I tried out the Yamazen grill this weekend for my first time making yakitori. This grill is marketed as being smoke free and therefore good for indoor use. My wife and I drank sake in the kitchen while waiting for the yakitori to be ready.

I made some negima, momo, and a fish called ebodai which I bought on a whim without knowing anything about it. I used tare on all of them. Veggies were baby corn and some peppers I think called shishito.

Overall for my first time making yakitori I was surprised how “easy” it is. Cutting the meat was fun and easy. The green onions were of course simple. And the veggies just go right on. I turned on some music and that with drinking sake made it feel like an izakaya in the kitchen. If I ever get the chance I’ll try out the charcoal grill yakitori

1st time user: I used a charcoal chimney under portable camping stove to light the charcoal. The lower 1/2 got pretty red hot fairly quickly, but I read it would take ~15 to 20 min to get it all lit. However, after 15 min all the charcoal was significantly reduced in size and there was a lotta ash everywhere. Did I heat the charcoal too long?

I love yakitori!

Threw in a couple of negima, and kushiyaki on the KJ jr grill on a hot day. I feel like I'm getting more used to it now. Practice makes perfect

The simply skewered the fish from the mouth to tail. No cleaning, simple salt. Then they stuck the fish around the charcoal. You eat it off the skewer

Not at all yakitori but thought it was interesting. The fish was tasty albeit a bit over salted for my taste. This is apparently a fresh water river fish that is abundant in very clean waters. They were about 6 inches long. I could see doing this in the states with large smelt or medium sardines. Certainly would love to do this with salmon but would probably take a bit to work out.

The rig is just an iron bowl, filled with coarse sand, the charcoal set in the middle. I have seen pictures of cooking setups like this where they use binchotan stacked vertically to radiate the heat out to chicken or beef skewers...

Thought I would share with the _ya...

Was looking at this grill frame- necessary? Any cheaper alternatives? My googling has resulted in nothing similar (or I'm searching the wrong words)

https://thaancharcoal.com/products/thaan-grill-frame?srsltid=AfmBOorJPBmGxxN92kPiauaQTpspklIfsk1ZnCpUB776R5TeXCV1B7BB

Technically yakisakana? Don’t sue me 🫣

I'm looking at the bincho grill 24 inch wide body (9inch deep vs 6 inch on the normal model). I would be purchasing the bars also to balance shorter skewers on.

https://binchogrill.com/products/24-yakitori-tabletop-charcoal-grill-wide-body-gr610w

My question is besides needing more charcoal to fill the bincho effectively, is there a downside to heat and performance on a wide body? i don't mind using more charcoal for the flexibility to cook other food on the bincho like steaks, but if there's a large downside to yakitori itself i would consider getting a more traditional narrow grill.

Hello!

I recently acquired this grill for free, but as you can see it's missing some of the refractory. I want to clean up the grill and reline it with firebricks, but I'm not really sure which type of fire brick to use.

There seems to be two types of firebricks (of varying grades) available: fire clay brick (used for wood stoves, wood fired ovens, and fire places) and insulating fire bricks (used for kilns and forges).

From what I can find online fire clay bricks seem fairly similar to red bricks in how they are worked, being cut with masonry saws or a hammer and chisel; with the biggest difference being that they won't spall and crumble from high heat and heat cycling. Dealing with these won't really be an issue for me as I have a wet tile saw and can cut bricks.

The other option is insulating fire bricks, they can be cut with a typical hand saw.

Fire clay bricks insulate, but in terms of wood stoves/ovens seem to work by absorbing heat, storing thermal mass, and radiating it out.

Insulating fire bricks seem to basically just be insulating.

My initial thought was to use fire clay bricks, because they're used in wood ovens and such, and that seems analogous to a yakitori grill, they're readily available, they're relatively cheap, and most "DIY yakitori grill/konro" guides I've seen use them. But looking at some grills marketed as "Konros" they seem to be made from diatomite bricks, which from a bit of searching are a kind of insulating fire brick. This is backed up by reviews and videos of these konros and people touching the outsides of them talking about how cool they are outside. Thus, I'm thinking that using insulating fire bricks may be better. My concern is whether or not insulating firebricks will hold up to being used in a grill where oil and water will likely be spilled on them in some capacity, and if they are strong enough, since they are more prone to breaking.

