(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best grilling & bbq utensils

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I make pizza at least three times a week at home. I know how you feel. The best pizza I ever made was on a $10 grill while tailgating at a phillies game.

There's a basic rule for cooking pizza: 400+ degrees. That's it really.

There's something about home ovens that trap moisture. I always notice a lot of steam jetting from the oven vents. I know a byproduct of burning gas is water vapor. I think that has something to do with it.

I also have a cuisinart brick oven toaster oven. It comes with a pizza stone and makes great pizza. Electric too.

I've tried everything to get great results from my gas oven. I find keeping the door cracked for the first few minutes help.

But I will never forget the pizza I made at the Phillies stadium parking lot. I used a BBQ mesh pan and had the grill dome closed. The bottom of the crust came out nice and crispy.

I've made pizza on everything. I'm convinced the moisture trapped in the oven has something to do with it.

I made a pizza in an iron skillet and threw it under the broiler to brown the cheese. That was really good and less mess in the kitchen.

For those interested, here's a pic of the inside.

Here's a list of my mods.

• Grommet on the side for probe access: So handy! The most useful mod. I used this titanium drill bit to create a hole large enough. It took me about an hour of sweating my butt off with the drill to make the hole. I feel like this mod is a must because if you use any kind of probe this will be a lifesaver. Constantly closing and opening the lid of the smoker with the wire in the way will eventually damage the wire. With this grommet bypassing the door entirely, you don't risk damaging the wire anytime you open or close the lid. If your hand slips when opening the lid and the lid slams down, it can CUT the probe wire! Lifesaver indeed.
  
• Lavalock Thermometers x2: I bought two of these for both sides. Tested them for accuracy with boiling water and they work pretty great.
  
• Lavalock Gaskets: I used these to seal the lid of the main chamber. It helps create a seal for lower smoke leakage.
  
• Clamps: These make 100% sure you are airtight when smoking. When used together with the gaskets, I get virtually no leakage from the main chamber. One annoying thing though is that the clamp installed on the side of the fire chamber can get in the way of you opening and closing the fire chamber lid. But, overall I'm happy with them, especially for longer cooks.
  
• High Temp Silicone Caulk: This is a MUST. The areas around the smoke chamber leak smoke SO MUCH. I've used it to seal around every nook and cranny of the fire chamber and it's done wonders.
  
• Water pan: Not sure if this counts as a mod, but it's just a simple steel water pan.
  
• Oklahoma Joe Firebox Basket: The reverse flow smoker came included with this. I think the regular Highland Smoker does not have it. In my opinion, it is extremely helpful in maintaining heat throughout your cook and makes the temperature fluctuate less.

Some advice about these I picked while selling grills:

1. Tinfoil crumpled works just as well.
   
   
2. If you need a brush, get wooden brushes and change them every couple of seasons. I like to use a stainless steel welder brush.
   
   
3. Brush it when it's hot... The shit is supposed to fall off easily, get the stainless still welder brush, blast your BBQ on high (for extra heat, put sheet of aluminium foil on top of the grills) the crap will fall off easily.
   
   
4. Don't use any cleaner products inside your grill...
   
   
5. There's 3 main type of grills nowadays, stainless, cast iron and porcelain enamel. Stainless grills can be put in the dishwasher, cast iron you can use brushes and for porcelain enamel there's special sponge scrubbers that can be used when the grill is cold so as to not take off the layer or coating on the grills and cause them to rust faster.

Vic Firth peppermills are awesome- http://www.amazon.com/Mario-Batali-4-Inch-Pepper-Cherrywood/dp/B007B2UENS/ref=sr_1_9?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1373908177&sr=1-9&keywords=salt+%26+pepper+mill+vic+firth Excellent drumsticks, excellent salt & pepper mills!

Just an FYI, I found a gift idea that would be pretty awesome. (Though I rarely dip myself)

http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Spit-Bud-Portable-Spittoon/dp/B01BUKIUNM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1464299708&sr=8-2&keywords=spittoon+can+opener

Pilot Rock Heavy-Duty Park-Style Grill - Model# H-16 B6X2 Pilot ... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UVPX9M/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_t1_OA85Bb9J36SMQ

Seems like most expensive but definitely best reviewed.

Okay now this joke is almost self-aware if she's getting you stuff like that. 😂 If I was friends with you IRL at this point I would start trying to find the most inconvenient singular-use kitchen gadgets to give you as gifts.

Also, I hope that these items follow you around in targeted ads for the next few weeks after viewing them.

The best are the metal bristle free brushes. Something like this. https://smile.amazon.com/Grillaholics-Essentials-Bristle-Free-Grill-Brush/dp/B074L7PDKT/

There’s tons of them on Amazon, they don’t have bristles which can fall off and get in your food.

