Expert: Whitestag - 7/17/2003

Question
Have you ever heard of a product called barbesort? I may be misspelling it. Here's my story - yesterday I spotted a nice looking grill someone was trying to give away on the side of the road. I stop, pick it up, and chat with the owner who was a nice 70 year old woman. She tells me how this nice grill is 50 years old and has no rust. SHe uses something called barbesort. What she would do was place a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the grill basin, then this barbesort stuff on top of that and then the charcoal. At the end of the summer she would sift what was left in the grill basin. You would be left with the barbesort stuff and all of the charcoal bits would sift out. The barbesort appears to be white/grey rocks, small in size, about a quarter the size of a normal charcoal chunk. Do you have any idea what this is? I am searching all over the web and I can't find anything on it. I just want to make sure its not asbestos or something dangerous. :) Thanks!

Jon

Answer
I've never heard of anything like this either, but it does not seem likely that anything other than some kind of heat-resistant coating would prevent steel from rusting.  More than likely, lining the grill with foil and using a layer of gravel is preventing burn-through.  On grills made with thinner steel, this can be a serious problem, especially when the charcoal is allowed to rest directly on the bottom surface of the bowl of the grille.  Charcoal burns at a very high heat, and will slowly cause the steel of the grill to burn through.  If you've ever seen old fireplace grates, you see the same phenomenon -- the steel rods slowly get thinner over time until they burn through completely.

Many charcoal grills these days have a fire grate that keeps the coals off of the bowl, which will significantly extend the life of the grill.  In the absence of a grate, the foil and gravel will do two things:

1. The foil will reflect the heat away from the bottom and toward the grilling surface.

2. The gravel will allow for better air circulation and therefore cleaner burning charcoal.  It will also insulate the bottom from the direct heal of the coals.

Both of these will significants slow down the burn-through process, and it is my guess that this is what you're dealing with.

-- Whitestag