Did you know that you can improve the usefulness of your grilling appliance with certain essential pellet grill accessories. All serious grill chefs keep these accessories in their kitchens since they play a crucial role in the cooking process. Read on to learn about these accessories in order to understand their function and make an informed buying decision.
If you are wondering where these accessories are available, you can find them at nearly all kinds of stores, including dollar stores and e-stores. But, before you buy an accessory, you should do your research since a high priced accessory does not necessarily imply better quality.
If you throw barbecue parties for your friends quite frequently, then you should have the following essential pellet grill accessories. Going about the barbeque without these key items can make grilling harder or even dangerous.
Read on to learn about these useful accessories for your pellet grill.
Spatulas, Grill Brush and Tongs
During grilling, you have to turn the food so that it is cooked uniformly on both sides. After grilling is complete, you also need to clear up the bits of food stuck on the grilling grates and other parts. For all these functions, grilling tools like brushes, tongs and spatulas are extremely useful.
Using the right grilling tools is necessary to make the process convenient, hassle-free and safe. For instance, if you try to lift and turn food using a fork rather than the right grilling tool, you risk dropping the food and even burning your hand. The appropriate grilling tools are, therefore, helpful for better productivity and user experience.
In case you did not get grilling tools with your pellet grill, or if they are lost or broken, you can always contact various manufacturers for these essential utensils. There are plenty of manufacturers who are willing to extend a decent discount to buyers. You can order basic kits or go for the more extensive ones that have interesting items like bottle openers and corn holders.
There are all kinds of grill brushes, tongs and spatulas that are designed for pellet grills. These utensils are more durable as compared to their kitchen counterparts. One important purpose of these tools is safety. You can avoid the scorching heat of the grill while handling your food and perform cleaning tasks safely using these tools.
Grill brushes provide you with an easy and convenient way of removing hardened charred matter that sticks firmly to the grilling grates. This material may be difficult to remove with other tools, besides the grill brush. You should still take care while using these tools to keep yourself safe.
There are several great grill sets that you can choose from. For instance, you could opt for the CGS-7014 13-piece bamboo toolset. This is a 14-piece grilling kit by Cuisinart. All the tools are securely stored in a well-made aluminum case. Grill chefs and owners are unanimous about the usefulness and quality of these appliances. There are several useful tools in this kit, including a silicone basting brush, tongs, forks, corn holders and a bottle opener.
Grilling tools lie at the very heart of the barbecue cooking experience. With more grilling, you will have a greater need for these tools. You don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish by spending big on fancy pellet grills and avoiding the purchase of an affordable tool set.
Here is a very economical pellet grill tool kit made from stainless steel.
Sauce Mop/Basting Brush
Foodstuff can become increasingly dry if it remains for a long time in the grill. You can take care of this dryness by making use of purpose-built tools. The sauce mop and basting brush are tools that can help keep your food moist, succulent and flavorful.
The basting brush has much in common with paintbrushes. The main difference is that the basting brush has a substantially longer handle. Silicone is now the material of choice for the bristles of basting brushes. The main benefit of silicone bristles is that you won’t see unruly or stray fibres that are commonly seen in fibrous brushes.
You can clean up a silicone brush more easily. The material also has good heat resistance. With a good brush, you can add moisture and flavor to the meat if it starts to dry up with extended time in the grill. Grill chefs and owners are satisfied with the brush. They especially like the long handle, which helps them to maintain a firm grip over the brush. In case the brush loses its bristles due to heavy use, you can always order a new one from the manufacturer.
While cooking big cuts of meat in your pellet smoker, you will need a utensil that can cover the area more quickly than the humble basting brush. You will stand to benefit from a sauce mop in these cases. This simple tool is a long wooden handle with strings – just like a mop, as the name implies. Since the mop is bigger, you will find that it is better than the basting brush for applying sauces to your barbecued food. Covering more area in short time intervals may allow you to do the job more quickly.
Make sure to choose sauce mops that have replaceable heads. This is important because if something wrong goes with the working end, then you can replace it instead of buying a new mop. Also, you can detach the mop and put it in the dishwasher or washing machine to clean it up.
Using the long handle, you can access the innermost regions of the pellet grill without the risk of burning your arm. You can moisten the meat with sauces quickly since there is little danger of getting burned and because the large mop head covers more area.
GrillHogs makes a basting mop with an 18-inch handle. The heads are machine-washable for easy cleaning. The brand claims that the mop is designed for professional grill chefs. But novices should not hesitate to use it. It is, after all, a simple mop that will make your life easy and grilling a cinch.
