Smoky Snowy

So it's been snowy here for a little over a week: there have been threats of melting, and in Tacoma it has already completely melted once, but here in Puyallup it's not really gone away. We've had several days of fresh powder, lots of accumulation.

The first snow was unexpected, so my grill was left uncovered in the snow. It's been snowing so much since, my grill's just been getting hammered.

I decided to light a fire in it to dry it out, and it started snowing no more than 5 minutes after I started...

From Grilling in the snow

From Grilling in the snow

In my zeal to dry out the grill, I put upwards of ten pounds of charcoal in there: probably closer to 15 (3/4 of a 20 lb. bag). It got hot. My eldest got some pictures of the grill when I opened it and combustion started for real:

From Grilling in the snow

From Grilling in the snow

The grill-mounted thermometer maxes out just around 500F (around 5 o'clock). It reads about 70F cooler than it is. I went a good sixth of a turn past that (about 7 o'clock), so it must have been in the 700F--800F range.

Ribeyes were on sale, so I cooked some steaks. They were seared on both sides in well under 5 minutes, and the bones were protruding an inch. I took them off, let them cool, and then put them back on uncovered out in the falling snow to finish them off.

They were really good, but a little overdone.

Of course I burned the seasoning off my cast-iron grates, and need to reseason them: I put some grease on there once the grill cooled a bit last night. That won't be enough, but it should stave off some rust for at least a couple weeks and get me through the holidays.

That was fun.