Rookie Question About Charcoal

[DaveDQ]

I did some searching here but didn't find a yes or no type answer, so I thought I'd ask. Is it a bad idea to use a brand type charcoal like Kingsford to cook with in the oven? I happen to enjoy cooking with charcoal in a grill and can get it lit nicely with my chimney starter, so I was just curious if you should or shouldn't use it in a brick oven.

Thanks.

[GianniFocaccia]

Why not? It's customary to cook steaks on coals made from oak in your oven, just as it is customary to use coal to fire your oven. If you were grilling (anything) using a pre-heated oven, you would gain the radiant heat from the dome that you can't get from a conventional grill.

[texassourdough]

The biggest limitation of charcoal is that it doesn't by itself provide enough flame to create a really hot oven - at least not very quickly. The best grilled steaks I have ever had were all done on a Tuscan grill (yes the FB model) over coals with a normal pizza fire going on the side. This can give you about 1000 degrees below the steak and about 1200 radiating down from above, maybe more. And can produce steaks like Ruth's Chris with their 1200 degree broiler.

I think you will find it easier to simply heat up the oven as though you were doing pizza. But??? I could be wrong for there is definitely some personal preference involved.

Good Luck!
Jay

[dmun]

Lighting a pile of charcoal to grill over is not a problem for the oven. I keep using the Weber for that sort of thing, but that is just my habit. You can get better results if you just fire the oven and cook on the tuscan grill, or directly over the coals (dirty steak) which I haven't had the nerve to try yet.

[GianniFocaccia]

I like to grill a big bowl of teriyaki flank steak, cut against the grain and diagonally into 1/4" slices. After reading about dirty steak here, I just had to try this out, so I placed a few steak slices directly on the coals and watched them cook up wonderfully. There was a surprisingly small amount of ash stuck to the meat which just brushed off easily.