Project Fire

Charcoal grills use lump charcoal or briquettes as their primary fuel. (Some come with a propane igniter to light the charcoal.) If you love the sport of grilling—building and maintaining a fire, waltzing foods from hot spots to cooler spots—a charcoal grill is for you. Charcoal grills burn hot (up to 800°F), which is great for direct grilling, and many are well suited to indirect grilling and smoking. They tend to be less expensive and more portable than gas grills and take up less room on your patio.

What to Look for When Buying a Gas Grill

There are hundreds of different gas grill models. So which is the right one for you? Price is a major factor and so are size, construction, and the warranty. Here’s what to look for:

1. Burners: You want at least two burners (so you can shut one off for indirect grilling), preferably three or four. In inexpensive gas grills, the burner tubes are made from a cheap stamped metal alloy—often in a single piece shaped like an H. They burn and rust out in a couple of years. In better gas grills, the burner tubes are made of stainless steel or brass, one tube per burner. They last longer and burn better.

2. Igniters: Many gas grills have a battery-powered igniter that produces an audible click and a spark. Higher-end grills, like the Weber Summit, build the igniter right into the burner control knob. (Weber also has a Snap-Jet individual burner ignition system that gives you a whoosh of flame as each burner ignites—visual confirmation that the burner is actually lit.)

3. Grate: The place where you do the actual grilling. (In fact, our word grill comes from the Latin craticula, “gridiron.”) There are various types of grill grates; my personal preference is cast-iron grates with ¼-inch bars—these give you the best grill marks.

Grill grates and more, from top left clockwise: plancha; hinged grate for charcoal grill; Tuscan grill grate with legs; stainless steel gas grill grate; laser cut stainless steel grate for seafood.

4. Grease collection system: Ducks or pork shoulders put out a lot of fat as they grill, and you want that grease funneled to and collected in a deep receptacle that’s easy to access and empty. Beware of the large flat, shallow metal trays (some only ¼ inch deep) that come with some high-end gas grills; they’re murder to empty.

5. Side burners: Useful for warming sauces, pan- and deep-frying, etc. I use my grill’s side burner when I want to keep the spattering fat outside.

6. Cart/side tables: You can never have enough workspace, so side tables are a big plus in my book. Likewise, an enclosed cart for holding some of your grilling accessories in addition to the propane cylinder.

7. Built-in gas gauge: You need one to monitor how much gas remains in the tank. If your grill lacks one, buy a freestanding gauge like a Flame King.

8. Built-in thermometer: Usually mounted in the lid, it indicates the approximate temperature in the firebox. (Remember: This is the temperature at the tip of the probe, not necessarily at the level of the grill grate.) You’ll also want to get a grate-level thermometer to tell you the temperature where you’re doing the actual cooking.

9. Overall construction: Does the grill look and feel well-constructed and solid, or cheap and flimsy? Are there plenty of tool hooks and ample storage? Does it come pre-assembled? If not, are the assembly instructions clear and can you reach customer service if you need to? If you bought this book, I assume you, like me, will be spending a lot of time with your grill. Buy a grill built to last and buy more grill than you think you need: You’ll grow into it.

10. Warranty: A grill has to withstand high heat, extreme weather (especially if you live up north), and a salt air environment if you live near the ocean. In other words, it undergoes a lot of stress. Buy a grill with a long, comprehensive warranty.

The gas grill came on the American outdoor cooking scene in the 1950s. It’s been a complicated relationship ever since. We love the convenience—the push-button ignition and the turn-of-a-knob heat control has led some 64 percent of American families who grill (according to the Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Association) to adopt gas as their primary grill. But purists deplore the lack of direct interaction with smoke and fire. Well, the good news is that gas grills are getting better. They’re burning hotter, and many give you the opportunity to introduce wood, smoke, and even charcoal to the grilling process. If it makes you feel better, while I love grilling over charcoal and wood, I also own gas grills and use them on busy weeknights. Suitable for direct and indirect grilling and spit-roasting. Less effective for smoking.

BTUs: What Are They and Do They Matter?

Say you’re shopping for a new grill. You’ve probably seen banners screaming “30,000 BTUs” and “1,000 square inches of grilling area!” Sounds impressive, right? But what do these numbers actually mean? And how much should they influence your decision to buy one grill or another?

BTUs—British Thermal Units—are a traditional English measure of heat: specifically, the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1°F. With grills they refer to a complex formula that uses the fuel consumption of all burners to measure the heat output. (Liquid propane, for instance, has a rating of 21,600 BTUs per pound.)

The total number of BTUs doesn’t mean much: What you really want to know is how many BTUs the grill delivers for each square inch of cooking surface. That’s actual cooking surface, not warming racks or the grate space over any infrared burners, although many manufacturers include this additional space in their total square inch count.

To calculate this, divide the total BTUs by the total square inches of cooking surface. In general, you’re looking for at least 80 to 100 BTUs per square inch.

But BTUs are only part of the story. Many other factors affect the heat output and total performance of your grill, including:

• The distance between the burners and the heat diffuser (it should be about 2 inches).

• The distance between the heat diffuser and grill grate (it should be about 3 inches).

• The size and weight of the grate.

• How tightly the lid fits; the gap between the lid and the cook chamber.

• The overall construction of the grill, the tightness of the welds, etc.

Bottom line: Don’t buy a grill based on its BTUs.

In the beginning and for most of human history, grilling was done over a wood fire. It still is in grill-obsessed cultures as diverse as Argentina and Uruguay, Germany and France, and Mexico and the United States. (In Asian markets, they prefer charcoal.) Charcoal and gas give you heat, but only wood delivers a smoke flavor. If you love building and tending a fire, if you’re mesmerized by the sight of flickering flames, if you relish the flavor of wood smoke, even if you love the way your clothes smell after sitting around a campfire, a wood-burning grill is for you. Intended for direct grilling.

This brings us to a few specialty grills that are quite unlike any of the charcoal or gas grills most of us grew up with.

Upright barrel grills (aka drum grills): Typically made from steel drums, these grills combine the virtues of grills and smokers. Thanks to their singular thermodynamics, you can grill a rack of ribs vertically, with one end hanging just an inch above the coals. (Amazingly, the meat closest to the fire doesn’t burn.) You build a charcoal fire in the bottom. The food sits on a grate at the top or hangs from rods stretched from side to side. With the lid off or ajar, you can use these drums for direct grilling. With the lid on, use them for indirect grilling and smoking. An adjustable damper at the bottom and small vent holes at the top maintain consistent temperatures for smoking and grilling. One popular model is the Pit Barrel Cooker.

Think of them as underpowered upside-down broilers. Don’t think of them as grills. Enough said.

Square Inches—How Many are Enough?

Square inches of cook surface are another selling point used by grill manufacturers, and this, too, can be misleading. First of all, a square inch—the size of a typical postage stamp—isn’t very much. One hundred square inches represents a 10-by-10-inch area of grill space, which is about what you need to cook a single porterhouse steak.

You also need to know what’s included in those square inches. You can’t cook on a warming rack, but manufacturers often include that in the total. Nor should you count the grate area directly over an infrared sear burner.

As a rough rule, figure on about 100 square inches (the size of a large dinner plate) for each person you’ll be grilling for. And remember: You always want to leave at least a quarter of your grill food-free as a safety zone.

In 1952, Illinois metalworker George Stephens created the charcoal-buring Weber kettle grill. Two years later, the Chicago Combustion Company introduced the first gas grill, the portable propane-burning “Lazy Man.” A “grate” debate has raged ever since as to which is the better fuel for grilling: charcoal or gas. Then there’s the original—and to my mind, the best—wood. Master these three basic fuels, and you can grill anything, anywhere, on any type of grill.

Charcoal Grilling Math

• One standard chimney starter holds about 100 briquettes. Lump charcoal varies too widely in size to give an accurate count or weight.

• One chimney full of lump charcoal is enough to fuel one 22-inch kettle grill for 30 to 40 minutes of direct grilling or 40 to 50 minutes of indirect grilling.

• One chimney full of charcoal briquettes is enough to fuel one 22-inch kettle grill for 1 hour of direct or indirect grilling.

There are many types of charcoal made by manufacturers all over the world, but you can boil them down to two main categories: lump and briquettes. Regardless of the variety, charcoal packs more energy than wood or gas: A charcoal fire can achieve temperatures of 800°F or more. Gas typically burns at 450° to 600°F.

Lump charcoal: Pure wood that is partially burned without oxygen, then broken into chunks. Common source woods include oak, apple, maple, and mesquite—each with its own subtle grilling properties—but pretty much interchangeable. Mesquite charcoal burns the hottest and has an intimidating (or thrilling, depending on your perspective) tendency to crackle and throw off hot sparks. Lump is my go-to charcoal for grilling.

• Lump charcoal contains no additives, so it burns cleaner than briquettes, producing less ash.

• Lump charcoal burns down more quickly than briquettes. So for long grill sessions, you need to refuel more often.

Charcoal briquettes: For many years, charcoal briquettes were the go-to fuel for American cookouts, and while more and more grillers are using lump charcoal, briquettes remain the preferred fuel on the competition barbecue circuit, from Memphis in May to the American Royal in Kansas City.

• Self-lighting briquettes: Impregnated with lighter fluid or other accelerant to help them light quickly and evenly. Some people like their convenience; others (me among them) would rather keep petroleum-based accelerants away from their food.

• Wood-studded briquettes: Contain tiny bits of hickory, apple, mesquite, or other hardwoods. Whatever wood flavor you get is subtle—blindfolded, I’m not sure you could detect their presence.

• “Natural” or petroleum-free briquettes: Held together with vegetable starches instead of petroleum binders.

• Briquettes burn longer (about 1 hour) and at a more consistent temperature than lump charcoal.

