What Is My Grilling Problem?

[Lightning]

Hey demosthenes9,

Sure, I was a Lab Test Engineer from 1962 to 1998, when I retired.

I still enjoy testing, developing, and improving Electrical, Mechanical an Optical systems on a hobby basis, but I will not take the same adventureous spirit into the world of BBQ!

I know you went to a lot of trouble, typing and editing this procedure to give me guidance and to assess results on a scientific basis, but I will not even try to do his, because I would reluctantly go though the motions not really caring, as it just seerms like too much trouble to be worth it!

It's not the same, Sir!   It has to do with COOKING MEAT, which has no reference to Volts, Amps, Frequency, Torque, Pressure, Rotational Energy, and other apects of Physics which are my real interest.

I've built several Lightning Machines, one of which used electrostatic energy to produce 4-foot arcs of an estimated potential of over 1 Million volts DC.  What grilling experiene can equal that?

See?  It's what a preson WANTS to do!

HiDesertHal

My cooking improved considerably when I changed tack a few years ago and decided to take an engineering approach to it.  Think about it this way, you have the thermal mass of the food you're cooking, the vessel you're cooking it in, and with your various barbecues you have fuel rate, combustion air rate, and the associated heat output.  Or straight up wattage and duty cycle control of one or more heating elements in an electric barbecue.  And there's also the response times of everything to consider too.

One other thing you might want to consider if you're overshooting your steaks is lowering your starting temperature and go from fridge to hot grill instead of room temperature.

One thing I don't understand is beyond your own steaks aren't turning out well, you're finding restaurant steaks to be difficult/impossible to eat too save for the one example of the country fried steak you've mentioned several times.  Are you having trouble eating other foods as well?

Also, have you tried cooking anything else on your barbecues like pork, chicken, hamburgers, etc. or just steaks?  If so, how has the other food turned out?

If you're really, truly, not interested at all, why did you buy two barbecues?  Why are you here?  Why bang your head against the wall unnecessarily?

Lastly, to your question about how grilling compares to a lightning machine throwing off around a million volts, I can offer a simple answer:  It doesn't.  It isn't supposed to, and that's the point.  Those hobbies won't feed you.  Grilling's an unrelated activity whose output's supposed to be good food for you to enjoy eating.