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Friends, customers and grilling enthusiasts, Our company and our products are built from the ground up for outdoor gourmet cooking and entertaining. As part of our commitment to bringing gourmet lifestyles outdoors, we want to share ideas, recipes and tips with the Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet community and are proud to introduce our newsletter - Hot Off The Grill!. We hope you enjoy this, our inaugural issue. We will continue to gather information from our team, professional chefs and other users of our products, and release Hot Off The Grill! editions about six times a year. If you know of someone who would enjoy Hot Off The
Grill! please feel free to share it with them. Back to Hot Off The Grill! Main Page
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August 2005 AnnouncementsGrills Islands AddedThe Dragon Burner™
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AnnouncementsKalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet Grill IslandsWe have four new models in our family of grills! Our new Grill Islands combine the luxury of granite counter tops, the convenience of stainless steel cabinetry and the performance of our built-in grills, all in an easy to install free-standing unit. To see our entire family of grills at a glance, visit the products page of www.KalamazooGourmet.com. 
The Dragon Burner™ is Here
All new grills ship with Dragon Burners, and Dragon Burner retrofit kits are now available for most older Kalamazoo Grill models. If you are interested in upgrading your Kalamazoo grill, please call us at 1-800-868-1699. |
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Getting the Most from Your Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet Grill FeaturesSmoking Trays and Traditional Side-Mounted Smoker BoxesTo add a rich smoke flavor to your grilled foods, you can use the smoking tray that is standard on most of our grills or the traditional side-mounted smoker box that is featured on two of our top models. Different wood varieties will add vastly different flavors to your meats. The key to choosing the right wood or blend of woods is experimentation. Find the blend you like best and take note of which meats it works well with. Following is an overview of some popular woods to help get you started.
Moisture is a key ingredient in the smoke flavor you are trying to achieve. Wet wood smokes much more than dry wood does, so your wood chip blend of choice should be soaked a minimum of 90 minutes prior to grilling. What you soak your wood chips in is another good area for experimentation. Of course, you can use water, but other options include wine, beer, apple cider or even coconut milk. Be sure the alcohol content is not too high in your chosen soaking solution - you don't want an alcohol fire in your grill. Using at least 50% water in the soaking solution is always a good idea. The instructions for use of the smoking tray or side-mounted traditional
smoker box on your particular Kalamazoo model are in the users manual.
If you have any questions or want to share your successes, please
email grillman@kalamazoogourmet.com.
Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet RecipesFor the Grill: Savory Rub for Lamb and BeefOur favorite fresh herb rub is fantastic with beef tenderloin roasts as well as beef steaks or lamb chops and roasts. It also works well with chicken. Seasons about 3 pounds of meat
Mix the fresh ingredients in a bowl. If tightly sealed, the rub will
keep refrigerated overnight. Rub the meat with oil and then coat with
the herb rub 3 to 5 hours before grilling. For the Martini Bar: Chamomile MartiniThese soothing martinis will have a golden color and subtle, layered flavor. We like it best using Tazo® Calm™ "Herbal Infusion," Grand Marnier and 3 Vodka or Ciroc Vodka 
Pour 2 ounces hot water from your Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet 181° Martini Bar's quick-recovery water heater (or boil water in a tea kettle on your grill's side burner). Add chamomile herbal teabag to the hot water and let brew for five minutes to make a highly concentrated tea. After the five minutes, remove the teabag and squeeze some of the remaining liquid out of the teabag to preserve as much concentrate as possible. Combine the chamomile tea concentrate, vodka, orange liqueur and plenty of ice in cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously until ice cold. Strain into two martini glasses, leaving ice in the shaker and enjoy. This recipe works well with other varieties of premium teas as well,
with or without the orange liqueur. Try experimenting to find your
favorite combination of vodka and tea. We'll have more Kalamazoo
Outdoor Gourmet original "tea-tini" recipes in future newsletters.