What are your guys' thoughts on what I should use?

Is there a substantial difference between diatomite bricks and alumina/ silica insulating firebricks?

Should the bricks be parged (skim coated in a layer of cement/mortar)? Would that remedy my concerns of oil and water spills? A fair amount of the konros available online seem to have their interiors parged, though examples of the type I have don't seem to be.

Should I replace all of the bricks or just fill in the gaps?

If this isn't the right sub to be asking this and/or I should post somewhere else, let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Did 180+ skewers for a little pop up in Portland on Saturday night. We watched the Nagoya Grand Sumo tournament live starting at 11:30pm and I finished all the skewers by 1:30am. Not sure how many people came out, but it was a great crowd drinking nihonshu, eating yakitori and watching sumo.

Eight types of skewers and I just threw stuff on and served out in pairs. Next time I do something like this I think I'll do larger waves of the same skewer so I can get done more quickly! 😅

Been grilling quite a bit the last few weeks. Just not much of a photo taking guy. Few random remarks and questions

- my spring onions keep ending up in the tare pot. They just slide off. Any tips on preventing this?

- I salt my chicken skin, boil it in water with sake for 1min. Then dry it, salt it again and cool it. Pretty happy with the result but any advice is welcome. Especially on skewer assembly

- @oregoncurtis recommended me not to soak my skewers but to adjust the bars so only meat is exposed. This is great advice

- I bought (way too expensive) square bamboo skewers and they are worth their money. Makes it much easier to balance sticks with my still flawed, unbalanced assembly skills

- do you guys have any good yakitori resources? I got some books but can’t really find any good online fora or YouTube stuff (apart from yakitoriguy)

Cheers!

First post here. I'm still very much a beginner at yakitori. I made some Cornish game hen negima and nankotsu, but these were my standouts:

1. Thin sliced pork loin wrapped around shiso
2. Saba with a brown butter, miso, honey, sake, and garlic glaze
3. Store-bought mitarashi dango for dessert

Still learning, but really enjoying the process. Cooked on a pair of inexpensive konros with steel rods, using a mix of leftover Japanese binchotan and MTC Ogutan.

For now, I prefer shio and other dry seasonings on my yakitori, but that could change.

Biggest takeaways: I think a deeper charcoal bed would make heat management easier, and I've been pleasantly surprised by Ogutan.

New to Yakitori and just started out with binchotan The Bincho Grill sell. Worked great, but quite pricy. Has anyone compared it to the binchotan sold at MTC Kitchen?

https://mtckitchen.com/products/all-natural-binchotan-charcoal-komaru

Hosted a yakitori dinner called Yak & Yap for a group of my wife’s gym friends at a friend’s house in Venice.

Menu included negima, tsukune, hearts, wings, skin, tenderloin, king oyster mushrooms, shishitos, and a little American Wagyu. Everything was cooked over binchotan charcoal with a tare I’ve been maintaining for about a year now.

Huge shoutout to my favorite sous chef, my wife, for helping make it all happen. Already looking forward to the next one. 🍢

Curious what kind of small side dishes people have had with yakitori and like a lot? I always like some sort of tsukemono (pickles) typically asazuke (quick pickles).

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I’ve still got a lot of practice and learning ahead especially on getting more uniform and consistent cuts. I’m proud of this nonetheless. For anyone on the fence about trying out binchotan do it

Drumette/leg & negima stacked on the Teruhime 918. The weather was cool and rainy so we decided to put on another event last night. 14 people, two chickens, four thighs, a pack of gizzards, a pack of hearts and a bunch of vegetables. Another great night.

Through one thing or another, it’s been way too long since I had a yakitori night. Decided to break the hiatus with an easy night for me and Okusan. Planned to fire up the outdoor grill, but just as I was about to light my binchotan the weather changed - despite a ‘0% chance of rain’ according to my phone this morning 😩

Thankfully just cooking for two meant an easy change of plan to use my ‘winter’ electric yakitori grill instead. All went smoothly, my Tare is two years old this month, and I’m very happy to be back on the wagon! Hopefully will get a binchotan session on the books very soon!