Contact grill changed our lives ...

[mikeford]

Contact grill is the generic name for a two sided indoor George Foreman type grill. We thought about it for years, counter space is premium in our kitchen, but we were dying from lockdown dining on take and delivery. I shopped a LOT, and the day I was ready to buy the model I had picked went into short supply and Amazon raised the price $20. Walmart had the next choice, a Hamilton Beach, brand I liked, model made for Mexico with manual heat control instead of digital, $40 shipped plus tax.

So far its steaks and burgers most days for the last couple weeks and no end in site.

Pros
Fast, convenient, not too much counter space, loads of excess fat drain right off.

Cons
Our model doesn't have an on/off switch, must unplug, and our plates don't come out, so cleaning is a "little" pesky, mostly scrap with included paddle to get off big pieces, the wet paper towel and put it in while grill is still hot, lets steam a few seconds, grab with non metal tongs and wipe up grill. Cooks really fast from both sides so medium rare takes a lot of practice. Bones or uneven cuts of meat so all the meat isn't in contact with top grill vastly alters cooking.

No opinion on health benefits so far, but its fun and tasty. Sorry to say, but the better the steak the better the steak, can get expensive, but even the best steak cheap vs restaurant prices.

 

[herm0016]

pics? i cant believe it gets hot enough to properly sear a steak.

 

[mindless1]

I have the old (original?) George Foreman, wouldn't call it life changing but it does a good job on sausages. Just about anything else I do on the grill or broil, except if it's winter and there's a sheet of ice over the grill cover, then I have a plug in electric countertop grill or if feeling really ambitious I could swap the grill element onto my stove... which I have done one time... too much cleaning hassle from square grates.

Counter space isn't an issue. I store it in a cabinet because it's small enough, but that small size has its drawbacks. If I'm using a proper grill then I can cook other things on it too, using far more space than the GF has.

 

[mikeford]

Our gas grill got fussy and didn't "revive" well after being shut off for winter, plus its on a patio only 5 feet from door to 8 ft tall retaining wall. I was going to replace or fix it, and despider the patio area and fix the sliding glass door leading to it, but nah, this works well enough. We are still learning, might get sick of it, might upgrade.

Models and performance vary, the one I have doesn't have a "sear" mode, but preheat to 375F works well for steak. Temperature is one part, the other is the thermal mass of the plates and power of the heating element, ours is 1500 watts, some are as high as 1800 watts, but that exceeds my level of trust in the wiring in our kitchen (like is our 1100 watt microwave on the same 20 amp circuit).

We were cautious at first, setting the grill to 325F, and it was burning grill lines ok, but everything was coming out well done, and our family medium to medium rare. Note the moderately well doneness of this one.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

pics? i cant believe it gets hot enough to properly sear a steak.

Place I worked at had one (guy who worked for me got it for opening a bank account)
We cooked burger, chicken and one time steaks on it.
The grill works better than expected but keep in mind I never bought one for home.
Stuff comes out kind of well done.

 

[mikeford]

Avoiding well done is a learned skill, its why we are still in cheap steak mode, not choice. The lower the heat setting, the lower the ratio of outside to inside temperature. The higher the heat setting, the higher the ratio of outside to inside temperature. What makes it tricky is the two sided heating speeds up the cooking process so time gets more critical, and usual signs of doneness from the outside can be misleading.

OTOH I am edging toward a medium steak instead of medium rare, due to the quality of meat and how its processed, like injecting water.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Yeah these are not as much of a gimmick as one would think. I really can see a use case for them.
I’m just not that guy.