Episode: 1591
Title: HPR1591: The Ultimate Cooking Device
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1591/hpr1591.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 05:32:56

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Ah, right.
HPR. HPR. HPR.
We'll hit you with our big nerd, Explanive Deleted.
We are here to do some special HPR type content.
And this time we wanted to talk about my favorite multipurpose, all functional, all
amazing cooking device, the Weber charcoal grill, and you know, I've contributed
to Hacker Public Radio one other time, and Sean has never even heard of Hacker Public
Radio.
I had to be educating.
So we were talking, you need to talk up a little bit as you're making.
Sorry about that.
I mean, actually talk up, not just say the same volume.
Got you, okay.
So, and the reason I want to talk about my Weber grill is because it's fucking amazing.
Like the quintessential summertime omnipurpose?
Well, not just summertime, spring, winter, fall.
I consider it a four-season cooking device.
And here are some of the things you can do on a charcoal grill.
It is a charcoal barbecue.
It is a charcoal smoker.
It is a charcoal-powered wok cooking machine.
It is a wood-fired pizza oven.
What fired pizza?
Oh, you're damn right, my friend.
You have peaked my interests, sir.
All right.
So, about three or four years ago, I was talking to Casey about my wife about getting a charcoal
grill.
And I really wanted a Weber grill, I was thinking.
We had propane grill at the old place, and it was really old and broken down.
We ended up just mashing it up, putting in the garbage when we moved.
So it had tipped over in the way in the glass front of it, broke out, anyways.
So we're looking on Amazon, and there are about 120, 130 bucks for a Weber grill, 100
bucks.
They sound different size.
I mean, I've seen the mini, but is there any size besides the little one, the big, or
is there a big big?
Yeah.
So there's a 22-inch, and I think an 18-inch, the littler one, and the little countertop
kind of size one.
Right.
And then there are some different models of the 22-inch, which is the 22 and a half-inch,
which is the standard kettle drum size, but then they make it so that it's the regular
one with the little vents in a small aluminum tray, which is what I have.
Then they make one that has kind of a fancier drip collection system for grease and for the
spill, you know, the little bit of spill that you get out of the vents.
And then there's one that's built into like a rolling countertop kind of thing, and the
fancier ones have like a little thing where you take the lid off and you can set it in
this little wire rack on the back to hold it.
And all sizes will work all things, all sizes will do smoking, and maybe a pizza.
I'm talking explicitly the 22-inch standard Weber grill.
Now the fancier ones are still 22-inch, they just add some other features to it, but we're
still talking the 22-inch grill, okay?
So as a normal charcoal grill, I like to use the chimney, the standard Weber brand chimney
that is galvanized on the outside, it has a plastic handle, which I like.
I've had two of the other chimneys that are cheaper, and they have wooden handles with
little spikes to stick in that pop out of the handle, and it's really annoying.
This one has a molded on plastic handle that's metal and goes into the side of the chimney,
and then it has a secondary wire handle that allows you to hold the one handle and then
use it for tipping safely or more safely the charcoal, okay?
You with me so far?
Yeah, and that gathers a bit too little.
Now the reason you use the chimney is, you know, we all remember as a kid, the taken
and spraying the grill lighter fluid, and it gives us lighter fluid smell.
Yeah, and I don't like that.
I want charcoal grill, right?
So the chimney allows you to, you can use paper, if you are a newspaper guy, you can
stuff newspaper on the bottom and use a couple of those to light the charcoal, and then
you don't get the lighter fluid, but I have recently turned onto these little Weber cells
them, and you can get them at lows or Home Depot.
They're little perifin tablets, and so you set the chimney and set the perifin tablet
on the bottom charcoal rack, and then you set the chimney on it, and you light it, and
it'll burn enough to start.
And it's like $3.25 to $4 for a pack of $12, or maybe it's a pack of $24, or these little
perifin tablets.
And what's the burnable, I mean perifin is wax, right?
