What Do I Need To Grill

Oxo Good Grips Basting Brush

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With a basting brush you want one thatâs going to hold up to the heat. This one from Oxo is rated to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Itâll create a new, even spread of barbecue sauce on your meat with its silicone bristles that have enough flexibility and strength so itâs not too loose. You wonât have to bother finding room for it in the kitchen if you follow these 27 incredible kitchen storage tips and tricks.

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Cave Tools Vegetable Basket

Throw out the tin foil and make grilling vegetables and other small foods way easier with this Cave Tools vegetable basket.

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Indirect Heat For Low Temperature Cooking

Indirect heat is a great way to get the oven effect for roasting whole birds, fish, large cuts of meat and other foods that are best cooked slowly. You can set up indirect cooking zones for slow cooking or smoking and to grill foods at different temperatures. You can also use the warming rack as your indirect zone.

Once theyre hot, use tongs to reposition coals to create indirect heat zones. Then position the cooking grate over the coals and preheat for 20 to 30 minutes. Close the lid and open the vent. Youll place your food on the area of the grate with no coals under it.

HOT TIP:

Starting Your Grill With An Electric Charcoal Starter

An electric charcoal starter is a device with a handle on one end and a metal loop on the other. Plug in the charcoal starter, using an outdoor-rated extension cord. Load one layer of charcoal close together, near the center of the grill. Place the heating element of the electric charcoal starter onto the center of the pile. Lay a second layer of charcoal on top of the heating element and the surrounding coals. When the charcoal is well-lit, remove the charcoal starter.

Electric starters ignite coals a little more slowly than an open flame, but when you start your grill with an electric charcoal starter, you wont need lighter fluid, newspapers, matches or lighters.

Also Check: Where To Buy Weber Grill Replacement Parts

Learn The Rules Of Heat Transfer

The trick to a perfectly cooked hunk of protein is to get the temperature close to uniform throughout the flesh. Thats not easy to accomplish if you consider the physics of heat transfer. When heat hits meat, the molecules on the outside start moving quickly, and then gradually transfer their energy toward the center.

Hot air cooks the outside of the meat, and the outside of the meat cooks the inside, says Meathead Goldwyn, author of Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling. But this takes time because meat is 70 percent water and water is a good heat absorber, especially when entrapped in muscle fibers and fat.

So when cooking meat outdoors, it is critical to understand the makeup of your meat and match it to the right heat source. Meat is muscle tissue, made up of mostly water, protein, fats, and minerals. When you look at a steak, you see streaks of intramuscular fat woven among the thick bundles of muscle fibers called myofibrils.

You may or may not see connective tissue like collagen that surrounds the muscle fibers. Lean meats like chicken and tenderloin dont have much collagen. Thicker, tougher cuts like ribs, shoulder, and brisket have a lot.

A good rule of thumb is the thicker the meat, the lower the heat the thinner the meat, the higher the heat, says Meathead.

Im talking about skinny foods like skirt steak, shrimp, asparagus, he says. You want what I call Warp 10 cooking crank that grill and give er all shes got, Scottie!

Burner Lineup And Heat Diffusion

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Burners that are lined up from front to back tend to be easier to use when creating specific heat zones.

Grills will also have some type of heat diffuser over the burners, which allows for heat to distribute evenly.

In some cases, this is a metal heat diffuser that also protects the burners from drips. In other cases, the heat may be diffused through lava or ceramic rocks.

Regardless of the type of diffusion in the grill, it will need to be cleaned or replaced periodically to ensure proper heating.

Burners are important, but they arent the only part of the grill that must be paid attention to.

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Cooking Surface Of The Grill Pan

Cast-iron grill pans are either pre-seasoned or coated with enamel.

A seasoned interior of a cast iron grill pan lasts relatively long and can easily be re-seasoned. Moreover, the enamel coating offers a much better release and is also easier to clean.

If you are choosing a stainless steel grill pan, you need to know that they are fairly difficult to clean. This is because the oil scorches and settles between the ridges, making it hard to access.

Another option you have is to opt for aluminum or stainless steel with a nonstick coating. However, this type of grill pan might not give you the perfect caramelized grill marks youre looking for.

Also read: Why Is Cast Iron Pan Sticky After Seasoning?

Do I Open The Vents Or Close Them When Lighting Charcoal

As we said above, fire needs oxygen to burn. So, open the lid, lid vent and vents on the bottom of the grill to let in air to fuel the flames. This will help oxygen reach the coals once theyre lit so they can burn hotter. Once theyre fully lit, you can adjust the vent opening to control the cooking temperature.

