About My Gear plus a Shout Out

Before I get into the gear, I want to mention a great site, http://amazingribs.com/.  It has recipes, techniques, and equipment reviews.  What I've learned from this site has taken my grilling skills to a new level.

In no particular order, these are a few of my favorite things for grilling.

Grill Grate ET732 Long Range Wireless Thermometer - It has two probes, one for the grill and one for the meat.  It claims a 300 foot range.  My yard isn't that big but I can use the receiver in my living room with the grill in the back yard.  There's a feature I haven't used that could be useful.  You can program a temperature range that will trigger an alarm if it goes above or below.  The only gripe I have with this is that the food probe is huge.  It's hard to know precisely where the sensor is in the meat.  I prefer to use it only to know when I'm in the ballpark.  I use an instant read thermometer to decide when the meat is cooked.  I can recommend it but for other options, see here.

Dyna-Glo DGE Series 5 burner gas grill - It's not perfect but overall I'm happy with it.  5 burners help to control the temperature, especially for indirect grilling.  The burners themselves run front to back and they are pretty equally spaced side to side.  I run 2 or 3 burners for indirect cooking leaving around 1/3 to 1/2 of the grilling surface available.  If I have a gripe it's that there is an opening in the back that runs the length (width?) of the grill and is about 3" high below the lid.  That lets a lot of heat out but does let you peek without opening the lid.  Overall, I think it's a pretty good buy for less than $400.

Smoker Box and an assortment of wood chips.  No recommendations here.  I spent $20 on one that's maybe 3" wide by 7-8" long and 1" deep.  You could easily make foil pouches for your wood chips.  So far I've used apple, hickory, and mesquite chips.  I find this to be a pretty good selection.  Traditionally apple or cherry is what you would use for chicken, hickory for pork and mesquite for beef.  I find hickory can work for chicken and some also swear by mesquite.  I do like hickory for pork and mesquite for beef but use whatever you like.  You have to eat it.

There will probably be a part two to this at some point.  There are a few things I want to try.