• Briquettes produce a lot more ash than lump charcoal. This can sometimes smother the fire, so stir a briquette fire from time to time to keep it well aerated. Likewise, be sure to clean out the ash after each grill session. See box.

• Briquettes emit an unpleasantly acrid smoke when first lit, so wait until the coals glow red and are lightly ashed over before you begin grilling.

Specialty Charcoals

• Binchotan: A clean, hard, slow-lighting, super-hot burning charcoal traditionally made from oak in the Wakayama Prefecture in Japan. Due to its high cost, some Japanese grill masters use binchotan-style charcoal from China or Vietnam.

• Quebracho: A hard, clean- and hot-burning lump charcoal from South America. Three good brands are Fogo, Jealous Devil, and Kalamazoo.

• Coconut charcoal (extruded): Made from pulverized coconut shells, wood, and starch binders, then extruded into rods, cubes, or miniature logs—often with a hole in the center for better airflow. Coconut charcoal burns hot and clean, producing little ash. Note: There’s also a coconut shell lump charcoal used widely in Southeast Asia.

C3H8 may not be a household term, but for a majority of American households, it’s the grilling fuel of choice. I speak, of course, about a petroleum distillate known as liquid propane. The gas is commonly sold in white metal “cylinders” (cylindrical tanks) that are available (often for exchange—empties for full) at hardware stores and gas stations everywhere.

There’s another gas used for grilling—a fossil fuel derived from methane called natural gas (CH4). The beauty of natural gas is that it’s piped right to your patio, so you don’t need to lug around propane cylinders. The drawback is that not all communities provide it. Dollars per grill session, natural gas costs significantly less than propane.

So how do natural gas and propane differ? Natural gas contains less carbon than propane so it burns cooler. To reach parity in the heat output, grill manufacturers drill larger holes in the burner tubes for natural gas grills, allowing more gas to be burned. Grills fueled with natural gas need to be specially outfitted by the manufacturer. The good news is that most grill makers offer conversion kits for natural gas.

How Not to Run Out of Gas

One of the big frustrations of grilling with propane is knowing how much gas is left in the cylinder. There are three ways to calculate how much propane remains:

1. Check the weight of the cylinder. The “tare weight” (empty weight) is generally stamped on the top of the cylinder, preceded by the letters “TW.” So subtract this from the total weight of the cylinder and you’ll know how many pounds of gas it contains.

2. Check the pressure in the cylinder. To do this, install a gas gauge between the cylinder valve and the regulator tube. (Two good brands are Companion Group and Shop Master.)

3. Pour very hot water over the side of the tank. The metal will feel warm where the tank is empty and cool where the propane level begins.

• Propane and natural gas grills offer the convenience of push-button ignition and turn-of-the-knob heat control.

• Propane requires lugging around heavy metal cylinders, while natural gas requires special plumbing and gas lines. You always seem to run out of propane during an important grill session.

• Gas burns cooler and wetter than charcoal so, historically, the sear is not quite as good. The growing presence of infrared sear burners on gas grills more than makes up for this.

Gas Grilling Math

• One empty propane cylinder weighs 17 to 18 pounds.

• When filled with gas, it weighs 35 to 36 pounds. (Full, it contains 18 pounds of propane.)

• The amount of cooking time you get from a full tank of propane varies from grill to grill (and according to whether you’re running that grill at high, medium, or low). If you’re running a typical 3-burner gas grill on high (all 3 burners on high), a full cylinder of propane will last about 13 hours. That figure changes on grills with 4 or 6 burners.

• Of course, a lot of grilling (e.g., indirect grilling) doesn’t require all 3 burners and those burners don’t necessarily run on high. Take notes on the propane consumption of your grill and after a few months, you’ll get a sense of how much you need.

For me, the ultimate grilling fuel is neither charcoal nor gas, but wood. Wood is the fuel of choice in grill cultures as diverse as Argentinean, German, and Californian, and wood-burning grills have become the focal point of a new generation of high-end fine dining restaurants.

Charcoal and gas deliver heat, but only wood flavors your food while you cook over it. That flavor is smoke, and it comes from a complex cluster of carbon compounds found in the wood, such as guaiacol (also found in roasted coffee) and syringol (an active ingredient in liquid smoke).

Wood enters the modern grilling process in two ways: as a fuel in its own right and as a smoke-generating enhancement to a charcoal or gas fire.

Typical woods used for grilling: Almost any hardwood can be used for grilling and smoking, and as you grill your way around Planet Barbecue, you’ll find guava and palochina wood fires in the Philippines, pimento (allspice wood) in Jamaica, and grapevine roots and trimmings in France. But most wood fire grilling and smoking is done with one of a half dozen major species.

• Logs: Small whole logs or large logs split lengthwise in half or quarters.

• Chunks: The fuel for blower-style wood-burning grills like the WoodFlame. You can also light wood chunks in a chimney starter, burning them down to embers as you would charcoal.

• Chips: The most common form of wood for grilling and smoking, chips are widely available at supermarkets and hardware stores. Common varieties include hickory, oak, apple, cherry, and mesquite—each with its own subtle flavor. For a light wood flavor, use the chips straight from the bag (add them to the coals or your gas grill’s smoker box). For a more pronounced wood flavor, soak the chips in water to cover for 30 minutes, then drain before adding to the coals.

•Pellets: Made from compressed hardwood sawdust. You can also use pellets for smoking. Note: Be sure to buy food-grade pellets. Furnace pellets can contain pine, binders, and other substances you wouldn’t want to bring in contact with your food.

A craftsman needs the right tools, and so does a serious griller. There are hundreds of grill tools and accessories—some basic, some specialized, some indispensable, and some just silly. Here are the tools you need and what you need them for.

1. Tongs: For turning the food, yes, but also for cleaning and oiling the grill grate. Choose long-handled tongs (to keep your arm away from the fire) that are spring-loaded (so you can open and close them with one hand).

2. Wire grill brush/wooden grill scraper (both are shown above and here): For cleaning your grill grate, which you should do religiously before your food goes on and after it comes off. When choosing a wire grill brush, make sure the bristles are anchored in thick twisted wire. Cheap grill brushes may shed their bristles over time, which, in rare cases, may wind up in your food. Alternatively, use a wooden grill scraper, which eliminates the risk of stray wire bristles.

3. Grill spatula: For turning burgers, fish fillets, and so on. Choose a spatula with a long handle, thin leading edge, and holes in the head to release the steam so the bottom of what you grill won’t become soggy.

4. Basting brush: Essential for basting and glazing foods during and after grilling. Silicone bristle basting brushes are easier to clean than those made with natural bristles, but the latter give you a better coating. Tip: Buy natural bristle paintbrushes at your local hardware store. They’re so inexpensive, you can use them a few times and throw them out.

5. Grill light: You can’t grill with accuracy if you can’t see what’s on your grill grate. Some grill lights clip to the lid of your grill. Others come on gooseneck stems. Yet others, like my LumaTong, mount right on the arms of your tongs.

6. Grill gloves: To protect your hands. Choose thick leather or Kevlar or other aramid gloves with long sleeves to protect your arms. While you’re at it, invest in a pair of insulated grill gloves for handling hot food and some latex gloves to help keep your hands clean when touching raw meat.

7. Grate-grabber: Helps you lift a hot grate for refueling and adjusting the coals.

Grill baskets, grates, and woks (clockwise from top left): Herb grilling grate, fish basket, grill wok, grill basket, grilling grid.

9. Grill baskets: The beauty of a grill basket is that you turn the basket, not the pieces of food, which makes it great for delicate items, such as fish and small foods like shrimp, okra, and mushrooms. The all-purpose basket is comprised of two flat wire panels with handles at one end and connected by a hinge at the other. There are specialized baskets for grilling whole fish, sliders, sausages, and corn.

10. Aluminum foil drip pans: While not strictly a tool, these are incredibly handy for marinating, transferring food to and from the grill, as a water pan, as a roasting pan (see pan-grilling technique), and of course, for placing under food to catch the dripping juices and fat. Buy lots in two sizes: 7½ by 5 inches and 9 by 13 inches. Restaurant supply stores and Amazon.com are good sources.

1. Chimney starter: Enables you to light charcoal quickly, evenly, and without using petroleum-based lighter fluid. Instructions on how to light it.

2. Electric starter (not shown): A looped electric heating element you place under the charcoal. Especially useful for lighting kamado-style cookers.

3. Metal trash can with tight-fitting lid: Buy two: one for holding your charcoal once you’ve opened the bag. And one for holding hot ash and embers when you clean out your grill.

4. Charcoal scoop: Useful for shoveling coals into chimney starters or grills.

5. Grill hoe or garden hoe: Use for spreading out the lit coals to form a multi-zone fire or split fire for indirect grilling.

6. Side baskets (not shown): Use to hold the embers in neat piles for indirect grilling.

7. Airflow regulator (not shown): Use to control the airflow and thus the temperature of a kamado-style cooker or a charcoal grill or smoker. The blower unit mounts over the lower air vent with a thermocouple that clips to the grill grate. The controller increases or reduces the airflow to raise or lower the grill temperature. The best-known model is the BBQ Guru.

8. Charcoal corral: A metal insert, such as the Slow ’N Sear, corrals the coals to one side of the grill for high-heat direct grilling, creating a separate coal-free zone for indirect grilling and smoking. A V-shaped water trough between them helps keep food moist.

1. Gas gauge (A in photo): Tells you how much propane remains in the cylinder. Higher-end gas grills have built-in gauges (often they measure the weight of the cylinder). Alternatively, attach a portable gauge, like a Charcoal Companion or Flame King, between the cylinder valve and the gas hose. Or use a propane cylinder scale, like a Grill Gauge.

2. Automatic gas shutoff valve: Have you ever forgotten to turn off the gas at the tank after a grill session? This ingenious device can be preprogrammed at 20-minute intervals for up to an hour and shuts off the gas flow accordingly. Two good brands are Fire Magic and Companion Group.

