Kalamazoo New K900 Hybrid Grill
14 April 2010
“Give Me a B”
I know I do a lot of blogs on barbecues at this time of year, but with me it’s a kind of baseball spring training kind of thing. Not in the sense of my actually training for an honest-to-goodness baseball team-man has THAT train left the station!-but more in the sense of just reading the newspaper and learning how even though they don’t really have more than one or two players who can actually play the game, by golly, this year the home team is going to be a real contender. No, no, they always say, “I think we’ll surprise some people this year,” and the only people they really surprise is those who actually bought into that stuff! Sorry about the dissing, it’s just that when your home team is the San Diego Padres, you tend to get a little testy at this time of year. But to return to the subject at hand, this is my spring training in the sense of getting ready for this summer’s barbecues. And one of the things I am always doing is reading about the kinds of barbecues I wish I had for myself.
Some of these barbecues-and today’s subject certainly qualifies in that regard-are a little pricey, but I think back to how much money and how many years I spent in the back yard, and it honestly doesn’t seem all that pricey to me, which gives you a fair idea of how much I spent on that yard! The difference, though, is that I built that yard before I started writing these blogs, because if it had been otherwise, the yard itself would have been otherwise. And one of the things I would have done is much less building items for the yard and much more buying things already made and bringing them home and setting them up. What I most like about the yard, when we are able to do it, is to have a lot people over and do big doings of some kind. And, truthfully, all you really need for that is some chairs and a long table. And something to cook or grill on. And with that I can return to an old favorite, a favorite because of the many innovations they have brought to the barbecuing scene.
One of the slickest ideas anyone ever brought to the backyard barbecue is the Kalamazoo K900 Hybrid Grill. It is the only grill that enables one to cook with wood, charcoal, and gas, which to some people just seems like overkill, but those are people who don’t actually barbecue. Sometimes a gas barbecue is just the ticket, as I found out when I finally broke down and got one, but there are still a great many times when wood or charcoal is just what the doctor ordered. So, what do you do? Get two barbecues? Actually, that works for me, but what would work better is a grill that does both, which brings us right back to the K900. What’s particularly cool about the K900 this year, though, is that it has been redesigned and improved.
They’ve added a hew hybrid grilling drawer system and a redesigned spring assisted hood that makes the 60-pound top easy to open with one hand. The original K900 had a drawer system, but one drawer style was designed for use during gas-only cooking while another type handled grilling with wood and charcoal. Now they have created a new single drawer system that has been engineered for use in every cooking session. What this means is that switching cooking fuels is easier than ever. They have also re-designed the drawers for easier cleaning and better performance with smaller pieces of lump charcoal or wood pieces.
The other point I should probably be making is that a system like what Kalamazoo has come up with is more than just more whistles and bells for the barbecue. What it really is, is an entire rethinking of the concept, one that enables one to partake of the kind of barbecue that just makes one whimper with ecstasy. They call themselves the Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, but maybe what they should really be calling themselves is the Savior of All Things Outdoors, the Nonpareil, the King of all Barbecues, the cutting edge of what I most hanker for, the two Bs, Barbecue and Brewskies.
Joseph
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