It’s frustrating when grilling anything on a skewer, generally it tends to light on fire or burn horrifically, and the metal skewers? Who wants to do dishes?! Brilliant, mad genius, Ted Reader has the solution. A vertical plank to hold your skewered food upright.

METHOD

1. Start by securing your plank to a work surface. Preferably outdoors, or in your garage, you know, where you can make a mess. Make sure that you have something under your plank that you can drill into, just in case you go too far.
2. Mark out 18 evenly spaced targets for you to drill out. You should be able to comfortably fit 3 holes across and 6 holes down. This spacing allows for the smoke from the plank to get between what you’re grilling, producing better results.
3. Compare the size of the skewer to the drill bits. You will want to use a bit that is the closest in size to the skewer, preferably just the tiniest bit larger as you want to be able to get the skewer into the hole, but do not want to have to fight with it. (Pointy wood, raw meat, seasonings…you get where I am going with that)
4. You want to drill only about ¾ of the way through the plank on all of your pre–measured target holes
5. Brush away the excess sawdust and you are good to go.

Tips:
Always soak the plank and the skewers prior to grilling.

When skewering meats leave 1–2 inches of open space at the pointed end of the skewer so that it will fit in the plank’s support hole.
Use skewers that are 8–10 inches long so that you can leave space on the blunt end of the skewer as well. This makes for great presentation, and guests can just grab a skewer off the plank.

Make sure that there is clearance between the top of the skewer and the lid of your grill.

Grilling is quite the adventure. When I hear of new ways to do it and new techniques to try, well I am all over it. This is no different. What crazy contraption have you created to make your grilling more fun or easy? I would love to hear!

Happy Grilling!