"Grilling" in a Wood-fired Oven

[Bill/SFNM]

This very interesting article in the New York Times discusses grilling over a wood fire. Doing this in your wood-fired oven is easily done if you have a grilling rack you can place several inches over the coals. For many items, such as a thick porterhouse cooked Tuscan-style, I prefer using the wood oven's intense heat so that the steak cooks quickly to reduce moisture loss, but also gets that perfect charring on the outside.

I use the rack that Earthstone sells (about halfway down the page), but it is a pain to clean up. What I try to do is make sure it is very clean, get it good and hot, oil it, and then put the meat on it. Usually this works OK. Pulling the rack in and out of the oven invariably results in grease dripping on the apron (and floor). If not removed immediately, these will usually bake onto the apron (ceramic tile in my case). A little Easy-Off will remove them easily.

Any suggestions for other racks to hold meats and other things over the coals would be appreciated. Non-stick coatings wouldn't hold up 900F.

[smarttowers]

Not sure if you'd be able to find one but maybe a cast iron grill. Seems that if you had the grill preheated nice and hot it would make it harder for items to stick to it. Seems like some of the newer gas grills have cast iron for their cooking surface. If not cast iron maybe a ceramic one, same reason I would think if the grill was really hot and held that heat it would keep stuff from sticking too much throughout the cooking.

*edit
Found a grill on lodge's website https://secure.lodgemfg.com/storefront/product1_new.asp?menu=prologic&idProduct=3978

[trosenberg]

I bought a cast iron grate that was sold at Home Depot as a replacement grill top.  I simply set two bricks on edge and place the cast iron grill top on them.  Works great.  The last few times I cooked steak in the WFO I made "dirty steak."  (I think I learned about it on this site)Simply throw the meat on the burning embers.  The ash & coals do not stick to the meat, the steaks get a nice char but do not burn.  Grab a couple of prime dry aged steaks throw them on the fire, crack open a nice Cab...Life is good.