I had another go with my CGA/CI and decided to push it. In fact, by any reasonable measure I overloaded it. I picked up a package of chicken leg quarters that consisted of 5 pieces at 1 lb each. I sliced up some fresh sage, oregano and rosemary and mixed with nearly half a bulb of crushed garlic. To that I added some ground cumin, ancho powder and salt & pepper. Then I mixed in enough canola oil to make a slurry. After rinsing and drying the chicken I put it in a bowl, added the wet rub and worked it to distribute the rub as best as I could.
While that marinated, I prepared the fire. I filled the small chimney with briquettes and threw an extra handful on the grate along with the few small pieces left from the previous day's cook. (I will also note that the space below the grate - reduced to provide more room for charcoal under the tall CI grate - had filled with ash. Once the coals were going, I spread them over the whole charcoal grate and put the CI grates in place.
After giving things a couple minutes to come up to temperature, I put the chicken on. It turns out that the CGA is perfect size for four one pound leg quarters. I stacked the fifth up in the middle of the grill. I planned to rotate the pieces to get even cooking for all pieces.
After about ten minutes, I opened the cooker to turn and rotate the pieces and that's when the difficulties began. I had started the chicken skin side down and it was really sticking to the grates. As I tried to pick it up, it was leaving not only skin but pieces of meat behind. When I tried to slide under the pieces with tongs to separate them from the grill, the brace that held up the CI moved enough to drop into the coals.
This was not going well. All of the chicken came off (during which the other brace dropped as well.) Picking up 8 pound CI grates with tongs was a challenge. I did manage to get everything back in place so the cook could proceed, but sticking continued to be a problem and before I finished, one of the cross pieces dropped into the fire again.
It's obvious that my design needs some improvement to keep the cross pieces from turning and dropping the grates onto the coals.
Why did I have so much difficulty with sticky chicken? Did I not wait long enough for the grates to get hot? I had seasoned the grates earlier in the day following a procedure I've used for other cookware. I coat it lightly with canola oil and heat in a 500°F oven for about 45 minutes at temperature. Maybe it wasn't fully seasoned, providing a surface that could adhere to food rather than shedding it.
Thoughts?
On the plus side, the chicken did cook though one piece was not ready when the others hit 170°F. It was good.
I had left the blobs of fat on it to see if there would be any difficulties with flare ups and there were not. The ManGrates seem to do the job in that regard.