Grilling TipsWhat is the secret to perfect sear marks?Many grill chefs are quite proud of their sear mark craftsmanship, while others are convinced there is a secret to it they will never uncover. Well, there are only two secrets… One is to use enough heat to actually sear the food. The other is to have a consistent system of food rotation across the grill surface. Make sure the grill is hot, and give the grilling surface plenty of time to heat up. The hood thermometer on your grill should read at least 500 degrees if you want to sear the food. Half way through grilling the first side, lift the food and turn it 90 degrees (1/4 turn), setting it back on the grill with the first side still down. Do the same when grilling the second side to achieve a sear mark grid on each side of the food by the time it is finished cooking. For a diamond pattern, only rotate the food 60 degrees or so. When entertaining a large group that requires a continuous flow of meat off the grill, some experienced grill chefs will use a system of grill quadrants. This combines the technique for perfect sear marks with a system for keeping track of which food on the grill is done or not done. The system involves dividing the grill surface into fourths. The upper left quarter (the Northwest corner) is station one, upper right is station two, lower right station three, and station four is the lower left. Start your meat at station one. When the meat is one quarter of the way through the cooking time (usually between two and three minutes), move it to station two, rotating the meat 90 degrees and keeping the same side down. After another quarter of the cooking time has passed (usually another two to three minutes), the meat should be half way done and can be moved to station three, flipping the meat over to the second side. Once another quarter of the total cooking time has passed, move the meat to station four, rotating it 90 degrees as you move it. Using this system, the grill chef knows how far along any given piece of meat is by its position on the grill. If cooking steak, the temperature of each piece of meat can be controlled by its position throughout the process. If your timing is right, a steak placed toward the center of the grill in each quadrant will be well done. A steak placed at the outer corner of each quadrant will be rare. In the next issue of our newsletter, we'll explain how the top
grill chefs measure the temperature of a steak on the grill. Ever had your liquid propane gas grill just not come up to temperature?Chances are you triggered the safety restrictor that is a standard feature on many current liquid propane tanks. The symptoms of a safety restrictor in action include a low or weak flame and excessively long heat-up times. Here's how it works… The safety restrictor reduces the flow of gas when the valve senses gas release above a certain level or a lack of backpressure. If you open your liquid propane tank valve all the way when you are lighting your grill, you may trigger the safety restrictor. To avoid this problem, open the tank valve knob only half a turn when lighting your grill. Once lit, if the flame is not strong enough, continue opening the tank valve ¼ turn at a time. If you have triggered the safety restrictor, it can usually be reset by disconnecting the hose and regulator and waiting five minutes before reconnecting the gas. Always follow appropriate procedures for disconnecting and connecting
liquid propane tanks. Grill CareWarm DownIn addition to following the regular cleaning and care instructions
for your grill, one way to help keep your grill clean is to leave
it running after you are done grilling. After you have finished
grilling and have removed the food from your grill, turn the main
burners to high, close the lid, and leave the grill on for about
10 minutes or until it stops smoking (this can be going on while
you are eating). Turn the grill off, and while it is still warm,
clean your grilling surface with a wire grill brush. We Want to Hear from YouAs we continue our efforts to improve the Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet product family, we are looking for feedback from you, the outdoor entertaining and gourmet enthusiast. What features do you like most? What features, products or services do you wish you had available? What would you like to see improved? Please email us at feedback@kalamazoogourmet.com with your feedback. If you would like to share your grilling recipes or outdoor gourmet
entertaining tips with the Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet community,
please email grillman@kalamazoogourmet.com.
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After
three years of design and development, the awesome Kalamazoo Outdoor
Gourmet cast stainless steel Dragon Burners™ are now part of every
Kalamazoo grill model. Dragon Burners have a higher output than
previous Kalamazoo burners, and are covered by a lifetime warranty.
We think you'll agree it is the best burner available anywhere.
Some grill chefs work with pear wood, plum tree wood or even grapevines
to add distinctive flavors to their grilling. Teas or herbs such
as rosemary can also be added to your smoking blend. To use tea,
try soaking the fresh tea leaves in water for a time (you can drink
the tea if you like, of course), then place the wet leaves in a
zip-lock bag and freeze. The leaves will be easier to handle as
a frozen chunk.