Before you buy the Lodge Sportsman Pro
Castiron Grill, you need to watch this
video. I mean, why did they go ahead and
change this? The Lodge Sportsman grill
has been around with Lodge since 1993,
folks. That's 27 years that the original
grill that they had has been around. But
in this year of 2022, they have changed
this. So, let's take a look and see what
they've done to change this. Now,
recently, Mrs. Cast Iron and I had the
privilege of going to the uh National
Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh,
Tennessee, where Lodge is located. And
we were blessed to be given this grill
to try out and to test it. So, what
we're going to do, we're going to open
this box up and go ahead and assemble
it,
and I'm going to show you
what they've done to change this grill.
Now, here we have this piece. Now, one
thing that they've done for sure
to change the sportsman's grill is
they've reduced the amount of pieces
compared to the old grill. The old grill
had six pieces and this one only has
four. This thing is so simple to put
together. So, we're just going to show
you. This is the firebox.
This is the main frame to it here. And
that's what we're going to bolt to this.
This is actually an ash tray, which the
old sportsman's grill, you had to take
the whole grill and dump it upside down
in order to get the ashes out of it. And
of course, this is your grill grate that
you do your cooking from. Now, this one
does not have a bail handle that hooks
here. What they have here are these hook
handles. So, these little hook handles
just hook into this to pick this thing
up. But, let's go ahead and assemble it.
Now, it's only got two bolts. Uh the
other one, these are staggered on the
corners. the other one that the older
sportsman's pro or sportsman's grill had
two on each end. So, these are kind of
staggered, which we'll go ahead and get
those put together. And it's real
simple. I mean, it's just two screws,
two lock washers, and two nuts. Okay.
And these things fit perfectly. Now,
there's two notches here, two grooves,
and there's two grooves here on your
main base, which fit perfectly. You
can't I mean they they they're
interchangeable so you can't get them
wrong.
Okay. Put our bolt in there. I'm just
going to hold that in there. Put my lock
washer on there.
Put my little nut on here.
And I'm just going to run it down
fingertight.
And then I all you have to have is a
regular flathead screwdriver
and you can tighten that up. Now I'm
just going to get that snug so I can put
my other
screw in here.
[Music]
Put your lock washer down.
Put your nut on top.
Run that down fingertight.
Turn it over.
And then we can
tighten those up. And that's all there
is to to putting this thing together. It
was that simple. Now, with this being
the base here, let me turn this a little
bit. What we have is this tray that just
slides in here perfectly. Okay. And this
is to catch your ash.
So when you have your
charcoal in here, this ash tray catches
your ash and it makes it so much easier
to discard your ash once the charcoal
has burnt down. And now there's two
other things that they've done here that
I really like about this. They've added
uh draft doors here. And I'll show you
once you slide this open, you can see it
says right here,
draft vent open. So when you pull this
out and when this thing is hot, you're
going to be using these handles to do
this. Okay. So, but anyway, when this
draft door is open, you can see this
hole right here. This is your draft. And
there's one opposite of it over here.
And so the wind or the the air is able
to go through and
vent the charcoal to if it's wide open,
it's going to burn hotter. And you can
close that off. It's like a damper. The
draft door is like a damper to get more
heat or to cool it down. And that's all
that that is. That's simple. And then of
course you have your grill that fits on
top. Now, it has two grooves here, so
you can keep your hot dogs from rolling
off or whatever. And you could also put
a skillet on here if you want to. And
we'll be doing that later. We're going
to be cooking some stuff on here. Now,
this this grill is just like the old
one. You can take and flip it upside
down, and you can get your grill closer
to your charcoal if you're wanting to
sear a steak or something like that. But
generally speaking, you're going to want
to keep your grill grate up on the four
legs like this right here. And so
basically, that's all there is to that.
Like I said, we've got these little hook
handles. If you wanted to carry this
thing, you can hook it right here and
you can pick this thing up and move it
around. And so that's all there is to as
far as the assembly goes to the Lodge
Sportsman Pro Grill. Okay, what we're
going to do now, we're going to get our
charcoal started. Now, this is real
easy. This is a Weber charcoal chimney.
