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OT: Burning down the house (almost).


oscarsear

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Ah yes, another fine summer weekend, another BBQ. The BBQ is a charcoal burner with a separate, adjustable coal pan. You have the barrel body and the coal pan can adjust height in the base of it. It sits on my outside deck, underneath a covered patio about 3 feet from the house (that would be 3.5 feet from a Klipschorn in the family room). Well I had a lit coal slip down beneath the coal pan, into the stuff underneath. The stuff underneath was about 4 years of accumulated drippings and sundry stray unburned charcoal briquets. I had the burgers on and the cover down whence I notice excessive smoke obviously indicative of a flare-up from the cooking meat. Not so. Yessir, years of collective grease was aflame...... and it was just getting started. The burgers cooked up faster than planned but I did salvage them before they were vulcanized. The fire then proceeded to ignite the upper rack (also less than perfectly clean) and the soot that had accumulated in the lid. Burning drippings started dripping on my protective drip pad. Flames were now 1/8th inch from the Trex deck top. They were easily extinguished and a water bath was strategically placed where they were landing. The whole apparatus, with the lid closed and all vents shut, boiled thick smoke for about 45 minutes. It was more than a 'tad' hot. God Bless the maker as nothing failed, melted or burned. As I recall it is a Chargrill product, the label is no longer legible. And, it is now clean if not somewhat blackened. Heck it was black to begin with. In the future methinx that I'll be paying closer attention to more than just keeping the cooking grates clean. Dodged a big ole bullet on this one.

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Chris... in a twisted sort of way, that was pretty funny.

Oscarsear, glad you averted any real problems. Helps illustrate that when you are cooking like that you should always be nearby. Think what might have happened if you'd gone inside for 10 minutes....

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