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Easy Grilled Beef Tri

Grilled tri-tip is a tasty cut of beef that is so tender when cooked properly that it can be cut with a fork! Kids and adults alike will enjoy this savory beef dinner and the leftovers make great sandwiches for lunch!

You don’t have to be a grill master to make an incredible tri-tip roast. Just follow the instructions and you’ll have a fabulous family dinner on the table in no time!

How Do I Arrange The Charcoal

How to Start a Charcoal Grill | The Home Depot

The best way to arrange your charcoal depends on the shape of your grill and whether you want to grill with direct or indirect heat. You can create the effect of direct or indirect heat by setting up two zones on your charcoal grill. Basically, direct heat is on the lit side, while indirect heat is on the unlit side.

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How To Grill Vegetables In A Basket

As a chef, I often get asked about how to grill vegetables. Well, my reply more frequently is too obvious an adviceIt is pretty easy to grill vegetables. You only need to use a grill basket. Moreover, you only need to understand some tricks on doing it so as not to dry out or overcook your veggies. The good thing about a grill basket is that you can cook a hodgepodge of vegetables on your grill using this basket, giving you more time to enjoy chatting with your friends and family when you are outdoors.

The use of the grill basket is like that of the pan on your grill. It has perforated holes. These holes are small enough to let the smoky flavor in without allowing the food to fall out of the basket. You only need to preheat the grill as well as the basket while lightly oiling the food.

Moreover, you only need to add some condiments and stir or toss from time to time to ensure that you evenly distribute the heat. Soon, the food will brown a bit. But you wont likely char the veggies as when you directly put them in the direct heat.

Do I Need A Grill Cover Considerations For Using One

By: Author Lindsay Reed

A grill is a major purchase, one that many people spend time researching and make carefully. Naturally, you want to protect your grill, which begs the question, do I need a grill cover?

A grill cover is not necessary, but having one will extend the grills life by protecting it from the weather, bugs, animals, and help keep it cleaner. The most common reasons for not using a grill cover are its added cost and the inconvenience of needing to remove and replace it after use.

In this article, Ill deeper into the pros and cons of grill covers and other factors that might sway your decision whether or not to use one!

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How Do You Use Lava Rocks In A Gas Grill

Using lava rocks is easy! Once you have them placed correctly, you just turn on the flame. Just like pre-heating a grill, you must pre-heat the rocks. Let the rocks heat for fifteen to twenty minutes, this should allow them to completely heat through.

Once pre-heated the rocks are ready to be cooked on. Place foods directly onto the heated rocks. You should hear that searing sound if the rocks are properly heated. If not remove any food and close the lid. Let the stones get hotter.

If you are having trouble with the stones getting hot you may need to work on their positioning. Stones require antiquate air circulation to heat up. Give them some room to breathe.

Since the lava rocks are dispersing heat evenly throughout the grill, flipping foods are not required. Foods such as burgers and steaks you should still flip, as you want a sear on both sides. Foods like fish and shrimps should be cooked from the heat alone.

My rule for cooking with lava stones is if the foods are delicate, just let them do their thing. The moving heat should cook foods evenly on all sides. If you require a sear on multiple sides, then you should flip them to sear.

Hot TipBe aware the grills hotter so foods are going to cook faster.

You will need to wash your lava rocks after a few cooking sessions. The porous tendencies of the lava rocks will absorb fats and oils from the cooking process.

Saves Time By Grilling More Food At A Time

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A grill pan is a rather large and spacious type of pan that comes in either a round or square shape.

Despite the shape you opt for, they are big enough to allow you to cook more food in one go.

So, you can cook any sort of meat along with vegetables at the same time in the same pan without having to wash it over and over again.

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What Is The Best Oil To Season A Grill With

When seasoning grill grates, the best type of oil that you can use is an oil with a very high smoking point.

Oils with a high smoking point are not going to burn quickly, which is important so that the food you cook doesnt taste burnt.

You are trying to create a tasty, smoky seasoning, after all, and not a burnt flavor inducer.

New grill masters who are learning how to season grill grates might assume that they have to buy a specialty oil, but thats not necessarily true.

There are many commonly found oils with high smoking points that are used to season a grill, including:

  • Refined olive
  • Safflower oil

Other Things You Can Season a Grill With

Some people like to use lard or other animal fats to season their grills. This is great for flavor, but animal-fat seasoning cannot be left on the grill for as long in between uses.

The seasoning coating can actually go bad, and that would cause food to taste rancid.

It is best to use this type of seasoning only if you grill frequently or if you want to create a specific flavor one time.

Learn how to season a grill to enhance the flavors of your foods.

Magnetic Barbecue Light Set

Still need to install some outdoor lighting?Add these magnetic barbecue lights to your grill to help you cook dinner in the dark. The lights work on most grills, except those made from stainless steel. They have a flexible neck so they can be adjusted to give off light right where you need it.

