Tip for Cleaning Your Grilling Tools and Accessories

As an outdoor chef, there’s always the tendency to forget my tools like tongs and scraper outside. Accessories would include the ring plates and the chimney extension filter. And when left to the mercy of the elements, these tools and accessories will start to rust away especially when we don’t use them for quite a while. So here’s what you can do to retard the rusting:

• Use a light-grade sandpaper to lightly sand away rust, soot, and dirt that could’ve stuck to the tool.
  
• Rub on grease and spread it around thinly. (Note: This only applies to those tools that do NOT touch food.)
  

By doing those two, your tools and accessories will last much much longer.

A Convenient Firestarter

Everytime I need to fire up the stove, I’d always need some pieces of scrap paper to light the tinder. Most of the time, I’d scrounge for old newspapers in the garage or scrap paper elsewhere. And most of the time also, I’d still have leftover scraps of newspaper after cooking which I conveniently misplace. So I said, “Why not a convenient source to get your scrap paper for firestarting?” And then I thought of junk mail like booklets of old company financial statements, stockhoder reports or what have you. Rather than just throw them, I now used them to be my neat convenient source as shown below.

Read more »

Low Cost Tip to Scrub Clean the Cooking Pot’s Bottom

In a previous article, I mentioned a soapy tip that will minimize the forming of soot and hence make cleaning a bit easier. Well, let’s step a bit further. Do note that soot will form. So how do you get rid of it? Steel wool, a plastic scrubber or a brush comes to mind. How about something you just pick from the backyard and quick throw away when done?

Shown below is the Is-is plant also known as Alagasi (Leucosyke capitellata). Some call it Iis. It’s a plant that grows up to 10 feet or so.

Read more »

Where to Get a No-Cost Grill Grate

The old grill grate we have is old and rusty.

Not only does it look bad, it can become unhygienic as well as dangerous to use and clean. I mean, look at those rusted, worn out thin rods. They look like deadly spikes! It’s certainly time to replace it but we don’t want to buy a new grill grate when an improvised grate would work as well.

A devise that’s made of metal, flat, and has a grid of bars that are adequately spaced is really all you need. Remember, this is something that you’ll put on the fire so it need not be fancy but certainly has to be sturdy.

Read more »

Creating a Better Chimney Extension Filter

In a previous entry, I talked about in detail a possible design flaw with the chimney extension. Because of that, I devised a really cheap (no-cost if you’re resourceful enough), yet effective solution to prevent debris from falling into the chimney extension. This is debris that eventually will cause the quick build-up of soot inside the chimney which blocks the exit of smoke.

The filter we made in that entry was very effective but only to a certain extent. After a while, soot will buildup on the filter itself, depositing into the diamond shaped holes or gaps in the screen.

Read more »

What to do with Leftover Charcoal

In a previous article, I wrote that the third and best reason to store away leftover charcoal was to use it as a fire enabler. The process below essentially describes how the chimney firestarter works although in this case, the grill body itself works as the chimney.

Here are the steps to start the fire with the leftover charcoal. Since I don’t buy charcoal, the “charcoal” I say here refer to the pieces of charred firewood leftover from the last grilling or cooking.

Read more »