No, perifin is a petroleum-based product.
So, and it burns like a gel, like a solid, like a...
It's like a wax.
So, a perifin is a petroleum-based, wax-y substance, and it's oil-infused or fuel-infused.
It is a fuel-in and of itself, perifin wax has been used in canning for the top of canning.
When you don't want to do water bath canning or pressure canning, you can do perifin canning
where you heat it up to a boil, and then you seal the top with a perifin wax, and then
put the lid on.
And the perifin wax makes a sterile plug in the top of it for canning.
But it's the same kind of wax, it'll burn as a fuel-perifin is actually another name
used for kerosene in the UK, yeah.
It's not kerosene, but a perifin wax is a petroleum product that will burn as a fuel
as well.
There's perifin wax candles and stuff like that.
And what do you say per per pellet is about how much cost?
Per pellet?
I don't know.
You don't have to do the math.
Pack of 24 is like $350.
Oh, I got you.
I got you.
Yeah.
So whatever that works out to, a couple pennies to light it.
And it is a petroleum-based product, but you know, you can light it using pure wood products,
but...
Well, newspaper being...
Newspaper.
But I don't see the issue is I don't really, we recycle all our cardboard, and then you're
burning cardboard, which has...
Different smell word.
Yeah.
Well, it has coloring in it that I don't know what that burning is doing.
And I don't get a newspaper anymore, I'm a man of the digital millennia.
Right.
So...
So, now we just got into it.
We were able to heat up charcoal without using lighter fluid, and now we can do this anywhere.
Okay.
It doesn't require us to be at our house.
We could go to a park.
We can take it on the mountains.
We could take it to the parking lot for a little bit of tailgating for the local Broncos game.
That's damn right.
We're Broncos fans.
Broncos.
So...
Now we're just talking barbecuing.
So straight up barbecuing.
This is hot cooking method for your vener stencils, your bratwurst, your little smoky
sausages, you know, a steak, a grill, a mean steak on the grill.
Now do you use something to cover the grill, like a mat or foil, or...
It's a cast iron grate, and if you just keep...
I like to use a lard for seasoning it, so you'll season it like a cast iron pan.
And just use a brush to knock off the chunky bits.
Rub a little lard on there to season it, and it's a non-stick surface.
Boom.
Done.
I don't want to talk about that anymore.
All right.
Okay.
But I'm glad you brought that up.
Yeah.
Because you've seen those, like, miracle mat or whatever, where you can throw it on the surface.
And I don't know.
I don't think they're a necessity.
I don't really care.
Especially if it's your grill and seasoned.
Yeah.
Rub a little lard on it.
I mean, it seasons up like a cast iron skillet.
Don't overthink it.
Stop overthink and cry.
Okay.
Next.
Okay.
So that's...
Now if we want to use it as a smoker, here's what you do.
So we're talking about an emulation of the charcoal vertical smokers.
How we smoke on it is you take and fill your chimney up halfway to all the way with charcoal and light it.
Till it is glowing red and develops a little bit of gray ash on the outside of the charcoal.
It's totally hot.
Okay.
Completely heated.
And we want to put in an equivalent amount depending on how long we're doing.
So let's say we're smoking some chicken thighs.
That's not a real long smoking process.
We're going to use half of a chimney a charcoal.
We're going to use another half a chimney of cold charcoal laid in one half of the barbecue.
And then we're going to pour the hot charcoal on top of the cold charcoal.
And that's going to kick start the cooking process.
But as those...
We're going to maintain temperature that way because those dying embers will ignite the under and you get a longer burn time.
Okay.
In the other half, we're going to put a water pan.
I personally own a little stainless steel square pan that I like to put that's reusable.
You can also use a standard chafing aluminum pan.
You know, like the kind you would get for putting on a disposable chafing tray.
You get them into your local grocery store or party stores.
Have them.
You know, a little aluminum pan.
That's not disposable, do you?
