Another Free Grill

Another day, another free grill for the Urban Hippy! A reader here in Ottawa saw my call for free grills and answered it with this Centro unit with lots of stainless steel ... oooooo ... shiny! Thanks very much BTW! He said he bought it in 2006 but recently picked up a Big Green Egg and is not looking back - doesn't want to have anything to do with gas or propane any more! Not that I can blame him that's for sure. If anyone out there has a Big Green Egg to give away, just let me know :-)

The unit is still in very good condition - though there was quite a bit of rust inside on the non-stainless parts, which really has me suspicious of all the new grills I see out there no longer made from cast aluminum. In this unit, the A-frames over the burners were completely rusted out, as was all the support structure (had been welded to the frame) that holds them in place. So it would not be possible to install new ones - but no worry since the way I plan to use it with the cast iron griddles makes the need for those things completely superfluous, both in their role keeping dripping fat off the burners, as well as their other role of distributing heat. And a good deal of the bottom of the firebox was gone, too - or actually the parts holding the little trap door in place. Actually I suspect this is probably the sort of thing one can expect from any of the new grills that are no longer made from cast aluminum as grills always used to be, but are made from steel which is not stainless.

I don't mean that to be looking a gift horse in the mouth by any stretch of the imagination - just a comment on the apparent durability of this unit vs other grills I've owned. I do anticipate that I will get quite a bit of use out of it as-is. The parts that are not rusted seem to be holding up well and from here on in, it should be pretty easy to maintain.

I'll be keeping the other new-to-me grill that I got for the time being at least. Possibly for the sake of keeping it on hand for those parties which are really busy. Or for the day when this one rusts out completely whenever that happens. My money is on the cast aluminum units outliving the steel ones that are not stainless.