3.Under-grate smoker box (B in photo): A metal box with a perforated lid. Some models are rectangular and sit atop the heat diffuser. Other models have V-shaped bottoms to nestle between the Flavorizer Bars of a Weber gas grill. The Companion Group makes a wood pellet smoker box complete with a feed chute that rises through the bars of the grill grate.

4. Above-grate smoker boxes: Metal boxes, cylinders, mesh bags, or pucks that sit on the grill grate and emit smoke next to the food. One such device near to my heart is the Smoke Puck (C in photo), which I developed for the Best of Barbecue line.

1. Tuscan grill: A cast-iron grill grate with short legs you position over the embers for grilling on the hearth, fireplace, or in a wood-burning oven. Elaborate versions have brackets so you can raise and lower the grate.

2. Plancha: A thick (typically ¼-inch-thick) sheet of cast iron you use on the grill as a griddle. (Grilltop griddles work in a similar way.) For more on plancha grilling, see here.

3. Soapstone grilling stone: Works like a plancha, but is made of nonporous stone so it won’t rust or stick. One good source is Canadian Soapstone.

4. Pizza stone: A thick, square or round, high heat-tolerant tile you place on the grate for cooking pizza. While you’re at it, pick up a pizza peel, a large wood or metal paddle for transferring pizzas on and off the grill.

5. Pizza oven: The exploding popularity of grilled pizza has spawned a whole industry of accessories, including the KettlePizza and PizzaQue pizza kits, full-blown pizza ovens that fit atop a kettle grill.

6. Raised rail grill grates: Interlocking aluminum grill grate panels with high ridges on a perforated base that fit atop the conventional grill grates and enhance performance by augmenting the heat, diminishing flare-ups, and channeling vaporized meat juices back to the meat. To add a smoke flavor, place wood pellets between the raised rails. The best-known brand is GrillGrates.

7. Rotisserie: For kettle grills, you’ll want to buy a rotisserie collar that sits atop the kettle and accompanying spit, rotisserie prongs, and motor. (Weber makes one for its popular kettle grill; see here.) Higher-end gas grills often come with a rotisserie attachment that’s built-in.

Grill Thermometers

Essential for monitoring your grill temperature and the doneness of your food. Yes, the pros use them too.

1. Instant-read thermometer: Insert the slender probe deep into the meat or seafood to check its internal temperature. Look for quick responding probes and backlit display panels. Two good manufacturers are Maverick and Thermapen.

Grilling hack: When checking the internal temperature of a thin food, like a steak or chicken breast, insert the probe through the side, not the top. To check sausages, insert the probe through the narrow end toward the center.

2. Remote digital thermometer: Consists of a probe you put on the grill or in the food with a wire connected to a small transmitter you put on the side table. Plus a receiver that lets you read the temperature up to 500 feet away. Look for a model that can handle multiple probes; extra points if it communicates with your smartphone.

3. Point-and-shoot thermometer (aka infrared gun thermometer): This infrared thermometer uses a laser beam to check the surface temperature of a food, or even your grill grate, plancha, or wood-burning oven. Two good brands are Etekcity and Charcoal Companion.

Grill thermometers including instant read (1), remote (2), and point-and-shoot (3).

1. Grill mat: A fireproof mat that goes under your grill to catch any stray embers or drips. One good manufacturer is DiversiTech.

2. Fire extinguisher: I hope you never need to use it, but have on hand a fully charged Class B dry chemical fire extinguisher to put out any fires.

3. Bucket of sand or box of kosher salt: Useful for smothering a small grease fire.

4. Color-coded cutting boards: Use one for raw meats, another for salads and vegetables, a third for cooked meats, and so on, to avoid cross contamination.

6. Grill cleaner: Sold in spray bottles or aerosol cans. One good brand is Safecid.

In the beginning there was meat. Then fire. Then salt. Then wild herbs. Then mustard seeds, which turn up at Stone Age campsites. Which is to say that almost from the birth of barbecue, our prehistoric ancestors sought to enhance simple grilling by the sagacious application of seasonings, herbs, and spices.

The fourth step to achieving grilling enlightenment is flavoring your food, and while salt and pepper are indispensable (see box, this page), the flavor becomes much more complex when you introduce rubs, marinades, butters, bastes, glazes, sauces, salsas, and other condiments. Recipes throughout the book introduce flavorings at every stage of the cooking process—from before the raw meat or seafood goes on the grill to while the food grills to after it’s cooked and has come off the grill.

2. Barbecue mop: A miniature barbecue mop used to apply bastes and sauces. Choose one with a removable head you can place in the dishwasher.

3. Injector: An oversized hypodermic needle designed to inject marinades and other flavorful liquids deep into turkey breasts, pork shoulders, roasts, and more.

4. Mister: Food-safe spray bottle for spraying a thin film of wine, cider, vinegar, olive oil, or other flavorful liquid over the surface of the meat during grilling.

Salt

Salt: This simple seasoning enjoys universal popularity, but there’s nothing simple about the choice of salts we have today. You can buy literally hundreds of varieties from every corner of Planet Barbecue. My personal preference is coarse sea salt. (Coarse because I like the crunch of the slow-dissolving crystals; sea because I like all the trace minerals found in ocean salt.) Second up would be coarse crystals of kosher salt. I don’t particularly like fine iodized table salt, which I find has a tendency to oversalt the food.

Many grill masters and chefs sprinkle the cooked meat or seafood with coarse crystals of finishing salt. The ultimate finishing salt is Maldon from England, which comes in handsome pyramid-shaped crystals and possesses some of the crystalline beauty of snowflakes.

If you’ve watched my TV shows, you’re familiar with how I raise my hand high above the meat or seafood before I sprinkle it with salt and pepper. This gives you more even dispersal of the seasoning than if you sprinkle it on an inch or two above the surface.

Want to create or reinforce a smoke flavor—even if you don’t use wood chips? Make your rub or season your food with smoked salt.

Grilling is simple, right? You cook the food directly over the fire. Well, that’s one method—by far the most popular. Actually, there are five major methods of live-fire cooking, plus other specialized methods. Each is well suited to particular foods and delivers different textures, flavors, and tastes. Master them and you can grill anything. Really.

This is the simplest, most straightforward, and widely practiced method of grilling, and it’s what most people on Planet Barbecue use when they fire up the grill. In a nutshell, you cook small, tender, quick-cooking foods directly over a hot fire.

Setup: Position the food on the grill grate or on skewers or in a grill basket directly over a hot fire.

Temperature: Most direct grilling is done over high or medium-high heat. (See the temperature chart.) Larger or fattier pieces of meat (chicken legs, for example) might be direct grilled over a medium fire. As a general rule, the smaller or thinner the meat, the hotter the fire.

Grilling time: Brief. Generally 3 to 6 minutes per side, depending on the cut of meat.

Well suited to: Steaks, chops, burgers, shish kebabs, chicken breasts, fish steaks or fillets, small high-moisture-content vegetables such as peppers, mushrooms, corn, asparagus, and onions (quartered or sliced), fruit (small or sliced), bread and pizza, as well as cake and other desserts.

• To control the heat in direct grilling, work over a tiered fire. This gives you a hot zone for searing, a medium zone for cooking, and a cool or safety zone for warming and for dodging flare-ups. To control the heat, move the food back and forth over the different zones.

• When direct grilling small pieces of food like shrimp or bread, there’s no need to cover the grill—they require only a couple minutes per side. For thick steaks and chops, lower the lid to hold in the heat and speed up the grilling process.

Direct grilling works great for small, tender, quick-cooking foods, but what about larger cuts, like whole chickens or pork loins, or fatty cuts, like whole ducks or pork shoulders? Enter indirect grilling, in which you cook the food next to—not directly over—the fire, or between two fires. Indirect grilling is almost always done with the lid closed.

• On a charcoal grill, rake the coals into 2 mounds at opposite sides of the grill and cook the food in the center. This works great for relatively slender foods, like pork loin, turkey breast, chicken pieces, sausages, whole and planked fish, and more.

• Place an aluminum foil drip pan under the food to catch the dripping fat. This also helps you corral the fire.

• To set up a 2-burner gas grill for indirect grilling, light one side and do the indirect grilling on the other side. On a 3-burner gas grill, light the outside or front and back burners and do the indirect grilling in the center. On a 4- to 6-burner gas grill, light the outside burners and do the indirect grilling in the center.

• On a kamado-style cooker, build the fire in the bottom. Install the heat diffuser under the grate to shield the food from direct exposure to the fire.

• Pellet grills are, by their very design, set up for indirect grilling, although some can be converted to direct grilling.

Grilling time: Longer than direct grilling. Thirty to 45 minutes for chicken pieces and sausages. One to 1½ hours for whole chickens and pork loins. Two to 4 hours for pork shoulders and rib roasts.

Well suited to: Large or fatty foods, such as whole chickens, ducks, and turkeys; pork, lamb, and beef roasts; whole fish; large or dense vegetables, such as cabbages, beets, whole potatoes, and whole onions.

• When indirect grilling on charcoal, some people mound the coals on one side of the grill only and do the indirect grilling on the opposite side. (Rotate the food 180 degrees halfway through so it cooks evenly.) This method works well for larger cuts of meat and whole turkeys.

• As a rule, you need a grill with a lid for indirect grilling. However, you can achieve a sort of indirect grilling on a lidless grill by positioning the food very high (18 to 24 inches) above the fire. This is how the Charlie Vergos Rendezvous in Memphis, Tennessee, traditionally cooks its ribs.

Add hardwood (in the form of chunks, chips, or logs) to the fire and you’re smoking. Sometimes you smoke at medium or high heat—a process I call smoke-roasting. True barbecue (like Kansas City ribs or Texas brisket), as well as bacon, jerky, smoked salmon, and other fish, are smoked “low and slow” (at a low temperature for a long time). Slow smoking and dishes you use it for (like spareribs and brisket) are covered in depth in the companion book to this one, Project Smoke.

