Before Firing Up The Grill

 

Here are a few tips on starting your charcoal grill, after all, building your charcoal fire is more than just tearing open the bag, dumping in the charcoal, pouring lighter fluid on it, and throwing on a match. Although that is how many people do it. Then after 15-20 minutes, they shake the grill to settle the coals and go to grilling. Do it this way and you will probably end up with burned burgers or raw chicken, but sometimes you might get lucky and your food will turn out okay. Wouldn't it be better to know that you will get good food every time?

The key to good grilling is to have an even fire. The only time you should have any variation in heat is when you plan for it. If you just dump your coals in randomly you will have hot and cool spots. If you evenly distribute the coals you can minimize any variation and get good, even grilling. This is very important when you are cooking a large amount of food on the grill.

The number of charcoal briquettes you use will depend on the size of your gill, the amount of food you will be cooking, weather conditions, and cooking time.

As a general rule of thumb, plan on using about 25 or 30 briquettes to cook one pound of meat. A standard five-pound bag contains 75 to 90 briquettes. You want to make sure that you have enough briquettes to cover the grills pan in a single layer and extending out about 2" beyond the area of the food on the grill. The first step is to place the briquettes in the grills pan to determine the quantity and then stack them up in a rough pyramid shape to light. Soak the briquettes with approximately 1/2 cup of lighter fluid, and let sit for a few minutes before lighting.

After the coals have begun to burn and ash starts to form, you will need to arrange them with long-handled tongs into a single layer

The experience griller sometimes likes to have a controlled temperature variation,  hot area, and a not-so-hot area. In grilling, this is called a two-level fire. For the charcoal grill you will want to set up half of your fire grate in a single layer of coals and the other half in two or three layers of coals. This will give you the hot and medium areas to do your cooking. This method is also good if you are cooking different types of foods at the same time. 

Of course, if you have a dual burner gas grill just set one burner on high and the other on medium.

Enjoy the cookouts.