Question About Grills and Grilling

WOW. Good questions w/ interesting ideas (to me anyways). I'm no expert in this area at all, but I have done a lot of grilling on modified set-ups. I used black pipe and a Webber lid to modify a Lodge grill. It looks kinda goofy, but it works fine. I've also used Asian pan lids to cover stuff when cooking on indoor grills. That works fine too. Now as for gas or charcoal ... you might as well ask about NAVY vs Army or Blue vs Grey. LOL. This will be a good thread. 

well in my opinion, having a charcoal grill is better. burning over a natural flame gives it that flavor, like what you said. just remember that you don't have to have flames in order to grill. just give confidence in yourself and the grill. let it do what it has to do.

First I am totally jealous that your have a charcoal grill in your kitchen. Did I read that right? For my set up I have a weber gas grill and I find that for long cooking this gives you the easiest way to control the temp over long cooking times. That being said I don't think it would be a bad investment for you. I have used my weber for smoking bacon, slow roasting chicken etc. My charcoal grill is a simple one it is the Arena grill by Barbecook. You can read a review I wrote of it here: http://www.cheftalk.com/a/arena-charcoal-grill-by-barbecook

It is a small charcoal grill but it is very easy to light and very versatile. Typically what I do when I want to cook something longer is cover it with an thin aluminum pan and it seems to work just fine. I think for your situation you could get a deep heavier aluminum hotel pan and it would solve your problem of no lid. If you were a real DIY'er then you could even drill a small hole into it and insert a thermometer to monitor the inside temp. I am talking about something like this.

Would this work?  I am no Weber/slow cooking over a grill expert....  But what about simply placing a daggy old roasting tray deep enough to cover the meat that's on the grill, pretty much the same as what Nicko's picture shows.  If it does damage the pan at all, well, you're only down one banged up pan.  Experiment and see what works for you.  I'm envious of you too :)