There are many ways you can smoke on a grill—while you’re direct grilling, indirect grilling, spit-roasting, even while grilling on a plancha. Note: It’s difficult to smoke on a gas grill, and you’ll never get the pronounced smoke flavor you get with charcoal. That’s because gas grills have a wide gap between the lid and the cook chamber to release excess hot air, so the grill doesn’t overheat. Most of the smoke you generate exits through this gap before it has a chance to add much flavor.

• When direct grilling on a charcoal grill: Add hardwood chunks or chips to the fire (you’ll need 2 chunks or 1½ cups chips). You can also place a small log on the fire.

• When indirect grilling and spit-roasting on a charcoal grill: Set up your grill for indirect grilling following the instructions. Place ¾ cup wood chips or 1 large or 2 small chunks of wood on each mound of coals.

• When direct grilling on a gas grill: Many gas grills come with a smoker box (a slender metal drawer with a dedicated burner beneath it). To be honest, while some of these put out a fair amount of smoke, they rarely produce a significant smoke flavor (again, on account of the gap between the cook chamber and the lid). Instead, place wood chunks directly on the heat diffuser (or between the inverted V-shaped Flavorizer Bars of a Weber gas grill), under the grate and under the food, then grill the latter directly over the wood.

• When indirect grilling on a gas grill: Set up your grill for indirect grilling. Place wood chips in the smoker box or on the heat diffuser as described above, or make a foil smoking pouch (see facing page) and place it over one or more burners under the grate. Again, you won’t get nearly as much of a smoke flavor as you would on a charcoal grill, but this is better than nothing.

• How to smoke on a kamado-style cooker: Most manufacturers call for interspersing unlit charcoal with wood chunks or chips, then lighting the coals from the top down. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

• How to smoke when plancha grilling: Build a charcoal fire in the grill (direct or indirect, depending on how hot you want the plancha). Add wood chips, chunks, or logs to the fire. Close the lid for part of the time while the food is on the plancha to trap the smoke.

• How to smoke on a pellet grill: By their very construction and nature, pellet grills are smokers. (Many aren’t really even grills.) Follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Note: Pellet grills smoke best when run at lower temperatures.

Temperature: Smoke-roasting is generally done at a medium heat (325° to 350°F) or medium-high heat (375° to 400°F). True barbecue is smoked at a low to medium-low heat (225° to 275°F).

Grilling time: Similar to indirect grilling times: 30 to 40 minutes for chicken pieces and sausages. One to 1½ hours for whole chickens and pork loins. Two to 4 hours for pork shoulders and rib roasts.

Well suited to: Chicken; turkey; pork loin and shoulder; rib roast and beef long ribs; whole fish; whole vegetables; tofu.

• Use seasoned (dried) wood. It burns more efficiently than green (fresh cut) wood, producing cleaner, better-tasting smoke.

• Depending on your wood and fuel source, one load of chips (soaked) or chunks will give you 20 to 40 minutes of smoking—enough for a light smoke flavor. For larger cuts of meat, you’ll need to replenish the coals and the wood—do the latter when the smoke stops rising from the top vent.

• For a slow, steady smoke, soak the chips in water to cover for 30 minutes before adding them to the coals. For a quick smoke (for desserts and ice cream, for example), add unsoaked chips to the fire.

• Foods absorb smoke best when they’re cold and moist. Start with refrigerator-cold meat or seafood (which you should anyway). Spray with flavorful liquids, like cider or wine, and/or keep a water pan in the cook chamber.

How to Make a Smoker Pouch

This is one of the most effective ways to smoke on a gas grill, and it costs mere pennies. Start with a 12-by-18-inch piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil arranged on the counter, narrow end toward you. (Don’t have heavy-duty foil? Double up on regular foil.) Place a handful of wood chips in the center of the half closest to you. (For a quick smoke, don’t soak the chips; for a slower smoke, do.) Fold the top half over it. Pleat the side and bottom seams several times to make a seal. Using a sharp implement, like the tip of an instant-read thermometer probe, make a series of holes in the top of the pouch to release the smoke.

Heat your gas grill to high. Place the smoker pouch under the grate directly over the burner. (A grate grabber comes in handy for lifting the grate.) Once smoke starts to rise from the pouch, you can lower the heat of the grill as needed. For maximum smoke flavor, place the food on the grate directly over the pouch. For longer smoke sessions, prepare multiple smoker pouches and add them as needed.

1. Mound the wood chips in the center of the lower half of a sheet of aluminum foil.

2. Fold the foil over to make a rectangular packet.

3. Pleat the edges of the packet to make a tight seal.

4. Poke holes in the top of the packet with a sharp implement to release the smoke.

Specialized Smoking Techniques

Most smoking is done with wood, but there are a number of techniques that use nontraditional fuels to impart an aromatic smoke flavor.

Smoking on a cedar plank: Tradition calls for soaking cedar and other wood planks in water prior to grilling to keep them from catching fire. In Project Fire, you’ll do just the opposite: You’ll char the plank to the point of smoking before adding the food. This gives you a light smoke flavor and it looks as dramatic as all get-out. (Check out the Planked Figs or Cedar Planked Striped Bass with Miso Glaze.)

Smoking with hay, straw, pine, or spruce: Grasses and leaves can be used for smoking. Place them on the grate or in a grill basket or grill wok over a hot fire with the food right on top of them. As the grasses or leaves burn, the food smokes and cooks. (Check out the Hay-Grilled Mussels.)

Smoking with herbs and spices: Similarly, you can lay fresh herbs directly on the grill grate and smoke-roast fish, poultry, and other foods right on top of them. Or use a special herb grilling basket. Alternatively, toss bunches of fresh or dried herbs directly on the fire. Or even blowtorch fresh herbs atop a grilled chop or steak. (Shown is the Rosemary Smoked Veal Chops.) When I make Jamaican jerk, I add a handful of allspice berries to the fire.

Smoking with vegetable skins: Grill corn in the husk or whole eggplants, peppers, onions, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables directly in the embers. (See Caveman Grilling.) As the skin burns, the smoke is driven into the flesh and flavors the vegetables. (Check out the Ember-Grilled Sugar Snap Peas with Fresh Mint.)

Spit-roasting is one of the oldest methods of live-fire cooking. (There’s a terrific description of an ancient Roman rotisserie hog in the Satyricon by Petronius.) It combines the virtue of direct grilling (direct exposure to the fire) with that of indirect grilling (cooking next to, not directly over, the fire, so you don’t get flare-ups). The gentle rotation helps the food cook evenly. The result: large cuts of meat with a savory seared surface and an extraordinarily moist interior. Another advantage of this method: Spit-roasting bastes the meat both inside (with the internal meat juices) and outside (with the dripping fat).

How To Spit-Roast a Prime Rib

1. Run the spit through the meat.

2. Use a fork to tighten the set screw on the rotisserie prong.

3. Insert the spit with the roast in the rotisserie collar.

4. Use an instant-read thermometer to check the roast for doneness.

5. A rotisserie prime rib in all its spit-roasted glory.

6. Hold the meat steady with a carving fork as you pull out the spit.

• For a kettle grill, set up the grill for indirect grilling. Place the rotisserie collar on the kettle and attach the motor to the mounting bracket. Install the spit, securing the end in the socket, and switch the motor on.

• For a gas grill, light the rear rotisserie burner (a feature on many high-end gas grills). Install the rotisserie motor and spit following the manufacturer’s instructions.

• Some kamado-style cookers, like the Excalibur, come with a rotisserie attachment. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

Temperature: Like indirect grilling, spit-roasting is generally done using medium to medium-high heat.

Grilling time: Similar to indirect grilling, but spit-roasting goes a little faster: 30 to 40 minutes for chicken pieces and sausages. One to 1¼ hours for whole chickens and pork loins. Two to 3 hours for pork shoulders and rib roasts.

Well suited to: Cylindrical or football-shaped foods, like whole chickens and ducks; pork shoulders and loins; rib roasts and so on. Good for whole fish, fish steaks, and large fillets. (You’ll need to spit-roast these in a rotisserie basket.)

• Often gas grill rotisserie burners are infrared, requiring you to depress the fuel button or burner knob for a full 10 seconds during ignition to keep the gas flowing and make sure the burner stays lit.

• When spit-roasting on a charcoal grill, you can place hardwood chips or chunks on the coals, adding smoke flavor to the benefits of rotisserie grilling. I call this technique rotisserie-smoking.

• When spit-roasting whole chickens, spit them from side to side so they sit perpendicular, not parallel, to the rotisserie spit. I can’t explain the physics behind why this works, but that’s how the vast majority of grillers around Planet Barbecue roast chicken, and birds roasted this way seem to have crispier skin and moister meat.

• To spit-roast whole fish, fish steaks, lobster tails, and other seafood, use a flat rotisserie basket. Two manufacturers are Grill Shop and OneGrill BBQ Products.

• Outside-the-box spit-roasting: Poultry and roasts are the obvious candidates, but you can also spit-roast many foods you wouldn’t normally associate with the rotisserie, from onions and cauliflower to whole pineapples.

• To spit-roast in front of a fireplace or campfire, get a SpitJack rotisserie.

This is it—the original grilling method—pioneered nearly 2 million years ago by a human ancestor called Homo erectus. Flash forward to the 1950s when President Dwight D. Eisenhower would grill “dirty steak” (sirloin roasted directly on the embers) at the White House to the horror of onlookers. (See the Caveman Porterhouse.) This theatrical method requires no grill grate. You grill the food directly on the coals. Although similar to direct grilling, caveman grilling gives you a crustier exterior and smokier flavor—the result of varying heat zones and micro-charring of the meat.