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Remove The Control Panel

This step will depend on your grills design. If your grills burners run into the control panel as per the image below then you will need to control panel to give you full access to your grills valve tubes in order to remove them for conversion.

If your grills valve tube and burner connection sits directly under the cooking grates then you will not need to remove the control panel, and can skip this step.

Remove the control panel on your grill. In the case of most propane grills, like the Weber Spirit, this can be lifted and removed quite easily. Removing this should expose the control valves. With the valves exposed, find the gas line that connects the manifold to the valves.

The tip of the control valve is inserted into the burner. The front of the burner is where the air adjustment acts like a carburetor mixing gas with oxygen as the valve sprays gas mixed with air into the Weber pipe burner.

We are going to need to slide the burner off the valve so we can access the orifice. In order to slide the burner off the control valve we have two options. However, the condition of the barbecue will usually choose one of these options for us. If not you are lucky but the build up of grease and the breakdown of materials usually decides this for us.

How To Start A Charcoal Grill Fast & Keep The Charcoal Hot

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Our guide to starting your charcoal grill will give you a couple different techniques for lighting your charcoal fast. Youll learn what it takes to keep your charcoal hot for searing, how to maintain low temps for slow cooking and keep the fire burning for hours. Well answer your most frequently asked questions and link you to the products that make charcoal grilling a whole lot easier.

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Choosing The Right Grill

Today’s grills are more efficient than older models and typically don’t need the high BTU output that was once common. When buying a standard gas grill, look at how the lid fits the body. If it fits snugly and the grill’s components are heavy, a grill with 80 to 100 BTUs-per-square-inch will heat up quickly and maintain cooking heat. The same rules apply for an infrared grill, but the BTUs should be more in the 60 to 80 BTU range. Of course, BTU ratings will vary greatly, but if you stick to these specifications you won’t be disappointed.

Barbecue Tips And Tricks

  • To avoid losing juices during turning, always flip your meat or vegetables using tongs or a spatula, rather than a fork.
  • Try to limit the flips. Ideally, you should flip each item once during the grilling process.
  • Whatever you do, dont press down on burgers or chicken with a spatula while theyre grilling! This squeezes out the juices and once theyre gone theyre gone! If youre bored and need something to do with your hands, learn to juggle .
  • For great smoky flavor, soak some wood chips in water for a while, then throw them onto your charcoal and cover the grill, or if youre using gas, put them into your smoker box following the manufacturers instructions.
  • To infuse grilled foods with herb essence, toss herbs directly onto the charcoal while youre grilling. Or, if youre using a gas grill, soak the herbs in water, and place them on the grate before putting your food on top of them.
  • If you want to baste your meat or vegetables, save this step for last. That way the sugars in ,your marinade or sauce wont have time to caramelize or burn.
  • If this all sounds too complicated, or if its raining or cold outdoors, you can grill indoors with a contact grill or use a grill pan.

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Also Check: Which Propane Grill Is Best

Protect The Grill And Its Parts

A grill cover protects all of your grills mechanisms and parts from Mother Nature, precipitation in particular. There are many metal parts on your grill that could potentially rust if they arent kept dry .

Leaves and pine needles from trees, sap, pollen, dust, and dirt are just a few of the things to which you need to limit your grills exposure.

Finally, if you or your neighbors plan to fertilize the lawn or use other chemical products, those can get into your grill, as well.

Best Grilling Gloves: Semboh Extreme Heat

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Pros: These gloves are stretchable and breathable while still offering significant heat and cut resistance.

Cons: The gloves are one-size-fits-all and may be too large or small for some.

Ask six chefs about the necessity of grilling gloves, and you’ll get six different opinions. Nelson considers them essential equipment, while Matthew Dolan, executive chef and partner of 25 Lusk in San Francisco, believes they build a false sense of security in the person grilling. The nexus of agreement is that regular oven mitts have no place around a grill. Perhaps stating the obvious, many mitts are usually made of flammable materials. They are also bacteria traps, never getting completely cleaned on the inside. The mitten-like design does nothing for hand agility, either. This leaves us looking for a pair of heat-resistant, easy-to-clean gloves that allow you to use all of your fingers.

When it comes to heat resistance, the Semboh gloves are hard to top: the three-layer construction can handle heat up to 932 degrees Fahrenheit. The knobby outer layer provides an anti-slip grip with its silicone construction, preventing that greasy piece of pork butt from sliding out of your hands when you pick it up. The second layer of aramid provides not only heat but also cut protection. The third layer is a machine-washable, breathable cotton-poly blend for comfort. They also feature an over-the-wrist design that protects against heat and cuts.

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