OT: New Live Fire Rig (Argentine Parrilla)

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Awesome!  And please please turn it into a rambling feature by feature review with pictures!

Alright, you twisted my arm...

The blazing fire basket in the center is called a brasero. Argentine grills use them to offset the fire from food. The brasero has a slotted design, which creates two worthy advantages: 1) Thorough oxygenation, leading to clean-burning fires, and 2) openings at the bottom of the basket for mature coals to drop into the pit. The latter point is crucial because cooking over roaring flames leads to ashy, creosote tones. Pre-burning your wood in the brasero creates perfect cooking coals. The brasero deposits them in the pit, then you rake them beneath the grates when you're ready to cook. Braseros can be installed on the side, in the rear, or at the center of the grill. I wanted mine in the center because it offers easy access to both cooking surfaces and functions as a cooking surface itself when capped with a plancha. On that note...  

When you light up the brasero, you can set your plancha—the carbon steel slab sitting on the right cooking grid in the pic—on top of it. Since the plancha is solid, you can cook directly over the flames without worrying about creosote tones. The result is a wood fire griddle that makes magic out of just about anything. Last night, I sliced fennel, celery root, and red onions on the mandolin, and threw them on the plancha. They packed perfect caramelization and knee-buckling wood fire tones that approached bacony. You can also use the plancha on the V grates, raising or lowering it to adjust the heat. 

I've heard for a while that V grates are unmatched where cooking surfaces are concerned, but I didn't really get the hype until I used them. They are as they sound: V shaped stainless steel bars that hang atop the fire. The V design catches drippings, which prevents flareups, and the grates are set at a decline, causing oils to drain into a catch tray (you use the drippings for sauces, bastes, etc). The grates create peerless sears and puff evaporative smoke from the drippings into your food. They also produce the best looking grill marks I've ever seen (from a flavor perspective, that's meaningless, but still—the thing paints zebra stripes). The grates rest on a pully system controlled the blue crank wheels. The wheels raise/lower the food to accommodate everything from searing to low/slow roasting.

Some closing details: The grill is 60 inches with massive rubber tires. The tires are sturdy enough to roll on grass, gravel, or any type of terrain. Basically, this thing can go just about anywhere. The bottom of the pit is lined with firebricks, which create radiant heat and protect the steel from warping. On the subject of steel, the whole thing is fully welded 3/16 gauge. Finally, those blue wheels are antique factory relics from (I think) the 1920s, which Northfork repurposes for their grills. Does having a vintage crank wheel make your food taste better?... Hell yes.