Barbecues

From the tabletop grill to the kamado:

size and fuel sort them. A portable charcoal grill on short legs does a balcony or a day out by the river. Grills on wheels, whether a round kettle in the Weber mould or a half-barrel body like Char-Broil’s, feed a family and close a lid over slower cuts. Gas grills with a row of burners light at a button and hold an even heat, which makes them the weeknight grill. A gas flat-top griddle, the kind Blackstone made popular, handles eggs, tortillas and chopped meat that would fall through a grate. A kamado is a thick ceramic egg that holds heat for hours on a little charcoal, and it weighs about as much as an adult. Measure a terrace for the grill and a table from outdoor furniture together, and keep it well back from the vinyl walls of anything in swimming pools.

Charcoal smoke or the gas cylinder you already cook with:

most kitchens in Guatemala’s towns and cities run on propane, and a gas grill takes the same household cylinder through a low-pressure regulator and hose, so there is no new fuel to arrange. Gas wins on speed and cleaning. Charcoal wins on price and on the smoky crust a churrasco is judged by, and on a shared roof terrace it is worth checking where the smoke will drift before you choose. What decides how long either one lasts is the metal. Porcelain-enamelled bowls and cast-aluminium fireboxes take years of heat and grease, while thin painted steel rusts from the inside, where damp ash sits after every cook.

Where the money goes in a backyard grill:

an entry-level charcoal grill on wheels or a basic two-burner gas grill starts at about Q1,000 new, while a large Blackstone griddle runs to around Q6,000. The cheap end loses its value fast once it is used: a firebox that has rusted through cannot be patched, and burners for an unbranded grill are hard to find, so most get replaced rather than repaired. An enamelled kettle, heavy cast grates or a griddle top that is still flat keep far more of their price, because those parts outlive the paint by years.

Under the grates of a used grill:

is where everything worth knowing sits, so lift them out. On charcoal, look at the floor of the bowl and the ash pan for pinholes and flaking rust, and check that the vents still turn. On gas, pull the heat shields over the burners; if they crumble, the burners below are going too. Lit, each burner should show a steady blue flame along its whole length, and a lazy yellow flame or a dead patch usually means rust, or spiders nesting in a tube left unused for months. Brush soapy water over the hose and regulator joints with the gas open and walk away from any that bubble. A griddle with surface rust can be scrubbed and re-seasoned; one whose top has warped and rocks on the frame cannot. On a kamado, run a hand around the ceramic for hairline cracks and check the felt gasket where lid meets base.

A grill listing that settles the buyer’s questions:

state charcoal or gas, the number of burners, the size of the cooking surface and how long you have had it. Photograph it with the lid open and the grates out, and add a shot of a gas grill lit, because a blue flame says more than a paragraph. Empty the ash and scrape the grates before anyone comes, since a clean firebox shows the metal is sound. Give the outside measurements: a grill on a cart rarely fits a hatchback assembled, and a kamado needs a pickup and two people. Then say what goes with it. A buyer probably has a cylinder in the kitchen already and will not need yours, but will ask about the regulator and hose.