Here is a very popular basting mop that does its job very well.
Meat Probe
Most people know that a meat probe is a worthwhile investment for pellet grill chefs. These instant thermometers are fairly simple to use. You just have to insert the probe into the center of the meat being cooked. The thermometer will give you an accurate temperature reading within seconds. You can monitor the temperature reading on the digital display.
Digital thermometers take out the guesswork from grilling. You will know when you have reached the target temperature and for how much longer you will have to grill. This way, you will neither overdo the meat nor undercook it. While professional grill chefs can follow the quality of the meat merely by visual inspection, this is not always easy or reliable, especially for novices. Even barbecue pros appreciate the level of precision that they can reach with a digital thermometer.
Digital probes also have a critical safety role. You can cook the meat to thoroughness, according to the temperature guidelines recommended by the USDA. You can kill off the bacteria and avoid the risk of getting infected.
There are other methods to check how thoroughly the meat has been cooked, but they are all very subjective and crude. You can press the meat to check its firmness and you can even touch the meat to gauge its hotness. Some people rely simply on the timing of the cooking session. These methods are nowhere near as accurate as digital thermometers.
The Thermapen range of digital probes is a high-quality option for grill chefs. These thermometers register the temperature in just 3 seconds, after inserting the probe into the meat. Their accuracy is also quite sharp. The actual temperature does not differ from the reading by more than 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
After using a digital thermometer, you will notice that it is extremely helpful for highly consistent grilling quality.
In light of its numerous advantages, the modern grill chef should not go without one. To find one that is best for your needs, you should do your research and ask questions at BBQ forums.
Although most pellet grills have built-in thermometers, you may still want to consider other meat probes since the accuracy and quality of these instruments are highly variable. Even if your built-in probe is accurate, you may still benefit from an extra thermometer if you have to grill a large amount of food or multiple steaks at a time.
A thermometer for measuring the interior grill temperature is simply not enough. Besides being inaccurate, these thermometers do not give the true temperature of the meat, which can often be different from the interior grill temperature.
You can, therefore, consider dual probe thermometers. These instruments measure the interior temperature of the grill as well as the reading of the meat itself. As a result, these are versatile devices that can give you the full picture of the grilling process.
Higher-end digital probes have wireless connectivity. If you have the budget, then you should definitely consider buying one of these. There is nothing quite like checking the temperature of your pellet grill from the comfort of your sofa.
There are cutting-edge meat probes that are programmable. You can program these devices so that they initiate grill shut down or temperature reduction once the meat is done.
Temperature probes are a must-have for wood pellet grills since temperature stability is the basic requirement of slow cooking and smoking.
You can try out this top-rated BBQ meat thermometer. Besides being highly accurate and reliable ,it also boasts wireless connectivity. It comes with a carrying case so that you can store it safely when it is not in use. To get an idea of how useful the high tech tool is, consider the fact that it can maintain wireless connectivity even if you are 160 feet away from the grill.
The probes are made from stainless steel, which means that they are durable. You won’t find that the probes have been damaged by grease and sauces since stainless steel is highly resistant to corrosion and chemical attack. This design feature takes care of a key failure point in meat probes.
Butcher’s Block
A high-quality butcher’s block is the equivalent of the cutting board, which is an essential item in all kitchens. No barbecue set up can be complete without a large butcher’s block to cut up large pieces of meat.
If you think that you can substitute the cutting board from your kitchen, then think again. It is not big enough for the biggest cuts of meat. The cutting board is too small to contain the average-sized brisket. You will have to use the butcher’s block since it alone has sufficient surface area to accommodate large chunks of meat.
The SoulFino Bamboo Butcher Block is a fine choice, as evidenced by enthusiastic customer feedback. At 17 x 13 inches, this item has the dimensions to hold full-sized briskets and big cuts of meat.
If you look closely at the butcher block, you will notice that it has narrow grooves running along the rectangular perimeter. This is more than just aesthetics. These grooves collect any fluid that flows out of the meat, thereby preventing it from spreading elsewhere and creating a mess.
The butcher block has been pre-treated so that you can begin using it right away without any need for further preparation.
Boning Knife
A sharp knife is another essential accessory for cutting large chunks of meat to the right size and shape. You should resist the temptation of reaching out for your old rusty knife, unless you want to end up with a mess that looks like roadkill.
Fortunately, you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a custom-build steel knife. For a much smaller amount, you can become the proud owner of a sharp boning knife that can smoothly glide through the meat for the cleanest cuts. Of course, if you appreciate art and have the budget, you can certainly go for a Japanese handcrafted knife that will set you back $300.
