Cooking on forest preserve grills

Not sure what you call those grills mounted in the ground, enclosed on three sides with an open top, but looking for info on how to best work them. We were staying at a cottage out East this past week and we tried using one. I am pretty good with a Weber but this thing was not very user friendly. Used a lot of coal (in my opinion) and did not get much heat. obviously being open on top you cant really BBQ. I did try to create a tent out of foil, it helped a bit. I am sure somewhere there are people who master these things and post about it. But as I said I am not sure what you even call them. Anyone got any ideas on using one, or where to look for advice?

Thanks

Hi,

Those grills don't appear as much in this area. I brought charcoal to a Forest Preserve shelter assuming those were standard equipment. Not there when I needed it. When you do find them, the grill has no rack.

I ended up buying a portable grill for occasions where I might need it.

I will be curious if anyone has had success with those grills.

Regards,

I've had pretty good luck by creating a very level field of coals and lowering the grill all but into the coals and firing burgers or other thiner cuts steak for a quick cook. Meat on sticks works well too! Last time I also did some thick cut bacon right on the grill.
The bacon required many turns but it was great.

Lots of hot coals is the secret to cooking on those. Since they are all opened up, you need a big enough bed to last a while, you can move the rack down as the coals burn up.

I was big into SCUBA diving in the mid to late 90's. We spent a lot of time at lakes and quarries in the NW Ohio, NE Indiana & SE Michigan. We usually dove from public parks, so we delt with those grills. We would actually take our own firewood to get a big enough bed of coals. We'd build a campfire in the grill, get geared up and go on an hour dive. By the time we got back out of the water and undressed, the coals would be just about right.

It's not going to be perfect cooking, wind is a b!tch, sprinkles/rain is worse. We had a home-made grate, we carried with us, that we threw on top of the groady thing that is usually chained to the grill. If you don't have one of those, tin foil is you friend.

We cooked everything from steak to hotdogs, including fish a couple of times, on those park grills. It's not going to be gourmet everytime, sometimes you'll eat burnt meat.

Practice makes perfect, beer makes it more perfect while you get practice.......

Good luck

Tim

I assume you're asking about a grill like this?

They can work very well, but I think the biggest problem they have is that there's no coal grate, so it's tough to get good airflow through to the coals. I usually carry a grate with me or use foil to make one. I agree with Freezer Pig - hardwood works better than briquettes. Just split the logs into 1 to 2" sticks and cross stack them (like a log cabin) to allow some space for airflow. The cooking grills are almost always dirty as hell, but a good roaring fire should take care of that. Crumpled up tinfoil makes a great grill brush.