Why Building Your Own Grill Is the Backyard Project of the Summer

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- For every backyard chef there is, it seems, a grill. For those whose budget and ambition stop at the occasional hot dog or hamburger, a compact $35 Weber Smokey Joe fits the bill. Technophiles, on the other hand, can thrill to Traeger’s sensor-packed $800 Pro 575, which automatically feeds wood pellets into its fire for precise, app-monitored meat. For those seeking the instant gratification of gas—and a bit of stainless-steel backyard bling—Fire Magic’s Echelon Diamond grills start at $6,440.

Chef Eric Werner has a different suggestion. In this spring’s The Outdoor Kitchen ($35, Ten Speed Press), he suggests building your own grill—or more realistically, having a welder or metal fabricator do it. “It’s the best kind of DIY project because … you don’t do it yourself,” he writes.

The grill Werner had made, the one he encourages readers to emulate, is a backyard-friendly version of the ones he uses at Hartwood, the 10-year-old restaurant in Tulum, Mexico, he owns with his partner, Mya Henry. There, nestled into the jungle across the street from the beach, he grills fresh-caught fish over fruitwood fires and makes ceviches and cocktails with produce grown within walking distance. The food and open-air setting have earned the adoration of many of the world’s leading chefs. René Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagen, who had a 2017 pop-up nearby, and Francis Mallmann, the Argentine chef and bon vivant who’s fully embraced open-fire cooking, both count themselves as fans.

Werner isn’t the only one to include metalworking in a new cookbook. Texas brisket master Aaron Franklin also offers suggestions for a DIY project in Franklin Steak: Dry-Aged. Live-Fired. Pure Beef ($30, Ten Speed Press). In his case, he includes plans for a small but mighty “hybrid hibachi”—the height of the grate is adjustable—that you can build or contract out to a welder.

Both grills highlight materials as much as the design. Rather than the thin stainless steel of many commercial options, Werner calls for 3/16-inch mild, or low-carbon, steel, which is heavy enough to withstand repeated heating and cooling cycles without warping.

Likewise, the grates are made of ⅛-inch-thick strips of iron. They retain heat better than those of most consumer grills—key to getting the kind of sear on food that backyard heroes crave but rarely achieve without overcooking.

Werner’s design itself is simple, spacious, and sturdy. A rectangle 36 inches wide by 20 inches deep, with a mere 8 inches from the bottom of the firebox to the top of the grate, it keeps food and fire in close proximity. His fixed-height grill is based on the idea that moving logs and coals is the best way to control heat. It has 720 square inches of surface area, which is enough for two dozen burgers at a time. Franklin’s grill, at only about 200 square inches, is too small to create temperature zones. But along with its adjustable height mechanism, it integrates a steel cage that can house additional hot coals.

Ventilation on Werner’s grill comes courtesy of three business-card-size openings on the back and a swing-down door that runs the length of the front. That sort of arrangement gives the fire enough air for proper combustion while also giving home cooks enough room to manipulate it.

Talk to Werner for any length of time, and it quickly becomes apparent that he sees building a grill—and cooking on it over a real wood fire—as a path not only to dinner but also to an expanded sense of community. The important thing, he says, is that live fire cooking gives you the freedom “to hang out with your friends and talk about … your grill.”

His version cost roughly $800 and took three weeks, using an ironworker in Pine Island, N.Y., near the Catskill Mountains. “The whole point of this is to incorporate the community,” the author says, talking about the relationship you might develop with a local artisan, rather than a big-box store. “Start speaking with somebody and learning about something that you might not really know.”

They may also end up learning something about you. You can ask them to “weld any pattern onto it, or even add your initials, your grandmother’s ladle, or devil horns,” he writes. “Grilling is about connecting and bringing people together in ways that other cooking methods don’t. Building this grill creates a connection before you even make your first meal.”

He does recommend a few unexpected ways to use the fire for more advanced—or more adventurous—types, whether roasting vegetables directly in the embers or using the grill as a stove to make chicken stock or ingredients for smoke-tinged bloody marys.

Use a wood-fired grill for a while, Werner says, and “you become connected to it in a way that you know exactly what it’s feeling. You know exactly what it’s doing, you know exactly how to work with it, how to fix it, how to help it. And ultimately, how to, I would say, 50% to 70% control it.”

Cooking over a wood fire causes a person to “develop a sense of time inside of your mind,” he continues. “I don’t wear a watch. You develop a certain understanding of where things are at. When to throw an extra log on, when not to throw a log on. The temperature of the air outside, the moisture of the air outside. All these things are so related to cooking with fire. It kind of forces you to be connected, to go outside of your busy mind. It’s very grounding.”

The idea that open-flame cooking can produce a meditative effect is as old as cooking itself. “I think when you’re building a fire and you’ve dedicated a certain amount of time for the grill, or for a longer cook on the smoker, it’s like a forced downtime,” Franklin says. “A little mini vacation while you’re watching the fire.”

Achieving this kind of mindful state is something we all could use more of in our life right now. After all, it’s impossible to be angry when you’re sitting beside a crackling fire. Right? “Oh, no,” Franklin says, laughing. “It’s very possible.”

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