A good outlet for your pyromaniac

I've often considered purchasing a gas grill but my husband is a closet pyromaniac and he gets his kicks from dumping excessive amounts of lighter fluid on charcoal and torching it...I guess I shouldn't complain, it's a fairly safe outlet...and I do get the night off from cooking. :)

We bought our first Weber almost six years ago at a garage sale for $20.00. I think it was two years old then, and it had been replaced by a gas grill. It finally died this year, the bottom rusted out enough that the heat controls on the bottom didn't work any more...which resulted in burnt chicken..I hate that.

I pooled all my Amazon gift certificates and ordered a new "One Touch Silver" from them for $12.41. It came to the door in a few days in a large box...not BBQ shaped.

I found assembly rather simple, requiring nothing more than a hammer (translate block of 2X4) to attach the legs to the basin. The instructions for assembly were mostly pictures and were fairly easy to interpret, but I was glad I had seen an assembled model.

The Weber is a large round kettle with holes in the bottom. It comes with two racks, one for the coals and one for the food. There is a control on the bottom that allows for regulation of the air into the kettle....thus controlling the amount of oxygen the fire gets...translation how hot it gets. There is another control on the lid that allows for further oxygen control...and for capturing smoke if you like that kind of flavor.

The grill came with a nice 31 page owners guide that details the standard warnings for operating the barbecue, but is mostly a cookbook with a number of both simple and gourmet ideas.

The assembled model works very much like our old one did prior to it's decomposition. The Weber's heat can be very closely regulated to allow for slow cooking as well a standard grilling. We've cooked everything from a whole chicken to potatoes to hamburgers without having any problems with heat control or with the food being underdone on the inside and burnt on the outside.