Uh, and these things are great, man. I
mean, they've got little holes in them,
uh, where you can pour your charcoal in
here. Well, let me just show you what we
do. Uh,
and this charcoal, this is just some
store brand charcoal from our local
grocery store. Uh, it's a good hardwood
charcoal from the Ozarks. But you just
pour your charcoal in. You can fill it
up as much as you want, but for what
we're doing today, I'm only going to do
about 3/4 of a chimney. And you just
take some kind of paper that you can uh
don't mind burning. And you just want to
stick this in the bottom here, basically
like that. And you just light that.
And you let that paper burn. And as it's
burning, it will the flame will um rise
up into the charcoal and ignite the
charcoal. And it has these holes here
for ventilation. As you can see, it's
already starting to smoke. So, as that
flame continues to burn in the paper,
then it will ignite the charcoal. And
that way you don't have any kind of um
lighter fluid taste or anything like
that. So that's the reason why I love
using a a chimney charcoal chimney
starter. That way you don't have that
flavor, you know, of lighter fluid. So
we're going to let this ignite. It's
going to take about 10 minutes or so.
The next thing we're going to do is
we're going to get our sportsman's grill
the grill off of it and we're going to
spray it down with some cooking oil. And
then once the charcoal is lit, we'll put
that in and we'll get ready and start
our chicken thighs here in just a
minute. Okay. Now, one other thing about
these charcoal chimney starters, of
course, it has a handle here and it has
a heat shield here, so it will protect
you from uh, you know, the heat of the
charcoal. Now, on the Lodge Sportsman
Pro Grill, there are a couple things I
want to point out. Lodge put their label
out here on the end of this and then on
this other end they put 1896 on this
handle. 1896 was when Lodge was
established
uh as a cast iron manufacturer.
And now what we're going to do as the
charcoal continues to uh get hot there.
All I want to do basically is just use
some regular uh cooking spray and just
lightly spray this grill. so our
um chicken thighs won't stick to it. And
uh since this is hot now, I'm going to
use a glove just to be safe. And what
we're going to do, a couple things,
another thing I want to show you, too.
On the ashtray, on one end, it says
open. On the other end, it says draft
vent closed. So, you can move that to a
certain point to where it's all the way
open or it shows here that it's closed.
And so what we're going to do though,
we're going to open it wide open so we
can get our charcoal lit. Just take your
chimney and you just want to lightly be
careful
and dump just a little layer of charcoal
in here. Now you don't want too much.
I usually put about one layer in there
and that is plenty.
That'll burn for a good while. So once
you get your charcoal in there, you want
to take and place your
grill grate back on top. And we'll let
that heat up for just a minute with the
draft door completely open. That way
it's getting full air and it'll help to
ignite the charcoal even more. I'm going
to go get my chicken thighs and we'll be
back here in just a minute and we're
going to cook some chicken thighs today.
Well, like I mentioned earlier, uh Tesa
and I were blessed to be able to go to
the National Cornbread Festival, and I
picked up this skillet uh as a souvenir.
It's the 25th anniversary National uh
Cornbread Festival skillet. So, we're
going to be using that today. And what
we're going to do, I'm just going to
place it up here on the sportsman's
grill. And I need to take a little bit
of olive oil. What we're going to make,
we're going to fry or sauté some um
radishes.
So, basically, you just put a little bit
of oil in your in your skillet here. And
I'm going to place some red onions in
here also.
[Applause]
So, about that many right there.
And then we're going to put oh, just a
good amount of uh radishes in here
and sauté them up. Now, these radishes
are great. Uh, typically when you eat
them like on a salad, they're kind of uh
they kind of have a twang to them, but
when you sauté them like this in a
skillet, um, they takes away the u the
taste of it. Okay, we just kind of stir
these radishes around with the onion and
we'll let those sauté down. And while
we're doing that, I'm going to take some
chicken thighs. Now, I have been letting
my chicken thighs marinate. Uh, I put
some Baker's Barbecue Competition rub on
here. This is a friend of mine from my
hometown, Mike Baker, and I'll leave a
link to his uh website for uh this rub.