Setup: Build a charcoal fire and rake the embers out in a single layer with a grill hoe or garden hoe. Fan the fire with a fan, folded newspaper, or hair dryer to dislodge any loose ash. Lay the food directly on the embers.

Temperature: Comparable to that of direct grilling, that is, hot (500° to 700°F). Paradoxically, it’s not quite as hot as you’d think, because the charcoal acts as an insulator where it comes in direct contact with the meat. (In part, this is what enables firewalkers to walk barefoot on beds of embers.)

Well suited to: Steak is the obvious candidate for caveman grilling, but vegetables are awesome grilled this way. (The short list includes sweet potatoes, onions, bell peppers, eggplant, and squash.) Less expected, but no less delectable, are ember-roasted shellfish (try the Caveman Lobster with Absinthe Butter) and ember-roasted flatbread (drape the pizza dough directly on the embers).

• For the best results, build your fire with lump charcoal, not briquettes. The latter put out a lot of ash, some of which winds up on your food.

• Caveman grilling puts you closer to the fire than any other grilling method. Wear long-sleeved insulated grill gloves to protect your arms and use long-handled tongs.

• Related to ember grilling is ash grilling (rescaldo in Spanish; alle cenere in Italian)—in which you roast foods not directly on the embers, but buried in hot or warm ashes. Ash grilling is well suited to dense root vegetables, such as beets and potatoes. The Jews of Thessaloniki, Greece, traditionally roasted eggs in the ashes to make a Sephardic specialty called huevos haminados.

• Sweet potatoes are well suited to caveman grilling; baking potatoes do better cooked in the ashes.

• To caveman grill small vegetables, like asparagus or snap peas, place them in a wire grill basket and set directly on the hot coals.

Anyone who’s ever fire-roasted a marshmallow to make a s’more knows the gustatory pleasure (not to mention the unabashed joy) of grilling over a campfire. Campfire grilling reenacts a ritual as old as humankind itself—cooking and eating around a communal fire. Plus, the food tastes better because you’re cooking over the one fuel that actually delivers a flavor dividend: wood.

Setup: Build a fire with hardwood logs using one of the methods outlined. Some people like to cook over the flames, which gives you more charring and a more pronounced smoke flavor. (This is great for those marshmallows.) For more control, let the fire (or at least part of it) burn down to embers, and grill over these as you would over charcoal. Use a Tuscan grill or freestanding grate for your grill grate.

Grilling time: Varies according to the size and density of what you’re grilling. Marshmallows burn in minutes; a whole lamb might take half a day.

• Impale small foods (think hotdogs or marshmallows) on a green stick or a skewer, which you hold over the fire.

• Spit chickens, turkeys, roasts, and other large foods on large sticks or small saplings, position them on upright Y-shaped branches, and roast them, rotisserie style, over the fire. The Grizzly Spit Campfire Rotisserie System features a motor to turn the spit for you.

• Pinion whole lambs and hogs (butterflied) or whole racks of ribs or prime ribs on vertical spits that you stand upright next to the fire. (Gas grill rotisserie spits work well for this.) Argentineans call this asado gaucho; Brazilians, fogo de chao.

• Position a Tuscan-style grill grate over the embers and direct grill as you would over charcoal.

• You can grill the food directly on the embers or buried in the ashes (see Caveman Grilling).

Plancha is the Spanish word for a griddle (traditionally cast-iron—South Americans call it a champa). So what’s it doing in a book on grilling? Traditionally, you heat the plancha over a wood fire, which allows you to sear, sauté, and pan-fry as you would in a cast-iron skillet, but with a whiff of the wood smoke we associate with the best live-fire cooking. I call this technique plancha grilling, and it allows you to expand your grilling repertory to foods not customarily grilled.

Well suited to: Delicate foods that would fall apart on the grill, like flounder and sole; small foods, like bay scallops or snap peas that would fall through the bars of the grate; or foods you wouldn’t normally grill, like fried eggs.

• For the best results, combine plancha grilling with smoke-roasting (Smoking), that is, heat the plancha over a wood or charcoal fire, and then add wood chips or chunks to generate wood smoke. Cover the grill to hold in the smoke.

• Oil the plancha with an oiling towel or chunk of bacon fat before the food goes on. When you flip pieces of food, move them to a fresh section of the plancha where you still have oil to keep the food from sticking.

• The best planchas are made of cast iron, so you’ll need to season them as you would a cast-iron skillet.

What do the Peruvian Potato Salad, the Smoke-Roasted Carrots, and the Smoke-Roasted Potatoes have in common? All are cooked in an aluminum foil roasting pan or cast-iron skillet using a combination of direct and indirect grilling. Pan-grilling is great for small or dense vegetables that require a little extra olive oil or butter to sizzle the crust and keep them moist. I also use this technique for small or fragile foods.

Setup: Set up your grill for indirect grilling. Add wood chips or chunks to the fire to generate wood smoke. Place the food in the pan and drizzle with olive oil or melted butter and season well with salt and pepper or your favorite barbecue rub. Indirect grill until almost tender, stirring several times so the food browns evenly. Move the pan directly over the fire the last few minutes to sizzle and caramelize the food surfaces.

Well suited to: Root vegetables, such as new potatoes and carrots. Dense vegetables, such as brussels sprouts and beets. Broccolini and broccoli florets taste great pan-grilled. Ditto for seafood, such as shrimp and scallops, and delicate fish fillets.

• One great application for pan-grilling is to fill an aluminum foil drip pan with 1-inch chunks of root vegetables and place it under a spit-roasting chicken or rib roast. The dripping fat flavors the vegetables, and you get to cook a complete meal on the grill. (Stir the veggies from time to time so they cook evenly.)

• Want to speed up the process (and your adrenaline flow)? Try pan-grilling directly over the fire. You’ll get better browning and a crustier exterior, but you have to pay constant attention, or you’ll burn the food.

Salt slabs are newcomers to the world grill scene, but we’ve embraced them with gusto. I use these thick rectangles of pink salt from Pakistan often—as a plancha, grilling plank, grill press, resting platform, and even as a serving platter. The porosity of salt slabs enables them to absorb and impart flavors; up to 80 trace minerals enhance their salty taste. The surface is mercifully nonstick. The striking color and theatrical presentation speak for themselves.

Setup: Set up your grill for indirect grilling and preheat to medium-high to high. Heat the salt slab along with it.

• Heat your salt slab gradually—20 to 30 minutes or more. Rapid heating may cause it to crack.

• You can reuse your salt slab many times. Simply scrape it clean with a putty knife or metal scraper when hot, then let it cool to room temperature.

• The real enemy to salt slabs is humidity. Once the salt slab has cooled to room temperature, store it in a large, heavy-duty resealable plastic bag.

• Do not cook on salt slabs in cold weather! Hot slabs can crack or explode when exposed to cold air.

When the first Europeans settled in Connecticut, they encountered Native Americans grilling shad fillets on upright boards around a bonfire. (An annual shad bake continues in Essex, Connecticut, to this day.) Which is to say, that while plank grilling may seem new, it isn’t. What is new is the way we grill—charring the plank without soaking it first—and some of the unexpected foods we now grill on a plank—from French toast to Camembert cheese. Whichever your method or whatever you cook on it, know that plank grilling delivers a protected grilling environment (less mercurial than direct grilling) and a uniquely aromatic flavor.

Setup: Set up your grill for indirect grilling. Char one side of the plank directly over the fire. Arrange the food to be planked on the charred side. Set the plank on the indirect section of the grill. Lower the lid and indirect grill.

Grilling time: As short as 10 minutes (for cheese); as long as 40 minutes (for whole fish).

• Cedar is the most common wood for plank grilling, but you can now buy cherry, oak, and hickory planks—each with a subtly different flavor.

• Can grilling planks be reused? Yes, if they’re not too charred. Scrape clean with a putty knife, then scrub clean with a plastic scrubber and soapy water. Rinse well and dry. Once the plank is too charred to use for planking, you can add it to the fire to generate wood smoke.

• Feeling brave? For the ultimate smoke flavor, try direct grilling on a plank. Char one side and place the fish on it. Place the plank, uncharred side down, directly over the heat (work over a medium to medium-hot fire). Lower the lid and cook until the fish is done. This will be quicker than with indirect grilling, with a lot more smoke, fire, and drama. Use a squirt gun or water-filled mister to extinguish any flames at the edges.

Long before there were grill grates (and possibly even skewers and spits), people wrapped foods in banana, squash, grape, and other leaves and cooked them in a campfire. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (the Spanish explorer who introduced us to West Indian barbacoa) describes such a process for cooking corn bread in the fire in his 1526 Natural History of the West Indies. More recently, Malaysians delight in ota ota—spiced seafood mousse grilled in banana leaves. Leaf grilling introduces an inimitable herbaceous smoke flavor to any food (often seafood) cooked inside of it. Note: For an interesting variation on leaf grilling, wrap the food in cedar grilling paper and char over a hot fire. Cedar paper is available from Amazon.com.

Setup: Wrap the food in edible leaves, then direct grill on a grate or in the embers.

• To make banana leaves pliable, grill them for 15 seconds per side to soften them, let cool, then do the wrapping.

• Jarred grape leaves are great for wrapping and grilling, adding a briny pickled flavor as well as a smoke flavor.

In this singular method, you grill seafood, meats, and even cheese in burning hay, straw, or pine or spruce needles instead of (or in addition to) charcoal or wood. The French, for example, use this method to prepare éclade (mussels grilled with dried pine needles—a specialty of the Île de Ré on the Atlantic Coast). What results is an intensely aromatic smoke flavor quite unlike that of wood smoke. You’ll find a recipe for mussels grilled in hay.

