On Friday, BBQFans.com received a email from The Chew daytime TV show regarding a custom BBQ branding iron that they needed for taping today. What a great acknowledgement of our product. We were able to produce it and get it to them overnight for their recording on Tuesday.

It was exciting to see our product on such a quality show that is followed by millions. They zoomed in on the steak brand and attempted to leave a mark with “The Chew” branding iron but it didn’t leave a great mark. I just figured that I’d take the time to explain the reason that it didn’t work well and give some tips.

The first thing I noticed was that the branding iron didn’t steam when it was pressed on the ham. That lets me know that the branding iron wasn’t hot enough. Much like a grill grate that leaves a mark when grilling, the iron needs to be extremely hot. Placing the branding iron in a direct flame is the ideal way to heat the branding iron quickly, generally just a couple minutes.

I can’t confirm it but it appears that the branding iron was placed possibly on an electric burner. This will definitely work but it takes quite awhile longer to get the personalized branding iron hot enough. One thing I was impressed with was how they rotated the handle to make sure that they entire branding iron made contact with the meat.

Again, the main thing you can do for a quality mark using your BBQ branding iron is to ensure that it’s hot enough. Ideally with it in a direct flame.

You can see in the upper right hand side of this post what you can expect from a mark if it’s heated to the correct temperature. With that said, there is no perfect temperature, it’ll take some trial and error at first to find out what works best for your heating source.

I’d definitely like to take the time to thank The Chew for giving us the opportunity to produce a BBQ branding iron for their show. It was definitely exciting seeing how well it was received by the audience!

Like many of you I was first introduced to the Grill  Charms on ABC’s Shark Tank. Grill Charms are dime-sized solid stainless steel meat markers that are placed in food BEFORE grilling. Grill Charm your food PRIOR to cooking to distinguish spices and flavors, steak temperatures, or to avoid health or allergy issues.

There are 4 different styles such as the Rare, Medium, Well set so that you know exactly what you’re going to get. Also, there is a Pink Collection in which 10% of sales from the Pink Collection will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

I tried out a set and they worked exactly as you’d expect. They stayed in the steaks and my son got a kick out of it because his first initial is M and I gave him one of the charms with the ‘M’ for medium.

Features:

• Stainless Steel
• Serrated to stay in securely while flipping
• Works with chicken, steak, fish, pork and more
• Food cooks evenly around the charm

To view our selection of Grill Charms, click here.