Yep. And we're going to fill it with about an inch of water in the bottom of the pan.
And that's the same as you would do in a charcoal smoker or electric smoker to provide moisture
and a cool surface underneath the meat you're smoking.
Then let's say we're going to put these chicken thighs or a rack of ribs or whatever we're trying to get a smoky flavor of brisket, pork butt,
pork tenderloin.
We said butt.
Yeah, it comes from the butt.
We're literally talking about here.
Sorry.
A rump roast in a cow would be cool.
Cool. Whatever we're smoking.
Time to smoke depends on volume of meat.
A lot of factors, the thickness of the meat.
So this is a hot smoking method.
The same as your typical electric propane powered or charcoal powered smoker is.
These are hot smoke methods, meaning that you're just trying to impart smoke flavor in a barbecue or roasted meat.
Okay.
So our smoking period.
On top of that charcoal, we're going to put a lump or a pelletized hardwood.
I like using lump hardwood for this charcoal method.
Do not soak your charcoal your wood.
Okay.
Stop soaking your wood chips and stop soaking.
Okay, you want to create smoke.
And they're saying that that prevents smoke and fire.
It doesn't.
Here's what it does.
You take those hot charcoals.
You got a hot grill going.
You put the lid on.
You let it heat up to about to its cooking temperature for about five, six minutes to come up to temp.
You open it up and you threw something wet on there and you created a whole bunch of steam.
The drop the overall temperature and you cool down the charcoal.
Okay, that hardwood is going to smoke naturally because the temperature of charcoal is colder than what wood burns at.
So it's going to smoke anyways.
And you have 20 minutes, 35 minutes, 45 minutes to maybe an hour tops depending on how much hardwood you put in there for the smoking phase.
Once smoke is penetrated into the meat, you're done smoking.
Now you're just oven roasting basically inside your charcoal oven.
And you're maintaining temperature.
If you're doing ribs, it could be four to five hours for a rack of ribs.
You're talking an hour and a half maybe for some chicken thighs to an hour.
You know, it all depends.
And I like to use an immersion digital immersion thermometer that has a heat proof lining on it.
I got it off Amazon.
It's some brand with a P and we can throw a link in the show notes to it on Amazon.
But it has a set point temperature.
So let's say I'm trying to get the meat up to a perfect 165 degrees.
I'm just going to throw that out there.
I slide this probe thermometer in.
I run the cable out of the lid and over to the little outdoor table I have sitting next to it.
I set the set point for 165 degrees for the alarm.
And I just leave her set.
And that alarm will go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
I go sit in my hammock.
I get some of them on my acrobrew.
I sit down.
I put my tablet in a waterproof case.
I set up my sprayer that sits on the end of the hose.
And I sit out there on a nice hot 100 degree day getting sprayed and cooled down with my spritzer.
Reading a book on my digital tablet, swinging in my hammock and joining my day.
You've got to stop the spritzing if you're brushed out the tablet.
No, no, no.
I have a waterproof case that I slide in.
A waterproof tablet.
Nice.
No, it's a little case.
It's like a $8 case that I got off Amazon that you put it in and it's waterproof and you can still use the touchscreen.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I'm a nerd.
So I'm swinging in my hammock.
I'm drinking a micro-brew.
I'm waiting for this thing to come up to temp.
And it just goes, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
You know, if I'm doing ribs, I want to flip it at a certain point.
So there's a timer on there too.
I guess at the time of for an hour.
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
I go, I flip the ribs at an hour so that I can cook evenly on both sides or flip the chicken breast or flip the breast kit or whatever.
And then when the probe says it's done, it's done.
I serve it up.
So now it's our spoker.
Okay.
Now let's talk about a wood-fired pizza oven.
This is number two.
You can buy a kit that has a metal ring with a cutout in it that raises up the lid and gives you a cooking space.
It's like a sleeve, like a little...
It's a 22 and a half-inch diameter ring that sets down into the grill and you set the lid on top of it.