Setup: Fill a perforated grill wok or perforated pan with dried hay, straw, or pine or spruce needles. Place the food to be grilled on top and place the whole shebang on a hot grill set up for direct grilling. The hay will start to smolder, but you may need to touch a match to it to set it afire.

• You can grill directly in a hay, straw, or pine or spruce needle fire, but the heat and smoke are easier to control if you corral the fuel in a perforated grill wok, wire grill basket, or on a vegetable grilling grate.

• For a spectacular steak or chop, lay a fresh spruce or pine branch between the meat and the grate (over the hot fire) the last 30 seconds of grilling. The heat releases the spruce oils, imparting a unique piney smoke flavor to the meat.

Wood-burning ovens (and their propane counterparts) are beyond the scope of this book, but I want to mention that throughout Europe (especially in Italy and France), people use them for grilling. The beauty of grilling in a wood-burning oven? The food cooks both from the top and from the bottom (useful when grilling thick steak, like a porterhouse), surrounded by wood smoke. The drawback? The size and considerable cost of the oven. To direct grill in a wood-burning oven, rake a flat pile of embers toward the mouth of the oven. Position a Tuscan-style grill over the embers and place the food on top.

For most of human history, people did their grilling (not to mention most of their cooking) on an open hearth. The method is enjoying a resurgence today at cutting-edge live-fire restaurants. Hearth cooking is beyond the scope of this book, but know that it lends itself to direct grilling, spit-roasting, and grilling in the embers and ashes.

Fireplace grilling is also beyond the scope of this book, but there are many books on the subject. You might start with my book Indoor Grilling.

Okay, you’ve selected your grill, sourced your fuel, assembled your tools, flavored your food, and selected your grilling method. Now comes the fun part: firing up and using your grill.

Lighting a grill is easy—even if you grill with charcoal. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to light charcoal in a chimney starter. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to preheat a gas grill. So if you’ve always shied away from charcoal grilling on account of time: no excuses. Read on.

1. Use a chimney starter. These upright metal tubes or boxes light coals quickly, evenly, and efficiently. Set it on your grill’s lower grate or on a stone surface. Place a paraffin fire starter or crumpled newspaper in the bottom; place the coals in the top section. Light the fire starter or paper. You’ll have glowing embers in 15 to 20 minutes. Lump charcoal is ready to use when the coals glow orange. Briquettes are ready when they glow orange and are lightly ashed over. This is my preferred method.

2. Use an electric starter . Place the heating coil under the coals. This is handy for kamado-style cookers.

3. Use a hot air blower, like a Looftlighter. Light the coals with a blast of super hot air.

4. Use a blowtorch or a roofing torch. The latter runs off a propane cylinder (notice I said cylinder, not canister) and delivers a military-strength flame. Also good for brûléeing spit-roasted pineapple. One good brand is Roofmaster.

5. Use the built-in gas igniter if your grill has one. Weber Performer and Summit charcoal grills have propane igniters. Kalamazoo and the American Muscle Grill come with a charcoal and wood tray above the gas burners.

6. Do a top-down burn. This is especially handy for upright barrel grills and kamado-style cookers. Fill your chimney with charcoal. Pour three quarters of the unlit coals into the firebox. Light the remaining coals in the chimney and pour them on top of the unlit coals. The fire will burn down gradually. This is good for extended indirect grilling and smoking.

7. Do an ember spread burn: Use this technique for kamado-style cookers. Place unlit lump charcoal in the bottom of the firebox as specified by the manufacturer. When a smoke flavor is desired, intersperse the coals with wood chips or chunks. Using a paraffin fire starter or blowtorch, light 3 coals in the center of the top layer. Close the lid; the fire will spread gradually outward and downward for a long, slow cook.

Super amazing tip—how to turn a charcoal grill into a wood burner

Want to grill over a wood fire, but you don’t own a wood-burning grill? Here’s a technique so effective and simple, you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it earlier. Fill a chimney starter with dry wood chunks (not chips) and light as you would a chimney starter filled with charcoal. The wood will burn to glowing embers after 10 to 15 minutes. (Add wood as needed to top up the chimney.) Dump and spread these embers over the bottom of the firebox. Presto: You’re grilling over wood. Note: Wood grilling this way must be done with the grill uncovered (direct grilling). Lowering the lid will make your food unbearably smoky.

Wood chunks are easy to light in a chimney starter.

This may seem obvious, but there’s a safe and proper way to do it. Ignore these steps at your peril.

1. Raise the grill lid. This is very important—so you don’t get a potentially explosive gas buildup before you push the igniter.

3. Turn the burner knob to start the gas flowing. Note: On some grills, the burners must be lit in a particular sequence; follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

4. Press the igniter button. You should hear a click as the igniter sparks, followed by a whoosh as the gas ignites.

5. Hold your hand about 3 inches above the burner to make sure the burner is really lit. Do this again after 30 seconds to make really sure.

6. If the burner(s) fails to light, turn the burner knobs to “off” and let the grill air out for a few minutes, then try again.

Warning: Never light a gas grill with the lid down for the reason explained in Step 1.

Grate Debate—To Soak or Not to Soak the Wood

A lot of ink has been spilled over whether or not to soak wood chips before adding them to the coals. Theory may suggest one direction; experience dictates another. When you add unsoaked wood chips to the coals, you get intense smoke for a few minutes, then they catch fire. Soaking the chips for 30 minutes in water to cover, then draining them before adding them to the coals, doubles or triples the smoking time. I have tested this repeatedly. Soak your chips.

Large wood chunks are slower to ignite, so you can add them to the fire without soaking. Ditto with logs (adding a small log to a charcoal fire is a great way to generate wood smoke).

Charcoal method: The easiest way to light a wood-burning grill is to start with a chimney full of hot embers. Dump them into the firebox, then arrange the wood on top. Start with smaller pieces of wood (about 1 inch in diameter). Once these ignite, place larger logs on top. Note: Crisscross or shingle the logs to leave plenty of gaps between them. This gives you better airflow and hence a hotter, cleaner-burning fire.

To build a wood fire without charcoal, use the log cabin method (logs stacked smaller to larger in a square, as though you were building a log cabin in reverse). Or use the tepee method (logs stood upright smaller to larger in a tepee configuration). Crumpled newspaper in the center gets you started with both methods.

Fire is a volatile heat source—especially when you burn wood or charcoal. So as you scale the ladder of grilling enlightenment, one of the most important tasks is to learn how to control the heat.

Build a tiered charcoal fire. This is the best way to manage the heat when direct grilling on a charcoal grill. (Tip o’ the hat to grilling visionary and The Thrill of the Grill author, Chris Schlesinger, who pioneered the concept.)

1. Dump the lit coals in your chimney starter in the firebox toward the back of your grill.

2. Using a grill hoe or a metal spatula, rake out the coals so you have a thicker mound of coals at the back of the grill, thinning out to a single layer in the center.

3. Leave the front third of the firebox without coals to create a fire-free safety zone.

4. For high-heat searing, move the food toward the back over the thick layer of coals. For a more moderate heat, move the food to the center or toward the safety zone. For low heat or to keep the cooked food warm, move it to the front of the grill over the safety zone.

5. You can also build a tiered fire on a gas grill. Set one burner (the rear burner if your grill has one) on high, the center burner on medium, and leave the front burner off. Move the food accordingly. This is more responsive than trying to adjust the heat with the burners.

Establish a safety zone. Configure the fuel so that 25 to 30 percent of your grill is fire-free. This means an ember-free section of a charcoal grill or one of the burners off on a gas grill. Here’s where you’ll move the food when flare-ups occur (and they will occur—especially with fattier foods like bacon and garlic bread). Here’s where the food goes once it’s cooked and you want to keep it warm. Note: Many gas grills come with warming racks above the main cooking grate. You can use these as your safety zone.

Use the dampers/vents to control the heat. Fire requires two things to burn: fuel and oxygen. To increase the heat on a charcoal or kamado-style grill, open the bottom and top dampers. Start with the bottom—that brings the air to the fire. The top damper acts as your chimney, creating the draft that will pull the heat and smoke out of your grill. To lower the heat, partially close the dampers. Remember: Greater airflow means higher heat. Less airflow means lower heat.

Raise or lower the grill grate. On some grills (like the Char-Broil CB940X or the Grillworks), you can raise or lower the grill grate—and hence the distance to the fire and the heat. On other grills (like the Hasty-Bake), you can raise and lower the coal tray.

1. Use more or less charcoal. For example, for low-heat smoke-roasting (the technique you need for ribs or brisket), use only half a chimney of charcoal (replenish as necessary to maintain the target temperature).

You can’t grill accurately unless you know the cooking temperature. There are two important numbers here: the temperature in the cook chamber and the temperature at the grate level. The former helps you with indirect grilling, smoking, and smoke-roasting; the latter with direct grilling.

• Many grills come with thermometers built into the lid, which gives you the approximate temperature at the level of the thermometer probe—usually 6 to 10 inches above the grate. The temperature at grate level will likely be different.

• The point-and-shoot method: Buy a point-and-shoot thermometer. Point the laser beam at one of the bars of your grill grate to get a reading.

• The “Mississippi” method: Hold your hand 3 inches above the grate over the zone over which you’ll be grilling. Start counting “one Mississippi, two Mississippi,” etc. You’ll be able to keep your hand over a hot grill for 2 to 3 seconds; over a medium grill for 5 to 6 seconds; over a low heat grill for 10 to 12 seconds. Yes, I know this sounds imprecise, but much of grilling involves your sense of touch. Holding your hand over the grate will give you a definite sense of the heat.

Refueling: With most direct grilling, one chimney of charcoal or wood chunks will last 30 to 60 minutes. For a prolonged direct grill session and indirect grilling, you’ll need to replenish the fire.

• When replenishing lump charcoal, add fresh lumps to the fire and leave the grill open (lid off) for 5 minutes or until the fresh coals catch fire.

