Gas Barbecue

A sky diver is falling uncontrolled towards the earth when he meets a guy on his way up. The sky diver yells "Do you know anything about parachutes?" The other guy yells "No! Do you know anything about gas barbecues?"

Through Freecycle I got a gas barbecue last year that didn't work. This spring I got a second one the same way. The fellow assured me it worked, but it was too small for the growing family, so they had gotten a new one that was much larger. It even came with a tank, so hey, great deal. I got the tank filled up for $15 and happily went to cook with it. The stupid thing wouldn't light. It was as if no gas was getting through, though I could smell gas... so I shut it off and that was that. Recently I got another free barbecue, again, as with the other two, through Freecycle. This time it lit with no problem during a trial lighting last week, so I figured I was "off to the races".

Due to rain and such, tonight was the first chance I had to cook with it, and then it rained while I was doing so. I started by putting a foil wrapped potato and a foil wrapped sweet potato on then closing the lid. About every 15 minutes I went back and turned the "spuds", sticking a fork in to test if it was done yet. When the sweet potato was done and the potato seemed to be getting close, I added a T-bone steak. Dan had told me to cook the meat for 3 minutes on each side, rotating sides until it was done. The problem with that was that 3 minutes made no real difference to the steak, because the highest flame I could get was not enough to cause any real amount of heat. I left the steak on the barbecue for 15 minutes each side with the lid closed (Dan said not to close the lid) and still the darn thing wasn't cooked enough. It took over 2 hours by this time and I was fed up. The partially cooked steak is now in the fridge to be cooked in a pan tomorrow, and I ate the "spuds" with raw baby carrots.

Do you know anything about gas barbecues?