How to make a Grappling / BJJ / Wrestling Dummy

How to Clean a BBQ

Cooking on a clean BBQ is not just hygienic but also helps with both the look and taste of your food. When cooking on a dirty BBQ, I've noticed that all the burnt pieces of fat and meat from the previous cooking sticks to all your new food. Also, there is a bad taste of old fermented oil as the old grease is burnt and infuses its smoke into your food.

After trying several methods, I settled on a routine which I found gives the best results. The following method is based on my BBQ which is 4-burner/gas/hooded/volcanic rock with cast iron grill and hotplate.

1. Allow the grill and hotplate to cool before handling. Keep the hood open.
2. Put on some rubber gloves and take out a steel scourer.
3. Fill a bucket with warm to hot water.
4. Using dish washing liquid with the scourer, dip it in the hot water and scrub the grill and hotplate. Do this until all the burnt pieces are cleaned off.
5. Run the grill and hotplate under the tap to remove all the dish washing liquid.
6. Now place the grill and hotplate back on the BBQ, however instead of putting the grill over the volcanic rocks and the hotplate on the other side, swap them around, that is, have the hotplate on top of the volcanic rocks.
7. Turn the heat on full and cover the hood.
8. Smoke coming from the BBQ is from all the fat and oil on the volcanic rocks which is being burnt off at a high temperature since the heat is trapped by the hotplate.
9. Wait till there is little or no smoke before turning the gas off. Water from the cleaning should have been evaporated and the old oil and fat should now be burnt off.
   
10. Keep the hood closed and wait until the BBQ has cooled before placing the cover back on.

I used to put some oil on after the cleaning to stop the grill and hotplate from rusting, but found that it is so greasy that even after cleaning with dish washing liquid, more oil is not required. Also, the burning process gets rid of the water that causes rust.

Another thing I noticed was if you use olive oil, cleaning is much easier as it is not as sticky and gives a smooth finish. Canola oil is more sticky, but does not charcoal all your food like olive oil does since Canola has a higher burning temperature.

How to Cook Steaks on the BBQ

When I started cooking steaks on the BBQ, I always had a problem getting the degree of cooking that I liked - medium, or sometimes medium rare. I mostly ended up with well done steaks or very rare steaks.

I read a few articles about getting the timing right, like 1 minute on one side then another minute on the other. This never worked for me and I never understood how it could since you could have different thicknesses of meat and you could have different temperatures depending on the fuel and capacity of your BBQ.

Getting temperatures right also wasn't easy since it's hard to stick a meat thermometer into a steak rather than a chunk of meat.

In the end, I found I had better luck with checking for visual signs during cooking.

1. Heat the hotplate as hot as you can get it. Have the hood done if you have a hooded BBQ. I used the hotplate rather than a grill since cooking can be better controlled on one side of the steak. The grill sometimes cooks by wrapping the heat over the sides and on the top edges of the steak.
   
2. Use canola oil or vegetable oil, as they have higher burning temperature than olive oil, and paint the hotplate with this using a silicone based pastry brush. Smoke should be spiraling off the hotplate by now.
3. Paint oil on both sides of the steak and place on the hotplate to sear.
   
4. This should be a light searing to seal the fibers of the steak so it won't dry out. Don't cook it on this first side for too long (I'll mention why later).
   
5. Now turn the steak over and cook on the other side.
6. This side of the steak is where most of the cooking is done. To gauge the degree of cooking, look for pooling of red/pink juices on the top of the steak. Heat pushes these juices to the top and this tells you how cooked the inside of the steak is. In the step above, if you seal the steak for too long, it will be harder to see this pooling of juices and it will most likely come out through the sides of the steak.
7. For medium rare, I look for the first signs of pooling, then turn the steak again to sear the top side and then immediately remove it from the hotplate. For medium, I look for pooling in many different areas on the top of the steak, then turn the steak again to sear the top side and then immediately remove it from the hotplate.
8. I then rest the steak on a metal baking tray lined with foil and then cover the steak with foil, but not completely covered. If you completely cover the steak, it braises the steak which can make it rubbery and the edges won't be crisp.
9. Take it to the table and it's ready to eat.

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