And there's a little cutout that looks like a pizza oven where you stick the peel in, which is the wood paddle that you use in a wood-fired oven.
That extra head space gives you room to get the temperature up.
So you start at a small charcoal grill.
Use maybe a quarter to three to a third, maybe a half of a chimney worth a charcoal.
And then you use a wood media to build a wood fire in the backside of the bottom of this.
And you use a ceramic or tile pizza stone that is set on the rack and a peel.
And you can throw it in there.
Now this is a good thing.
Now pizza stone, you can pretty much get it anywhere like Wal-Mart or...
Yeah, and they're $25 to $30.
They sell a specific one that's designed for this.
I don't think it's needed.
They want like almost a hundred bucks for this thing.
For the pizza stone.
It's like $130 for the basic ring that goes on it.
I think Bobby's going to make one in the shop for me.
Because I'm that kind of nerd.
But to me, I don't know that I necessarily need the cutout in the side because the lid still functions as a lid.
And I don't like using a pizza stone anyways.
I like using a cast iron pizza kind of griddle thing, 14-inch cast iron griddle.
So I'd rather just take the lid off, take it out, slide it onto a put it back.
But the trick is that you want the medium you're cooking on.
And I'm a huge fan of cast iron.
To be up to temp when you put the dough on it.
So really you're going to roll out the dough and have the pizza ready and then set it on the hot stone or the hot.
And that's what gives the thin crust with a really crunchy bottom and it cooks the top properly.
And the reason you want it wood fired oven instead of your regular oven is traditional Napoleon napoli pizza is just really a really hot cooked wood fire oven bread with a little bit of tomato sauce mirrored on it.
And that's the origins of pizza.
Us as Americans have bastardized it in wonderful ways.
Wonderful amazing way.
Like pineapple.
Well, we put cheese and all kinds of stuff on it.
We don't need to go into the different types of pizza.
There's amazing times of pizza.
But this we're trying to get thin crust, crispy all the way to the center, hot, serage on the top.
And we're going to do this in an 800 to a thousand degrees.
Can't do that in an inside.
Is there any caveat to doing that in the Weber or that's hot?
Yeah, it's hot as fuck and you need to be careful.
Well, right, don't know touching.
You're going to burn the hell out of yourself.
You know, there's a danger factor that you're dealing with something that the top of that kettle drum is going to be 800 to a thousand degrees.
And you know, there's nothing preventing a little kid from coming out and touching it.
There's nothing preventing when you take that lid off to setting it on your leg or your foot on something that's combustible.
Structural, you're okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's going to hold the heat.
So it's not going to burn its way through the bottom of the circuit?
No, sir.
Nope, your still kettle drum has a great on it.
You know, it'll handle the thousand degrees.
No problem and hold the cause of.
You want to keep the fire kind of away from the edges of the grill.
But that's not hard to do.
You can rake the coals and stuff like that.
So it's all reasonably safe.
Okay.
And now you've got a top of the line.
Wood fired pizza oven.
All right.
Now you want to do another hot cooking method.
And that's some stir fry.
So Weber makes an insert that fits in the 22 inch.
That has an 18 inch grate that lifts out of the center.
Okay.
And these are about $22 on Amazon Prime Ship.
You take out this 18 and you can fit.
You can go down to your, you can order a high carbon steel thin walled round bottom walk.
If you go to your agent store, it'll cost you 22, 25 bucks.
Okay.
This is what real walk cookers cook on.
And the people that do stir fry professionally on it.
And they have special foot powered oxygen natural gas,
where it injects oxygen to get that temperature up to that 700, 800, 900 degree range,
where you're super hot.
Okay.
And you can't do that on a stove on the inside.
Because you don't get, you might get the bottom to that temperature.
But really part of it is the sides and the heat coming up the sides of the walk
that allow for you to shake and sear and move things around and put the oil in and do that kind of stuff.
You can do that on a charcoal grill.
You jack it up.
