Why Libertarians Can't Barbecue

Today marked the inaugural use of our new barbecue.

For the first few years of our marriage Taleena and I would go every spring to our local sporting goods store and pick up a cheap little propane powered grill; the sort of thing you'd toss in the back of the car and take to the beach for a picnic. We'd use it all summer long and by the time late September came around the grill would have worn itself out so in to the trash it would go.

Eventually my brother-in-law picked up a free BBQ from the side of the road. It was a gas grill that he stripped the guts from and turned in to a traditional charcoal unit. He left it at our house when we moved in and that has been our outdoor cooker in the two years since. That is until today.

About five weeks ago we ordered a new barbecue from Amazon.com and it was delivered last week. I finally went to the home supply store today and picked up a propane tank and got it filled thus allowing us to finally get a nice quick grilled dinner on the table. Or so I thought.

After putting all the parts together I tested it and went on my way to assemble the rest of dinner. Our menu for the first meal was a family recipe for marinated flank steak served on a bed of rice. So I dropped a couple of cups of rice in the cooker and grabbed the bowl marinating meat from the fridge.

Now this is where my libertarian sensibilities became disturbed. I hit the igniter on the grill and 'whoosh', a hot blue flame quickly ringed the burner. A few flicks of the tongs and about a dozen strips of juicy meat were sizzling on the grill. I closed the lid and stepped inside to slice up some watermelon. When I came back out to flip the strips I discovered that the barbecue was barely warm. I checked the flame and saw that is was small and low, putting off hardly any heat.

I checked all the connections, and attempted to restart the grill but with no success. The lid has a label on it with a phone number to call for help so I dialed up only to learn that their support hours don't match up with typical grilling times out here on the west coast. Grrrr. It was time to hit the internet.

On the FAQ of the CharBroil website I discovered the problem. It seems that in 1995 the government required an over-pressure valve be installed on all new gas grills. This device restricts the flow from the tank if the pressure is too great. This in turn causes the valve to freeze up and all of that caused my new grill to simply warm my dinner rather than give it a nice sear.

I'm sure that there is some safety value to having this valve in place but the Libertarian in me was getting irked that it was preventing me from simply enjoying a bit of grilled beef. I was unable to find any sort of adjustment or set screw and in the end had to keep pouring warm water over the valve to keep it from freezing up. Not an ideal situation but it did the job long enough to get dinner cooked.

Time to do some more research and figure out how other people are getting around this government imposed restriction to a plate full of sizzling meat.