Boning knives have the right shape to do a variety of tasks, such as trimming ribs and briskets. These blades have a distinct thin shape with a sharp-pointed tip. While not the biggest, the relatively narrow handle gives you a firm grip to make accurate cuts.
As the name implies, the most obvious use of a boning knife is to separate meat from the bone. You can also use these knives to trim cuts of meat and give them a nice and tidy shape. These knives are also used to trim the fat. You can trim off more fat if you want lean, healthy cuts of meat. You can trim less of it if you want a tasty, greasy and juicy steak.
The design of the boning knife and its sharpness is such that you can make clean, precise cuts almost effortlessly. A boning knife is also a useful tool for cutting away small pieces of bones that are often found in fish and chicken.
Once you get yourself a good boning knife, you should maintain it properly so that it can work for a long time. You should not put the boning knife in a dishwasher. The harsh chemicals and heat within the dishwasher are detrimental to all kinds of knives. Do not hesitate to hand wash them since they are small and, therefore, easy to clean.
To keep your knives in fine trim, buy yourself honing steel. These rods of stainless steel are just what you need to sharpen your knives and prevent them from getting blunt.
There are also other inexpensive tools that you can use to sharpen your knives.
Crock sticks present an easy and inexpensive way to sharpen your blades. All you have to do is hold the knife edge against the croc stick and drag it along its entire length. Pull the knife towards yourself. As you pull the knife towards yourself, let the knife move from the top of the crock stick to the bottom. You should repeat the same procedure for the other side of the blade using the second croc stick.
Croc sticks are available in medium and fine grit. Fine grit is all that you will ever need for your boning knife and other BBQ knives.
Of course, proceed with caution to avoid cutting yourself with the knife while you are sharpening it. During the sharpening process, you should don mesh gloves to keep your hands safe.
If you want to make your knives sharp enough to slice through paper, then you need to try out Japanese water stones.
While buying your dream pellet grill, you should also consider the essential pellet grill accessories that you will need for a tension-free cooking experience.
Heat–Resistant Gloves
Although some people may not consider using heat-resistant gloves to be absolutely necessary, these are some of the most useful pellet grill accessories. It is easy to think that tongs and spatulas are all that you will need to handle and turn food over the pellet grill. However, tongs and spatulas can prove to be tricky when handling certain items. You might not be able to get a secure grip on these items. Perhaps, the roast is too big and clumsy for the spatula. You will then have no choice but to watch your precious roast slip from the tool and onto the patio. All that hard work will go to waste in an instant.
In such cases, you can gain a much-needed boost in manual dexterity by using heat-resistant gloves. Even with tongs and spatulas, there is the possibility that you may singe your hand while reaching out quickly to the far end of your pellet grill. Make sure you are really careful to avoid such an occurrence. By using good quality heat-resistant gloves, you can cook with greater confidence since your hands will be fully protected.
You won’t be distraught with the fear of getting your hands burnt while working quickly. As you will have complete peace of mind, the grilling experience will be much more pleasant! In addition to this, gloves protect your hand and will reduce the risk of experiencing nasty grill burns.
Heat-resistant gloves give you a direct way of handling food. Therefore, they provide full control where tongs and spatulas may restrict you. You can use heat-resistant gloves to take out roasts from your pellet smoker or take kebabs out of the grill without any worries.
These gloves are typically fabricated from heavy-duty suede, lined with silicone or cotton. The lining helps to avoid burn-throughs that are a common issue with oven cloth mitts. Since the silicone lining is thin, you can handle the food with greater ease than is possible with clumsy thick gloves. You will, thus, be able to get a good grip on your food.
Also, heat-resistant gloves are highly versatile since they extend enhanced manual dexterity to other processes as well. You can use these gloves when using your kitchen oven and holding hot cast iron skillets.
Unless you are extra wary, it is quite possible that you may burn yourself at some point during grilling, especially if you grill regularly. This is a rather unpleasant and painful aspect of grilling that almost all barbecue enthusiasts can attest to. But it does not have to be this way. You can greatly reduce the possibility of such an event by donning heat-resistant gloves. Besides providing improved safety, it will also give you the air of an expert.
Semboh makes some really great heat-resistant gloves. With these brightly colored gloves, you can get a high level of flexibility, firm grip and comfort, all in one. You can handle hot food and objects more skillfully and with greater poise using these gloves. The good news is that these gloves are also cut-resistant.
