Multi-Stage Grill Makes Campfire Cooking Easy

Multi-Stage Grill Makes Campfire Cooking Easy FARM HOME Food 34-1-33 The Outdoor Chef multi-stage campfire lets you adjust cooking height to match heat levels as a wood fire burns down. It also allows multi-stage cooking. "I'll do a batch of potatoes on one grill, move them up a level when just about done, grill a batch of sweet corn and move them up a level and transfer the potatoes to the highest level," explains Matt Trelstad, T.M. Manufacturing. "That leaves the lowest grill open to fix steaks or chops close to the fire." Trelstad devised The Outdoor Chef after watching relatives attempt to cook over campfires using tripods and other devices. "I saw too much food end up in the coals," says Trelstad. "This way you can cook with wood without any hassle. Why buy lighter fluid and charcoal when you can pick up wood around the yard?" The Outdoor Chef comes with a hefty 1/4-in., hexagonal steel base that measures 38-in. panel to panel. Swing arms on the 21 1/2-in. cooktops can slide up and down on a 24-in. high, 1-in. solid steel shaft mounted to the base. Adjustable locking collars hold the cooktops at the desired heights. The 4-in. high cooktop rim supports an off-the-shelf porcelain coated grate. Up to 4 cooktops can be mounted on a single shaft. The adjustable height makes it easy to vary cooking heat and style. Trelstad suggests searing meat on the bottom cooktop or setting 3 or 4 cooktops directly over each other and placing meat on the top for a long, slow cook. "When the cooktops are set close together, they create a chimney effect, pulling the smoke up and through," says Trelstad. "That makes it nicer when just sitting around the fire, too." Trelstad sells a three-cooktop unit with base and shaft for $270. Extra cooktops are $50 each, while the base with a shaft is $125. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, T.M. Manufacturing, 1087 County Road 4 SW, Cokato, Minn. 55321 (ph 320 286-3077; matttrelstad@yahoo.com; www.skidsplitter.com).

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