You pour the, you pour a full thing of the chimney right in the center.
You put the walk in the hole.
You start heating that up.
You can get it up to a hot, consistent temperature and you can cook genuine well done stir fry.
Well now you got cast iron cookery, which I'm a big fan.
I have a cast iron.
I have about six cast iron products including a Dutch oven with a lid that turns into a frying pan
and different sizes of pans all the way down to little mini ones.
And now you can take that cast iron Dutch oven.
You could bake in that outside.
You can bake whatever you want.
You can cook whatever you want.
You got everything you need in one device.
Now let me tell you the origin of being in this Weber grill.
I think I started talking about it and buried the lead.
We were looking on Amazon.
They're about a hundred bucks.
In case he was like, well, I really don't want to spend that kind of money right now.
So we're like, okay, let's look on Craigslist to see if anybody's got a used one.
So we pull up Craigslist and they go, Weber Grill.
Free includes chimney charcoal and lighter fluid.
What?
It was two blocks away from my house.
We jumped in the car.
We drove up there.
We threw it to the back of the car.
We drove a home.
I've had it for four years.
It was perfect.
It's the one you've seen me cooking on.
So I got it absolutely free to start with.
So depending on the amount of money you want to spend on this, I think the Weber Grill is the ultimate cooking device.
Now what about multi-season, backup multi-season?
Because you just said I cook a mine year round.
Really?
Yeah.
You know, on a really cold day, it's nothing's cooler than bundling up, going outside and huddling around a really hot stove for cooking.
It's fun.
I like it.
Nice.
And you got a smartphone next to you.
I can set a timer on that.
I can use my little insertion thermometer.
Well, that was another question I had.
How do you verify oven temperature?
Firstly, like the pizza.
You want to get 800 to 1,000 degrees.
How do you know?
You get an oven thermometer.
With a range up to 1,000 degrees.
And you set it on the grill.
And how do you maintain that by rearranging?
How do you maintain it?
What if it starts climbing higher?
What if it starts?
The vents.
I don't know.
It's all about venting.
You shut down the vents a little bit and you'll lower the temp.
And it's the same with your barbecuing.
Let's say I'm doing steaks.
Steaks like the hottest temperature you can possibly get.
So I put that charcoal and I open the vents on the bottom all the way and I leave the lid off.
And this makes these things hotter than hell.
And I put that on and I sear the outside of that steak like that.
But let's say we're cooking a hamburger.
I want to cook through a little bit more and I don't need as high a temperature.
I'm going to throw them on, put the lid on and I'm going to half all the vents.
When I'm smoking I want half the half vents on everything.
And that'll keep that temperature hovering around 300 degrees.
You mentioned hardwood.
What's your favorite as far as...
Hardwood.
Do you have a favorite?
I like hardwood.
Well there's variety of hardwood.
Try them out, man.
That's a great thing.
You can try out apple, peachwood, muskete, mahogany, alder.
Go try it out, man.
In fact, if you're out in Colorado, you can go to Kimtovic meats, which is a meat purveyor of traditional aged beef and all kinds of traditional butchery that's located down here.
Or Edward's meats, which is another purveyor that I grew up next to and re-ridged, so...
Sport local.
All right.
Well I think that wraps it up for our HBR episode.
Webber barbecues.
Webber barbecues are the best.
All right.
Till next time.
Oh, I should say, we are from the Alpha Geeks podcast.
If you want to check that out, you can check out AlphaGeeks at alphagix.libson.com.
I am a longtime Linux fan and hacker and general nerd.
We talk about all kinds of stuff.
We wrap up, hold the hell out of everything.
We're all three to four people that are on the podcast.
Really close friends that have known each other for a long time.
And if you enjoy that kind of podcast, come check us out.
This is HBR only content.
We love HBR.
We love all you guys out there.
So if you want to contribute a show, we encourage you to send one in.
Anybody can be a podcaster.
Till next time, podcast out.
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