I use this. This piece is perfect, but honestly anything will do. Experience has taught me that smasher is expensive but really just a piece of metal. Put a piece of baking paper between the smasher and the meat and it wont stick. Use any object of the right shape, we're talking max 10 seconds of high heat, so almost anything will do.

Enjoy :D

I grill and BBQ all the time, multiple times a week. When I had my first child I got paranoid about the bristles coming off. I got a couple "Great Scrape" grill scrapers and they've been awesome. Had them probably 4-5 years now and if you take care of it (don't leave it outside), they'll last quite a while.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Scrape-Woody-Natural-Scraper/dp/B0084950EU/

The place I worked, we used grill scrapers for the burgers. Worked very well for large griddles. Works pretty well in frying pans too. As an added bonus, you can chop with them.

I've got these gloves that I use to put meat on/off the smoker. They aren't perfect for heat protection but are easy enough to clean to prevent cross contamination and more than adequate to move from smoker to a carrying pan.

I've just started getting into grilling, and I tried this set: http://www.amazon.com/BBQ-Grill-Tools-Set-Professional/dp/B00F4FRH0W/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1449678830&sr=8-3&keywords=cave+tools when I was at my buddy's place and thought it was great. He's very satisfied with it too, so I'm inclined to believe him since he's the one who got me interested with grilling.

He has his own brand of seasonings. I tried his steak seasoning with some ribeyes once, they turned out great.

Thanks for sharing this, I'm definitely going to try it in the future.

A friend of mine developed this brush with natural wood bristles. Don't have to worry about metal in your food, and I have had one for about 3 years and it is still going strong.
https://www.amazon.com/Grillbadger-cleaning-brush-natural-bristles/dp/B0711HMPG8

Then I also recommend these: 3M COMMERCIAL-461-08297 GRIDDLE PAD HOLDER and Scotch-Brite 746 Quick Clean Heavy Duty Griddle Pad. The griddle pad is seriously abrasive, lasts a long time, and is also a secret weapon for cleaning all your SS pots and pans with little effort. The handle is useful but that extra pad really it's good for getting down to bare metal. I am starting to learn that with griddles maintaining a seasoning isn't that important and it's fine to scrape it down to bare steel now and then to get it cleaned up. You will notice that most professional griddles are carbon steel yet they are kept shiny clean. My griddle is generally black and seasoned but I have no qualms about scraping off seasoning when cleaning to maintain a smooth surface.

You could get her a small kitchen chalk board, but before you wrap it you could write a clever Burger of the Day on it. For cost savings, Michael's or other crafts stores usually sell small boards or you can make one! - which I'm sure she would get a kick out of the fact that you made it. A generic white apron. A burger press/ mold. As far as Kuchi Kopi Night Light, I think this is pretty close, and something you can 100% make yourself on the cheap. You can trace or draw the Kuchi Kopi and color yourself and make it with Shrinky Dinks and a generic nightlight from a hardware store.

Prep everything you possibly can before hand! This means cracking eggs, chopping veggies, sparcing out spices, etc. making a meal, if you plan well, can be as easy as tossing ingredients from bags 1, 2 and 3 into a pot and heating!

A couple tips from my last very large camping trip - Chili can be cooked all day over a camp fire with one of these and a dutch oven. Also, we cracked about a three dozen eggs, whisked them, and poured them through a funnel into cleaned out 2-liter bottles and threw them in the cooler - poured those into a pan or a pot and were able to make egg scrambles every morning for a group of about 15. Both worked really, really well.

Aha! I found the metal snowflake things on Amazon for holding skewers.

https://www.amazon.com/Winnerbe-Roaster-Rotisserie-Skewers-Needle/dp/B078561QB3/

Rotisserie seems plausable. Will see if I can pinpoint it exact but this is enough to award is solved.

WSM Hinge & Gasket Kit, Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker Grill 18.5 22.5 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JNZWIEE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qM9PDbZQ41XRN

There are also a bunch of other mods on Amazon I just came across. I'm pretty interested in the following.

Total ControlⓇ Cool Touch Damper Handle Weber Smokey Mountain WSM Kettle Knob BBQ Smoker Damper Thumb Handle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GC8MZ8J/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_KN9PDbCW2NHAF

Weber Smokey Mountain Water Pan Cover, WSM Smoker Accessory (Fits 18/18.5" WSM Model) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DE6NC0Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3N9PDbFJ47PM5

Food grade, high heat silicon

https://www.amazon.com/LavaLock%C2%AE-grade-adhesive-smoker-Silicon/dp/B01LRNK6K2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1536856173&sr=8-3&keywords=food+grade+high+temp+silicone+sealant