Ready for more outdoor cooking fun with two DIY hand and swamp grills? The hand grill is perfect for toasting bread and warming ham steaks. On the bright side, the swamp grill boasts impressive size and shines when cooking over coals and a gentle flame. You can whip up both of these DIY grills using a knife, a baton, or a chopping tool. Get ready to spice up your outdoor cooking escapades with these fun projects!
Easy Hand and Swamp Grills
Hand Grills
I absolutely love using my hand grill to warm up or toast bread and tortillas, and it’s also fantastic for cooking sausages to perfection. I craft this simple yet effective grill from flexible, non-toxic green branches.
To start, I select a branch roughly the same width as my outstretched arms, allowing for ample cooking area. Select a branch with a wide V section. I then carefully bend this branch into a circular hoop and secure it through the natural friction of the wood. However, a twisting method works well, or you can utilize some sturdy binders for added stability.
Next, I add a centerpiece, anchoring smaller branches perpendicularly to it, which helps to define the grill’s structure. This process requires some finesse, strategic tweaking, and possibly a few additional branches to ensure everything holds together. While it might not be a beauty queen in the world of grills, it serves its purpose remarkably well. Let’s be honest, it is a disposable grill after all! That’s the beauty of these hand and swamp grills.
I use it for only one or two cookouts, mainly because green wood tends to dry out quickly after exposure to heat. Nonetheless, the satisfaction of using something crafted from nature adds to the enjoyment of grilling.
Swamp Grills: Jungle Style Cooking
The allure of the jungle brings to mind epic tales of adventure. Lush greenery, slithering snakes, buzzing bugs, towering bamboo, and a vibrant array of wildlife all spark our imaginations. But cooking in the jungle? That’s a whole different ballgame!
With an abundance of natural materials at your fingertips, whipping up a meal becomes surprisingly simple. Swamp grills make it all that much more fun. As long as you have a sturdy blade in hand and can spark a fire, you’re all set for culinary fun in the wild!
I picked up the art of swamp grilling in the Peruvian Rainforest, but this technique has been around for ages. It just takes a little creativity and some green sticks. Building a cooking rack or grill resembles setting up a raised bed (like a swamp bed) for sleeping in the jungle.
Start by sinking four forked “Y” sticks into the ground to create the corners of a rectangle. Lay down cross sticks between the forked ends first—those will act as the head and foot of your grill. Next, grab some green sticks that are roughly the thickness of your thumb and place as many as you need along the cross sticks to form the grate.
Does Size Matter?
The grill’s size matters—just think about the campfire’s size and how much food you plan to cook. When you set up the grill this way, you can practically bet that at least one piece of meat, a pepper, or a slice of bread will find its way into the flames. This is especially true if you didn’t use enough sticks during construction.
To deal with this culinary chaos, whip up a pair of tongs! They’ll help you maneuver food around and rescue anything that bravely ventures too close to the fire gods!
Summary
When I think of rustic outdoor cooking, two grills come to mind: the swamp grill, made from sturdy green wood for larger groups, and the handy grill for broiling or roasting over coals. Each brings its own charm to the campfire cooking scene!
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