ChefTalk.com › ChefTalk Cooking Forums › Food and Cooking Forums › Food & Cooking Questions and Discussion › Grilling indoors - high heat charcoals or wood chunks for indoor cooking?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Grilling indoors - high heat charcoals or wood chunks for indoor cooking?

post #1 of 4
11/10/09 at 12:34pm
Thread Starter 
Hey guys, i'm new to this forum. I'm looking to see what i'm able to use and what would be the most effective method to grill indoors. I have a heavy preference to grilling with charcoal compared to gas, but have yet to find charcoal briquettes that do not product carbon monoxide, which forces me to cook outside. If anyone know of any methods that are used to charcoal grill or wood grill indoors, i'd love to hear. I have a hood as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!!
Reply
post #2 of 4
11/10/09 at 12:47pm
Grilling indoors with either charcoal or wood is playing with fire (pun intended). :eek: All live fire produces carbon monoxide. The gas in the stove that we cook with just doesn't produce enough to kill you while you're cooking (although if the flame goes out and the space is enclosed, the gas itself still can).

The only way I've ever been able to use a charcoal hibachi in the house with charcoal was to put it in the fireplace and open the flue. If you don't have a fireplace, though, you are out of luck. A regular range hood will not do the job.

For grilling indoors, you really only have two options: an electric grill or a cast-iron grill pan. I find that the electric grill I have doesn't get hot enough, and the stainless-steel grate is terrible for marking (granted, it's about 40 years old; maybe newer ones ger hotter). With a cast-iron grill pan heated for a long time over a medium-high flame, though, I can make pretty good grill marks, and then can finish the item in the oven. It's not as good as cooking over live fire, but it's the best I can do.
Reply
post #3 of 4
11/10/09 at 12:53pm
You can use those products if you have a hearth style fireplace for burning wood and such. You'll usually need a grill stand mounted or some other specialty gear to make it practical.

For most other purposes, a cast iron ridged grill is a popular and versatile choice. It will smoke a lot and you need a good outdoor vented hood or similar ventilation tool to make this practical. This is my preferred interior grilling method as I lack a good cooking hearth. Would be fun to have one though along with lots of other specialy kitchen cooking things like a tandoor oven, a wok burner, a wood fired pizza oven....

I wouldn't build a wood/charcoal fire on my stovetop even with a good hood. Not a safe thing to do.

Steve Raichlen wrote a worthwhile book on indoor grilling using the methods I talked about above you might want to look into called Indoor! Grilling
.


Beyond that, you get into the electric counter top grill presses.
Reply
post #4 of 4
11/11/09 at 6:49am
Even this can be very dangerous. For a chimney to work properly there has to be a good draft. No doubt any one who has used a fire place has experienced days where there is no draft or a very poor one. Then there are down drafts. I tried this at our cottage a few years back. It set all the CO detectors on a screaming rampage and it took a good while with all the windows open to clear the levels. With out CO detectors that could have been a killer BBQ.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
ChefTalk.com › ChefTalk Cooking Forums › Food and Cooking Forums › Food & Cooking Questions and Discussion › Grilling indoors - high heat charcoals or wood chunks for indoor cooking?