Grillfella Mindgames

[mike.stavlund]

Many churches have ploys of various kinds to encourage visitors to return to their congregations, but last week I think I walked right into a Grillfella trap.  I was visiting a church in my neighborhood, and right there by the main entrance was a kettle:  late model, black OTS, in decent shape but for a sharp dent in the lid.  But oh, boy, was it ever enough to get a KettleHead twitching:  leaning hard as a result of a front leg attached to the triangle with wire, with the vent tab knocked flat, the One-Touch totally locked up, no ash pan in sight, and of course completely kaddywampus.  I kept my composure before church, but had to take a further look afterward, whereupon I found the thing filled with ashes all the way up to the cooking grate. 

The outcome was clear:  I needed to do something.  Fortunately my kids broke the ice, asking the Senior Pastor if we could come back sometime and fix their grill.  She seemed a little leery, but allowed that this would be possible. 

So a few days later (and after being haunted by this specter), I returned with a basic tool kit.  I figured the One-Touch wings were just frozen by cooking grease, so I brought my long-handled razor blade scraper to free them up.  But after shoveling out the ash, the thing worked perfectly fine.   I guess it was just the sheer weight of the ashes (at least 15 pounds) that were keeping it from working.  I realigned the legs, got the triangle properly attached, re-bent the OT wings, fixed the vent tab, and flattened the heat-blasted bottom grate.  I had brought an extra ash tray, but two of the wire clips to attach it were missing (prolly the reason the tray hadn't stayed with the kettle).  I scraped out the kettle, though there was barely any cooking residue in the thing at all-- I guess all of that ash had protected the porcelain. 

10 minutes later, I was on my way, and much happier.  The moral of the story:  if you want to get a Weber aficionado's attention, just do something very wrong to a kettle and walk away.  They will be helpless to resist.

...and yes, I'll go back later to attach the ash tray.  I have no choice.

[Craig]

The moral of the story:  if you want to get a Weber aficionado's attention, just do something very wrong to a kettle and walk away.  They will be helpless to resist.

So true! Great example of Rescue-Restore-Respect, @mike.stavlund ! Last summer I spent the first afternoon on my vacation in the Ozarks (as everyone else went swimming and boating) reshaping the lid, lid handle and cleaning the kettle that was provided to us by the resort. It took an hour and half to get it "cook worthy" I even brought along a spare wooden handle for it.

[Idahawk]

One of my favorite breakfast joints uses a black OTS , it's chained up right in front , the handle is ripped out and gone with no ash pan and fairly beat up . I asked the owner about bringing him a replacement , but he said there was no point , people tip it over and abuse it and even have stolen previous grills from him , is a sad little kettle buts it's sacrifice is saving others , so I just don't look that direction when I go there

[MrHoss]

.....if you want to get a Weber aficionado's attention, just do something very wrong to a kettle and walk away

Yup. Absolutely. Same here.