An Adventure in Cedar Plank Fish Grilling

With the popularity of Cedar Plank Grilling I decided to give it a try. This is a story at my first attempt.

Like most things I have to go into it in a big way. After reading lots of information on plank grilling then coming up with a new and novel idea. I decided to carve out a pair of plates to grill the meat then use them for a cool serving presentation. Just grill and serve right on the plate. My wife thought it was stupid, I thought it was a wonderful idea because I watch Food TV.

Follow my narrative as you might want to give it a try. Click on the small pictures to view a bigger one.

	I carved out a pair of 6.5" grilling planks/serving trays with some fish on them. I used 1" Western Red Cedar. The 1" x 8" (7.25") x 8' plank cost $12.95 at Menards and I figure I have about $2.00 in the 2 dishes. The artwork cost $25.00 but I can reuse it over and over. Took about 1.5 hours to cut each dish and I sorta messed up on the second one. Forgot to bring the Z down .024 after I homed it with my gauge.
	This is how I grilled my fish. You are supposed to soak the cedar, or what ever wood you are going to use for a few hours. I soaked mine for 6 hours using a glass to weight them down under the water.
	Seasoned a couple pieces of cod as I didn't have any Salmon around the house. Found a late season pepper in the garden and the wife got some kind of herb, seasoned the cod and I am ready for the grill. All of the plank sales literature states that, "You can wash and reuse the planks in your dishwasher." That is real nice because if I am going to sell these you sure would want to be able to reuse them over and over again.
	Heat your oven or grill around 350 to 400 degrees and add the fish. So far so good. I have heat to some temperature but it shouldn't really matter that much because fish cook fast.
	Slammed the lid and stood by the grill in 30 degree weather with a glass of wine to take the chill off. She is a smoking away and sofar so good.
	I take a peek and everything looks kind of good. My wife didn't want a pepper or weeds on her fish plate but I wanted mine to look fancy for the picture. What's that white stuff leaking out of our cod?
	The fish looks cooked so I put the plank plates on a plate for the presentation photograph. You can smell the aroma of the cedar and it is rather pleasant. The white stuff (looks like fish slime) is not something you would want to sop up with a biscuit. Noticed the wood was burned around the edges and when I looked on the bottom is was black and the thing had warped.
	The wife says, "I am not eating that stuff!" So, I took the fish off the dish and like I saw in a General Foods on cooking fish I simply threw the expensive cooking dish in the trash. The fish was nicely cooked and flakey except the taste of red cedar is like cilantro, either you like or you don't. And I don't! I love to use Hickory, Oak, or Fruit woods when grilling but I just don't have the taste for this red cedar.
	This was my adventure in Cedar Plank Grilling. Looks like it is time to try something else.

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