• When replenishing charcoal briquettes, I like to light them separately in a chimney starter, then add them to the fire. (Adding unlit briquettes to a fire often generates an unpleasant acrid smoke.)

Once your fire is lit, you’ll need to prep the grill grate. I describe how to do this in a simple mantra, which you’ve undoubtedly heard me say before:

Next, clean or brush the grate vigorously with a long-handled stiff wire brush or wooden grill scraper. To avoid the slim but documented risk of a metal bristle winding up in your food, use a brush whose bristles are anchored in a twisted wire armature. Alternatively, use a wooden scraper. (See Assemble you tools for more information on these tools.)

Finally, lubricate or oil the grate with an oiling towel or one of the other methods listed. We just reviewed how to light and heat the grill.

• Clean your grill grate when it’s hot. This loosens any debris much more effectively than when the grate is cold.

• Clean the grill grate before you put on the food, and again after you finish grilling. A lot of people forget the latter, but I promise you, last week’s burnt-on salmon skin does not add flavor to this week’s grilled chicken. At least not the flavor you want.

Oiling the grate (or the food) serves three purposes. Obviously, it helps keep the food from sticking and it also helps lay on well-defined grill marks. But there’s a third advantage to oiling a grate with a folded paper towel or oiling cloth; it removes any debris or grease (or stray grill brush bristles) not picked up by your grill brush.

What You Need Grillside

The French call it the mise en place (setup), and it’s what you need within easy reach whenever you start a grill session:

• Tools: Grill brush or wooden scraper, tongs, spatula, instant-read thermometer.

• A cooler: For keeping foods cold until they go on the grill.

• A small bowl of oil and paper towels or half of an onion for oiling the grate.

• Salt (preferably coarse sea) and black pepper (preferably freshly ground) for seasoning.

• A wire rack over a sheet pan for transferring foods from the grill.

Once you’ve heated, cleaned, and oiled your grill grate, you’re ready to put on the food. Here, too, there are right and wrong ways to do it.

1. Arrange the food on the grate like headstones in a military graveyard: That is, put the food on in a logical sequence: from the back of your grill to the front (so you don’t have to reach over a hot grill more than you need to) and/or from left to right in neat linear rows. That way you know which items went on first, need to be turned first, and need to come off the grill first.

2. Leave at least 1 to 2 inches between pieces of food: This promotes even heat and airflow and allows the sides to cook as well as the bottom.

3. Grill on the diagonal: When grilling steaks, chops, chicken breasts, or other broad flat foods, arrange them running on the diagonal to the bars of the grate. This looks more aesthetically pleasing than parallel grill marks running from top to bottom or side to side.

4. Lay on a crosshatch of grill marks: For an even handsomer presentation, give each piece of food a quarter turn on each side after a couple of minutes to create a crosshatch of grill marks. Do this on both sides—it will also help the food cook more evenly.

5. Don’t overcrowd your grill: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you cover every square inch of the grate with food, you won’t have room to maneuver when you get flare-ups. (And you will get flare-ups.) Leave 25 to 30 percent of your grill food-free.

6. Cook to temperature: Here you’ll find some of the many clues that tell us when food is cooked perfectly. The most accurate is internal temperature. Get yourself a good instant-read thermometer and use it whenever you’re grilling.

7. Take the food off just before it’s done: Any food will continue cooking after it comes off the grill. (This is called carryover cooking.) The larger the item, the longer it will continue cooking—as much as 5 degrees for a large piece of meat, like a roast. So take foods off just before they reach the desired doneness.

8. Use a wire rack: Transfer steaks, roasts, and other meats to a wire rack over a rimmed sheet pan. This lets air circulate below as well as above the meat, keeping the bottom crusty, not soggy.

9. Give it a rest: Meats and poultry will be juicier if you don’t serve them hot off the grill. Instead, let them rest a few minutes on a wire rack before serving. This “relaxes” the meat, making it juicier. A minute or two will do it for a steak, 5 minutes or so for a roast.

10. Brush or scrape your grate clean after grilling: I told you that already, but a reminder never hurts.

Nine Ways to Oil Your Grill Grate or Otherwise Keep Your Food from Sticking

Using a folded-up paper towel.

1. Use an oiling towel: Have your oil in a small bowl grillside. Fold a paper towel into a tight pad. Holding it at the end of your tongs, dip it in the oil, then rub it across the grate. (Notice how the towel cleans the grill.) Repeat as needed.

2. Use an oiling cloth: A lot of restaurants use this technique. Cut an old white cotton towel or washcloth into 3-inch strips and tightly roll them like eggrolls. (The resulting roll should be 1 inch in diameter.) Tie crosswise at the ends and in the middle with butcher’s string. Dip in oil and rub across the grate with tongs.


Angle the fork on a slight diagonal.	The onion both oils and cleans the grate.

3. Use half of an onion or lemon: This is a trick I learned in Israel. Impale a half onion (cut crosswise) slightly on the diagonal on a grill fork. Dip it in the bowl of oil and rub it across the bars of the grate.

4. Use a chunk of bacon, beef, or lamb fat: This is one of the best ways to oil a grill grate—practiced across Planet Barbecue. Hold it at the end of your tongs and rub it across the bars of the grate.

5. Use spray oil: Pam and Weber both manufacture spray oils that won’t flare up when you spray them at the grill grate.

6. Use a grill oiling brush: The Best of Barbecue grill oiling brush features short, hollow silicone bristles that conduct oil from a cylindrical reservoir directly onto the bars of the grill grate. Be sure to lift the oil reserve cap to start the flow of oil.

7. Brush the food with oil before it goes on the grate: This is the other popular strategy for preventing sticking and it works especially well with fish and seafood. When grilling particularly stick-prone foods like fish fillets, I oil both the grate and the fish.

8. Use a grill basket or grilling grid: Another excellent method for stick-prone foods. The beauty of a grill basket is that you turn it without disturbing the pieces of food. Remember to oil the basket before adding the food.

9. Use a silicone grill mat: These flexible nonstick grill mats prevent foods like shrimp or small vegetables from sticking to the grill grate or falling between the bars. One brand, the gridlike Frogmats, allows smoke to reach the food. Check the manufacturer’s maximum heat rating; Frogmats can support heat up to 550°F.

Whenever you deal with open flames and animal fat or vegetable oil, you run the risk of a grill fire. Flare-ups are a normal part of the grilling process, but serious grill fires can harm you and your grill.

Commonplace flare-ups: Simply move the food away from the flames to your safety zone—remember the safety zone. Once the flare-up dies down, move the food back.

Grease fire: Sometimes the grease that accumulates at the bottom of your grill (in the drip pan of a charcoal grill or the grease pan of your gas grill) catches fire. First, if using a gas grill, shut off the burner knobs. Take off the food. Close the lid to smother the fire. For small grease fires, you can try smothering them with baking soda or salt.

Gas grill fire (from the regulator hose or at the cylinder): Turn off the burners, and if you can get to it safely, close the cylinder valve. Put out the fire with a Class B dry chemical fire extinguisher. (Yes, you should keep one on hand.) Call your local fire department immediately.

Where to Position the Thermometer Probe


To check the internal temperature of a steak or burger, insert the probe through the side of the meat.	To check the internal temperature of a turkey or chicken, insert the probe in the thickest part of the breast and thigh without touching the bone.	To check the internal temperature of a sausage, insert the probe through one end to the center.

The exact location of the thermocouple (the part that measures the temperature) varies from instant-read thermometer to thermometer. So precise placement of the probe matters a lot in giving you an accurate internal temperature reading.

For a roast, leg of lamb, or other large hunk of meat: Insert it into the deepest part of the meat in several places, but try not to touch the bone. (Bone contains air, which is an insulator, unlike meat, which is mostly water.) This will measure the rarest part of the meat. Obviously, the meat will be more well done toward the surface.

Chicken and other whole birds: Insert the probe into the thickest part of the thigh and breast, but not touching the bone. Check it in several places on both sides. When the thigh is cooked to a safe temperature, the rest of the bird will be, too.

Steak: Sure, you can check the doneness by feel (see the Poke Test) and you should, but let an instant-read thermometer be the ultimate arbiter. Insert it through the side at the narrow end of the steak to the center (the probe should be parallel to the top and bottom of the steak).

Fish: For whole fish, insert the probe into the thickest part of the fish just above the bone. For fish steaks, insert the probe though one side to the center, as you would for a beefsteak.

Burgers: Insert the probe through the side of the burger to the center.

Sausages: Insert the probe through one end until it reaches the center.

You’ve spent considerable time, money, and effort putting your meal together. The final and most important step is being able to cook your food to the desired—make that perfect—doneness.

Sight: You can get a lot of information just by looking at the food: the handsome brown crust on a chop, the sizzling dark skin of a spit-roasted chicken, the black char of peppers and eggplants grilled caveman style (on the embers). The way mussels or clamshells pop open when the grilled bivalve is ready. And of course, the internal color of a steak.

Smell: Properly grilled food has a particular smell, at once smoky and caramelized. The sanguine smoky smell of red meat roasting on an open fire. The grassy, almost cannabis-like smell of grilled corn and lettuce. The sweet caramel candy smell of grilled peaches and other fruits.

Feel: Poke a steak when it’s raw. Then rare. Then medium. Then well done. It has a very different feel, a different resiliency at each stage. This is how seasoned grill masters at steak houses often check the doneness of steak. There are several doneness tests that involve touch.

Poke test: Used for steaks, chops, chicken breasts and other relatively thin pieces of meat. Press the top with your index finger. See chart for how the various degrees of doneness should feel.

Pinch test: Used to test the doneness of chunks of meat on a shish kebab, shrimp, onions, peppers, sweet potatoes, and so on. Pinch the food between your thumb and forefinger. Meat will correspond to the feel listed. Shrimp should feel firm. Veggies should feel soft and yielding.

