I bought a brick filet at the meat market. its chunky as grilling meat. how much charcoal would i need and in terms of energy units if instead i grilled it? i cooked it with a low flame in the stove, using a pewter pan, no cooking oil, and another pewter pan for covering it. the vapors are reused, it cooks in its oil vapors. its done after twentyfour minutes. how many energy units did i use? stove is at its lowest, heat transfer is maximum because of the pan material.

Energy Consumed by Your Stove A standard gas burner running at its absolute lowest setting (simmer setting) consumes around 1,500 to 2,000 BTUs per hour (approx. 1.58–2.11 Megajoules/hour). For a 24-minute cook (0.4): * BTU: 600800 * Megajoules (MJ): 0.630.84 * Watt-hours (Wh): 175235 (0.1750.235) Your setup using a heavy metal pan enclosed with a matching cover acted as a mini-oven or Dutch oven. Because the vapor and rendered fat were trapped, heat was retained efficiently via steam/oil-vapor conduction, meaning the meat absorbed a very high percentage of the ~700 BTUs output by the burner. Equivalent Charcoal Required for Grilling Direct grilling requires significantly more total energy because open grills waste a vast majority of their heat through convection into the open air. To grill a thick block/brick cut (which requires indirect heat to cook through without burning the outside, followed by a direct sear): 1. Amount of Charcoal * You need roughly 30 to 40 charcoal briquettes (or about 1.5 to 2 lbs / 0.7 to 0.9 kg of charcoal) to set up a two-zone fire in a standard grill. * Fewer briquettes won’t generate enough ambient chamber temperature to maintain a stable fire bed for 25–30 minutes. 2. Energy in Charcoal * Charcoal briquettes contain roughly 9,700 to 12,800 BTUs per pound (22.529.8). * Total Energy in the Charcoal: 15,00020,000 (15.821.1 or 4.45.8).

Comparison Summary

|:— |:— |:—| | Cooking Method | Energy Input | Efficiency | |Stove (Enclosed Pewter Pan) | ~700 BTU (0.74) | Very High (Thermal mass + trapped steam/oil vapor) | | Open Charcoal Grill | ~17,500 BTU (18.5) | Low (Massive radiant & convective heat loss) | Grilling that same brick filet consumes ~25 times more raw chemical energy than your covered pan method on the stove. Your covered low-flame technique is essentially a braise/confit hybrid that converts energy into cooking heat with minimal loss.