait for the thump

Cheers

I've never made it out of the cities in the Philippines Bill but can well imagine.

In my youth I spent time in West Africa ( not a place I'd want to go right now)In Kenya on the coast and in Seychelles. All had masses of coconuts, often just stacked up in pyramids, help yourself leave the shell was the usual thing. In Africa they make use of every part of a coconut but especially value the fibre but there were always more than seemed ever to be used.

In Seychelles they have two rather different nuts to the familiar coconut although very closely related.

One is the coco de mer, a massive double nut that looks like a human pelvis, to the amusement of the tourists, it's otherwise pretty much a coconut.

The second is, don't ask me quite how, somewhat different in being about the same size as a coconut but solid and harvested green. Sliced it makes "millionaire's salad," utterly delicious but also quite rare. A one-time friend before the place became so mainstream that George Clooney honeymoons there bought a small island off the coast of the main island of Mahe which he or someone christened "Isle du Treasure." It had a natural stand of the latter type locally called palmiste. He always maintained he didn't know that when he bought the place but the crop more than paid his investment over a few years

Very interesting place, 250 plus islands, mix of granite and coral, many still uninhabited, there were no natural inhabitants, just people who jumped ship into paradise and inevitably slaves. Led to a polyglot where to see a kid with coal black skin, red hair and blue eyes was actually not so rare. It is also a home to giant tortoise, I think imported, probably from Mauritius.

I didn't know it at the time but in taking my then boss there to sign up some of the small local hotels for the very first package holidays from the UK I was apparently the first person to land an aircraft there, on a massive beach called Beau Vallon. I knew it was there from other pilots but they had all gone there by flying boat, couldn't rent one of those

Sometimes I regret ever leaving but it's been overwhelmed by "civilisation" now pretty much anyway

Cheers