Charcoal BBQ indoors - restaurants do, extractor hood?

A decent gas ring is extremely low carbon monoxide - but that increases markedly when you put a cold pan over it. Still acceptably low.

What's the profit in this again ? The misadventure part...

People here barbecue in the winter, but they use a gas-powered barbecue on the patio (outdoors). You want a cooking device that starts reliably, when cooking in winter. On lazy summer days, there is more time for starting arcane cooking solutions.

Charcoal does not always start up promptly. It requires "fidgeting". The favorite it, the Dad brings out the liquid barbecue starter, and applies 10X the recommended amount (from past experience, we know that 2X and 5X aren't enough). Flames might shoot up ten feet in the air, after the Dad is done. These are not the kinds of misadventures to be carried out under an extractor fan. Yes, you can use an electric heating element starter, to start charcoal. But even then, it might take 30 minutes to 60 minutes before the charcoal is at "cooking temp". There is a lot of fiddling, moving/rotating coals, and so on.

You will be tempted to do all sorts of "stupid Dad" stuff with a charcoal cooker. Multiple attempts to get charcoal lighted. Doing it in the house ? Get outta here.

With charcoal, it's 60 minutes to get the blasted thing at cook temperature, 10 minutes to cook. What is wrong with this picture ? With gas, it's 1 minute to prep, 10 minutes to cook. Select the right food (steak, in winter), and there is minimal interaction with the food on the patio. Only if you're a "steak torturer" do you have to stay out there and play with it. It helps to learn how to cook stuff in warmer weather, where you can watch cause and effect and learn your craft. Then in winter cook situations on the patio, you can be deadly efficient (minimal number of nips out to patio).

With charcoal, the grease from the food falls down onto the briquettes and the grease burns and soon you have a lot of flame shooting up. Some use a spritz of water on the coals, to tamp down the grease fire. It's not really something you can afford to walk away from, in terms of tending it. Maybe you try to control it, by moving the grill plate up or down a notch. It's still a lot more trouble than its worth. In the house ? F*ck, No!

There's nothing flammable on my patio. If I were to set up the Hibachi (classic charcoal cooker), if there were an "incident", maybe the worst that would happen is grease stains on the concrete. If it tips over, I don't have to "save it". No heroics required. If my Sambuca catches fire, I can throw it on the lawn.

Paul

Suggest you read:

Following various bits of the discussion, it now occurs to me that there might be a case for using a BBQ in an open fireplace, as it probably is no worse than the embers of a coal or wood fire.

Cheers

Dave R

Assume that I have some minor experience with BBQs which does not match your "straw man" argument.

Cheers

Dave R

Not necessarily, as a very small BBQ may not generate enough heat to get a good draught up the chimney.

John

Thanks. However the link is USA, very generalised, and suggests that you don't do various things which are deemed safe in the UK. Like using a portable gas cooker indoors.

I am well aware of the generalised risk, and wouldn't contemplate lighting a charcoal device indoors without having first assessed the risk and then done my best to ensure that the risk has been mitigated.

Which is why I started this thread; to discuss the risk and possible mitigation.

The mitigation that I am exploring is having a very small BBQ under a powerful extractor fan which vents to the outside.

Cheers

Dave R

Or function as hoped in the first place?

It may well be one of those things that simply doesn't scale (down) very well, like trying to solder larger things with a low power iron.

David's desire to only have the capacity to sear the animal flesh for one person reminds me very much of:

The desire for any of this is also ignoring the increased cancer risks from heating animal flesh to a high temperature, especially in the smoke from and in an open flame.

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Yum!

Cheers, T i m

I definitely want some heterocyclic amines. Niacin, aka vitamin B3, yes please.

Between 1966 and 1988 I use to eat at a kebab shop where they barbecued over charcoal in the basement. I used to sit next to the cook, whom I got to know quite well.

I am not, as far as I am aware, dead.

Has to be a lot better than an open fire going up a passive chimney

Maybe, but did the CO break/make new neuron connections to make you into a climate denier? You might still be married and not post so much misinformation. Thing we'll never know.

CO is something most of us would choose to void.

I am not a climate denier. Climate is a perfectly good word to describe long term weather averages.

Neither do I deny that it changes, always has changed and is still changing/

And i am not in denial of the fact that scientific evaluation of it refutes the proposition that CO? has any major impact upon it.

So who is in denial here?

You could find out..

Er no . most of us have no choice - we have to void CO?, or die.

Are you know saying you don't deny anthropomorphic global warming

Or are you in denial the term "climate denier" is typically associated with those who deny anthropomorphic global warming.

Perhaps if you hadn't sat repeatedly sat next to a charcoal burner in a basement you would know the difference between CO and CO2.