You can use these gloves while cutting meat and sharpening your grill knives. The gloves extend well beyond your wrist for greater safety. Semboh gloves are made from breathable natural fabric so that your hands do not sweat profusely in hot conditions. These gloves are, therefore, an all-in-one solution for your grilling needs.
Kebab Skewers
For small pieces of food and minced meat, the grilling grate may not be enough. This is where kebab skewers come in handy. You can apply the kebab mixture to the skewer and secure it by winding a piece of string around it. The string prevents the kebab mixture from slipping off the skewer and into the pellet grilling surface.
Kebab skewers are not particularly high-tech pieces of hardware. They have been around since ancient times and to this day, they remain the most dependable tool to hold your kebabs at a safe distance from the hot surface.
In addition to beef, chicken and mutton, you can use skewers to hold kebab recipes of all kinds. Kebab recipes are now available that call for a mix of vegetables, spices, meats or seafood.
Wooden skewers are, no doubt, the most affordable and most primitive type of equipment. But they are also expendable. Stainless steel is used to make durable skewers. These come with or without wooden handles for insulation. You should spend a little extra on those with wooden handles due to their convenience and heat safety.
Skewers range in length from 7 inches to 14 inches. At the low end of the skewer spectrum, you can make plenty of tasty appetizers. With the biggest skewer, you can make enough barbecue food that is enough for one person.
Skewers can also have slightly different geometries. Flat-bladed skewers are designed to remain at one spot on the grilling surface. The flat shape prevents them from rolling around. Although skewers in the form of thin rods are available, they are often less than ideal.
There may be too much food on one side of the rod skewer and you may not realize it until the rod refuses to roll over due to this lopsided arrangement. Grilling food at all sides using rod skewers can be a challenge and a source of dismay for those who are not adept with these tools.
If you are interested in getting flatter skewers, then you should consider the Kabob Skewer set by Cave Tools. This set contains 15 skewers that are all 10 inches in length. The flat shape of these skewers prevents the food from rolling the rod back into its original position. You can, therefore, grill both sides of the food evenly.
These skewers also have a rather nifty disc-shaped ring on the grip end, which you can push outward to force the hot food off the tool. You can also hold the kebabs securely in place with the help of the rack.
Kebab skewers are a must-have for another good reason. Using skewers, you can quickly grill small pieces of meats. A smaller size means that a greater surface area of the food is exposed and available to absorb heat and smoke. You can, therefore, cook smaller pieces more rapidly than one large chunk of meat.
You can, hence, get food more quickly onto the plates and feed your hungry guests. There is also less likelihood that the inside will remain raw if your preference is greater grilling consistency.
Kebab skewers are timeless tools that will continue to be indispensable for grilling well into the future. They are equally useful for cooking both meat and vegetables and are, therefore, ideal for healthy eating. You can test your culinary proficiency by challenging yourself to different recipes using kebab skewers.
Vegetable/Fish Grilling Basket
Although skewers provide a viable way of grilling small pieces of food, they also happen to be labor-intensive. You can cut down the hassle by using a grilling basket alongside kebab skewers. Grilling baskets are not a replacement for kebab skewers, but you can use them safely without much ado for slightly bigger food items like fish, for instance.
Grill mats are also another possible solution. However, they are not particularly feasible as they lack edges that can prevent the food from falling off the sides into the hot grill below.
Grill baskets are obviously much better as compared to grill mats since they are better for firmly holding food in one place. You can also get the food more easily off the grilling basket than with skewers. Grilling baskets are better for taking and removing food from the grill than mats.
With a high-quality stainless steel grill basket, you can lock the food in place. These grills often have a stainless steel mesh lid that you can open and close easily. Grill baskets also have an insulating handle so you can handle the tool easily without the fear of scorching your hand.
You can try out this grilling basket to improve your grilling experience.
With grilling baskets, you can safely expose the food to the heat and smoke of the pellet grill to impart flavor to your food. You won’t face inconvenience or hazards of any kind during the process.
Many grilling basket models have a rectangular shape with angled or straight sides.
This grilling basket model has tiny perforations that prevent small food items from falling out. These holes allow the heat and smoke from your pellet grill to permeate the food and impart a deep smokey flavor that all barbecue lovers cherish.
The stainless steel basket presents a safe way of grilling small food items like shrimps, mushrooms, peppers and onions.
The model design is thoughtful and ergonomic. There are even curved handles on the outer edges of the basket for easy carrying.
That’s not all. It gets even better. Besides grilling nourishing vegetables and seafood, the basket is also suitable for stir-frying food. This is a fantastic cooking option, besides grilling. Stir-fried vegetables and seafood are simply delicious. Stir-fried vegetables are certainly more appealing to even the most finicky kids. You can also prepare an assortment of stir-fried and grilled vegetables for a blend of taste, variety and nutrition that everyone will appreciate.