But anyway, we've been letting our
chicken thighs marinate in a onegon bag
for a few hours and letting it soak up
all that good flavoring. And so, we're
just going to take and place some of
these in here.
Oh, listen to that sizzle.
So, we'll place three of them on there
and we'll let those begin to cook for a
while. And
[Music]
as those cook, we'll get ready and flip
those. And then we'll be back here in
just a little bit and show you guys what
these look like. Okay. I just want to
kind of show you where we're at on some
of this. The uh radishes are beginning
to sauté. Nice. We're using this thing
called a fisk. It's a fork and a whisk.
And you can use it uh to to whisk up
food or to fork, you know, to scoop
something up. That's pretty cool. Now,
uh another thing that I failed to do
earlier is usually we put a little bit
of bacon in this. So, I want to add a
little bit of bacon and let that cook.
Well, I'm going to go ahead. That's
about two pieces. And then also I have
some Traogs barbecue uh SPG just salt,
pepper, garlic, and onion powder. And
I'm going to take and add a little bit
of that to this just to give it a little
bit of flavor.
And we'll take our fisky and just kind
of mix that up there a little bit. Now
our chicken thighs are doing real good.
Now, what I had to do earlier, um, I had
to close the draft door completely off
because the charcoal was getting pretty
hot. So, that's one thing that you need
to be aware of on one of these charcoal
grills, uh, sportsman's pro grill or any
any grill like this, a habachi type
grill, is they cook hot. And so, you got
to constantly be flipping your, uh, meat
or whatever you're cooking so you don't
burn it too bad. And I mean, it's got
some some char on it, but a lot of that
is from the sugar out of the seasoning.
So, anyway, I just wanted to kind of
show you where we're at on these. We're
going to continue to cook these. And uh
before we go, now I've got a ThermoPro
U insta read thermometer. And it's
amodextra. You can do it from both
directions. If you're left-handed or
right-handed, it'll read either way. And
I think that's pretty cool. So, Thermal
Pro makes a pretty good Insta Read
thermometer. That's running 169,
170. So, that one's definitely done. You
want to get your chicken up to at least
165.
Um, that one's getting close.
And you always want to test these away
from the bone. You don't want to get uh
get on the bone. Be sure and get close
to the bone. So, we still got another
few degrees to go on that one. This one
here
has a little ways to go also, but this
one here, that's 170. We're gonna have
to get that off now. So, folks, we're
going to continue to cook these chicken
thighs, and we'll come back here in a
minute and show you what these all look
like. All right. Well, let's go ahead
and check these chicken thighs here.
I've got my Thermal Pro Insta Read
thermometer. That's running 175. So,
that one's definitely ready.
172, 173 over on that side of the bone.
So, I'm going to go ahead and pull that
one and put it in my little skillet
here. Now, these
also are done. I mean, they're fork
tender. Look at that. I mean, these are
just almost like fried potatoes. So, we
can get ready and I'm going to scoop a
few of those up
into my plate.
And so, there we have it. I want you to
look at these,
man. Oh, man. I know it's hot.
Wow.
Those are really good, folks. Those are
radishes sauteed in in red onions with
some olive oil and just some bacon bits
in it. And of course, we've got our
chicken thighs here. SPG.
They're seasoned with SPG.
The chicken thighs are seasoned and
marinated with Mike Baker's barbecue
rub, competition rub.
How's that taste, Mrs. Cast Iron?
That is good. I love that M Baker's um
seasoning. And then this is that SPG
from Traumah that we've always loved.
Oh,
those are delicious. I love those. Low
calorie, too.
Great. Those are delicious. Very good.
Mr. Cast,
we're going to go ahead and finish
cooking these. And uh we hope this has
been helpful for you guys on this Lodge
Sportsman Pro grill. They're very nice
and we're so thankful that we have had
the opportunity to review one of these.
I love cooking on them and so we're
going to finish what we're doing here.
You guys have a great day and we'll be
talking to you again soon. It's Mr. and
Mrs. Cast Iron over here. We'll see
y'all later. Have a great day. And
bye-bye.