This accessory is really a must-have because it simplifies the process of smoking small pieces of vegetables. With grilling baskets, you can make healthy and nutritious additions to the grill menu. Small pieces of sliced vegetables like onions and bell peppers are too small for grilling grates to hold them.
Although kebab skewers are a good option, mounting each vegetable piece bit by bit on the skewers may be rather tedious, to say the very least. If you are looking to grill healthy and nutritious vegetables with maximum ease, then the grilling basket is the obvious natural choice. As explained above, you can even stir-fry food with this appliance.
Rib Racks
Rib racks are good news for space-conscious grill chefs. With these tools, you can maximize and make the best use of the limited grilling space on your pellet smoker.
Probably every grill chef knows how much space 4 to 5 ribs can take on grilling grates if they are spread on their sides. But there is no need for the ribs to take up so much space. You can reduce the area that ribs occupy by a substantial margin using rib racks. With rib racks, you can stack ribs vertically side by side, next to each other. This highly organized and well-planned layout of ribs, together with other barbecue items, presents a pleasing view to grilling aficionados.
Rib racks may be made from stainless steel or porcelain-coated steel. The best rib racks are dishwasher safe, have handles for easy carrying and are durable.
Sorbus Non-stick Rib Racks are porcelain-coated steel stands to stack ribs vertically, along their edges side by side. Once the ribs are fully roasted and smoked, they present a delightful sight to avid beholders.
These rib racks are designed to allow an even flow of heat and smoke to the ribs for uniform cooking on both sides.
You will need to size the ribs correctly so that they are not too big for the rib rack to hold them. Neither should they be so small that they fall straight through. These rib racks are ideal for low and slow smoking in pellet grills.
These rib racks are even suitable for keeping the ribs warm. Some users find that keeping the ribs in these racks at low heat (for warming) can make the rib surface crispier and tastier.
Besides ribs, barbecue enthusiasts have experimented with appropriately sized cuts of meat to produce good results. You, too, can get creative and find a clever use for these tools that will make you proud.
Read also: Texas-Style Beef Short Ribs Recipe
Bristle-Free Barbecue Brush
For many barbecue chefs, the hard work, in fact, starts after grilling is done. Grilling, by itself, is an enjoyable hobby. The results of pellet smoking are delicious and irresistible, to say the very least. The same cannot be said though for cleaning that grilling entails.
Hardly anyone looks forward to scrubbing and cleaning their grills. This is something that even the most ardent grilling buffs would rather avoid. Therefore, you need an accessory that simplifies this tedious and mundane procedure.
Enter the Kona Barbecue Brush. The best part about this brush is that it is actually bristle-free, which makes it very safe and durable. The business end of brushes, that is, the bristles, happens to be their weakest point as well. Bristles may wear down and fall off the handle. These present both a nuisance and a serious hazard, besides leading to a decrepit and useless brush.
You won’t face any problems of this kind with the Kona brush since the ‘brushes’ comprise durable and resilient stainless steel. This tool sports a 3-brush configuration. These tough-as-steel brushes can rip through the most tenacious residue and grease because they are made from steel. Other low-end brushes will be challenged by such stubborn matter, but not the Kona brush.
The Kona brush is the gleaming steel weapon that grilling enthusiasts and experts have been looking for to combat stubborn residue, burnt matter and grease.
It is quite evident that the design and material of this unusual brush make it a heavy-duty tool. It is far more rigid and robust as compared to ordinary brushes, which appear feeble in comparison. With this rough and tough brush, you can plow through all kinds of grilling surfaces fearlessly.
The ergonomic design of this brush is another outstanding feature. The brush handle is long enough to keep your hands at a safe distance from hot surfaces.
The absolute best feature of the brush is that it is completely bristle-free. Bristles present a health hazard since they can fall off easily and find their way into your food. You can ingest these nasty strands, which will wreak havoc on your gastrointestinal tract.
The Kona brush does away with these hazardous bristles that happen to be dangerous for your health and well-being and weak for the cleaning job. The brush leverages the might and strength of wound stainless-steel fibers to make quick work of residue. Even the most stubborn residue stands no chance in front of this inexorable brush.
You may have to apply the brush two to three times to completely remove matter and stain from grill surfaces. It is definitely more efficient and safe compared to conventional grill brushes.
What are you waiting for? Get these useful pellet grill accessories today to turn your barbecue sessions into an absolute joy!