Internal temperature: Of course, the most accurate test of doneness is internal temperature. Use an instant-read thermometer. (See box for where to insert it.) See Judging Doneness by Temperature for the key temperatures and various degrees of doneness.

Timing Your Grill Session (from start to finish)

• 6 hours before you start grilling: Check your fuel supply. Buy charcoal or propane as needed.

• 1 to 6 hours before: Apply the seasonings to the meat or seafood.

• 30 minutes before: Soak the wood chips.

• 20 to 30 minutes before: Light the grill. Note: You need longer—up to an hour ahead—for a kamado.

• Right before you start grilling: Brush or scrape and oil the grill grate.

• The moment you’re finished grilling: Brush or scrape the grill grate clean.

• 2 to 4 hours after grilling: Empty the grease collector.

• 24 hours after grilling: Empty the ash pan.

So now you know how to choose your grill, source your fuel, assemble your tools, season your food, choose your grilling method, and fire it up. The last step is to put it all together and get grilling.

When I was growing up, you grilled once or twice a month and it was always meat for the main course. Today we grill everything, from appetizers to vegetables, from breakfast to dessert. Which brings us to the ultimate challenge: cooking the entire meal on the grill. Actually, it’s a lot easier than it sounds—in fact, it’s standard operating procedure chez Raichlen. Follow this simple strategy, and you, too, will be cooking the whole meal on the grill without breaking a sweat.

Cocktail: Sure, you could serve beer or wine—that’s what everyone expects. And there’s plenty of time to get to that during the meal. But why not wow with a cocktail most people have not only never experienced before, but never even conceived of? I speak, of course, about a grilled cocktail, like the citrusy Grilled Sangria or the Grilled Peach Bellinis.

Appetizers: When people arrive at your home, they make a beeline for the grill. So you want appetizers that cook quickly and that you can serve hot off the fire. Good options in this book include Chorizo-Grilled Dates, Bruschetta Four Ways, and Greek Grilled Cheese. Better yet, grill all three.

Main course: For the main course, I like a large hunk of meat or whole fish. After all, everyone has gathered around the primeval fire and we’re sharing a communal meal. Quite literally, because as you carve the big meat, everyone partakes. Good candidates here? The Raichlen “Cheesesteak” or Salt Slab-Grilled Rockfish. First-Timer’s Pork Shoulder or Asian-Flavored Lamb Sliders, which have the added advantage of being able to be cooked ahead. Everybody loves sauces: Don’t forget to prepare them ahead, too.

Side dishes: Buy yourself more breathing space. Serve a gorgeous platter of grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables hold their texture and flavor well, even when grilled the day before. And they taste just fine—better than just fine—at room temperature. Case in point: Peruvian Potato Salad, Smoke-Roasted Carrots, or Sweet and Sour Grilled Onions.

Bottom line: Sure, you want to show off, but you also want to enjoy your party. By building our menu on a mix of dishes you grill live and that you can grill ahead, you have time both to shine and to party.

Grilling routinely involves live fire, sharp knives, hot metal, and alcohol, so what could possibly go wrong?! I would be remiss if I didn’t say a little about safety.

• Grill placement: Place your grill in an open, well-ventilated space in your backyard or on your patio or deck. Figure out the prevailing wind direction and, if possible, place the grill downwind. Ideally, you’ll set up the lighting so it illuminates the grill and your work area at night. An outdoor sink helps with handwashing.

• For charcoal grillers: Never grill indoors or in a garage, covered patio, or breezeway. Charcoal emits odorless but deadly carbon monoxide.

• For gas grillers: Have the lid open when you light the grill. Hold your hand 3 inches over the burners once the grill is lit, and again, 30 seconds later, to make sure it’s truly lit. If you smell gas, immediately turn the grill off, open the lid to air it out for a few minutes, then try lighting it again.

• Avoid cross contamination—especially when handling chicken and ground beef. Use separate cutting boards for cutting raw meats and salads (or any other food you plan to serve raw). Color-coded cutting boards make this a snap. Wash your hands and the knives well with soap before handling other foods.

• Likewise, never put or serve cooked meat on the same platter you used to bring out raw meat.

• If you want to use a marinade that came in contact with raw meat for basting or as a sauce, strain it through a fine mesh strainer into a saucepan, then boil it rapidly for at least 3 minutes to kill any potential bacteria. While you’re at it, whisk in a couple tablespoons of chilled butter—it will taste better.

• Keep all meats, poultry, and seafood cold until you put them on the grill. Ditto for mayonnaise-based salads, like coleslaw. This is contrary to the advice of some to let your steaks warm to room temperature, but there isn’t a decent steakhouse in the world that leaves meat out at room temperature. Remember: You grill steaks at 600°F or more, and it takes only a few seconds of grilling to warm up the meat to room temperature.

• Wear sunscreen and a hat—especially if you’re grilling in the daytime. Ideally, you’ll wear closed shoes, not flip flops or sandals—especially when grilling with charcoal.

• Charcoal grillers: Transfer the spent ash to a lidded metal trash can and let it cool for 24 hours or douse with water before transferring it to a plastic can. Yes, I too have burned out plastic trashcans with coals I thought were dead.

• Position your grill at least 10 feet from your house, preferably in an area sheltered from the wind, and never under snow-laden tree branches. Never light a grill in a garage or covered breezeway; the carbon monoxide could kill you.

• Clear snow that has accumulated in and around your grill. For better traction, sprinkle the area with sidewalk salt. You don’t even want to think about losing your footing while carrying a chimney starter full of red-hot charcoal.

• Winter days are short and dark. Make sure you have adequate lighting in the form of grill lights, overhead patio lights, or headlamps.

• Dress warmly, but avoid ultra-puffy coats, scarves, or dangling drawstrings. Replace mittens or nylon gloves with grilling gloves.

• The rubber hoses on gas grills can get brittle in cold weather; check them for leaks before heating the grill.

• Allow extra time for the grill to heat, whether charcoal, wood-burning, or gas.

• Check to make sure gas grills stay lit. Strong winds can blow out the burners.

• Allow additional cooking time (20 to 30 percent or more) for cold weather grilling. I like to light a second charcoal grill just to have an ample supply of embers.

• Focus on quick cooking foods, like steaks, chops, burgers, chicken breasts, fish fillets, and shrimp. While indirect grilling is possible, it can be difficult to maintain temperatures for a sustained period of time.

• Resist the temptation to peek under the grill lid too often, as heat loss will be rapid.

• Above all, don’t forget that fire is hot. You may be cold, but your grill won’t be. Don’t burn yourself on a hot grill lid, grate, or chimney starter. (I speak from painful experience.)

Winter Grilling

Quick: When it snows, what do you shovel first? The path to your car or the path to your grill? According to the Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Association, 61 percent of Americans grill all year round, up from 30 percent ten years ago. Which is easy for guys like me, who live in Florida. Hats off to the winter warriors in Maine, Minnesota, upstate New York, and Canada who brave snow and ice to fire it up. Here are some tips to make the task easier.

Don’t let this happen to you—see the game plan for winter grilling.

If you’re reading this book, you probably grill year round. But some people in extremely cold climates deep-freeze (excuse the pun) their grills during the winter. Here’s how to bring them back to life.

• Clean the grill thoroughly: (Of course, you did that the last time you used your grill, right?) Scrape out any congealed ash at the bottom of the firebox or kettle bowl with a garden trowel. Empty the ash catcher (if you haven’t already done so).

• Remove the rust: Treat minor rust or dings with a high-quality heatproof paint. If rust is beginning to eat through the grill walls, it’s time for a new grill, no matter how many good times you’ve shared with the old one.

• Scrub the grate: Even if you brushed and oiled your grate after the last time you used it, you’ll need to do so again before your first grill session. Build a hot fire in the grill. Heat the grate, then scour it with a stiff wire brush or a wooden scraper and oil it using a tightly folded paper towel dipped in oil. (This oils the grate and removes any loose brush bristles and debris.) Repeat as needed. This usually removes light rust, too. If not, do as my assistant, Nancy Loseke, does—she buys a new grate for her kettle grill each year for about $15.00.

• Check your charcoal: If your charcoal sat in the garage or an outdoor shed all winter, it may have absorbed moisture and will not light or burn properly. Buy a fresh bag. Buy a couple so you don’t run out during a grill session. Note: If you own a charcoal grill with a propane igniter, like the Weber Performer, check the igniter battery, as describe at right, and replace the small LP canister as needed.

• Clean the grill thoroughly: Clear out all spiders, cobwebs, and other debris from inside the manifolds, Venturi tube, connectors, and so on. Empty and clean the grease trap, lining it with a fresh aluminum foil pan or aluminum foil as required. Light the grill and build a hot fire. Brush and oil the grill grate. Note: It’s easy to clean a hot grate and almost impossible to clean a cold one.

• Leak patrol: Check the hoses; if they’re brittle or crimped, replace them. Turn on the propane valve (with burner knobs shut). If you smell gas, make a leak detection solution by mixing equal parts liquid dish soap and water. Brush this on the hoses and couplings; if you see bubbles, you have a leak. Replace any leaking parts.

• Clear the burner tubes: Remove the grill grate and metal baffles or Flavorizer Bars, which keep grease away from burner tubes, and make sure flames emerge from all the holes in the burner tubes. If any look blocked, open them with a bent paperclip, straight pin, or other thin wire.

• Igniters on: Press the igniter button. If you fail to hear a click or see a spark, check the battery. Unscrew the lock nut at the base of the button or behind the control panel. Most igniters take a size AA battery. I replace mine every season.

• Fuel up: You’ll want to start the grill season with a full cylinder of propane, plus have a second full tank as a spare.

Grill Cleaning and Maintenance Schedule

A practice that’s essential but all too often ignored: cleaning your grill. Contrary to the belief of some, food or grease burnt on the grate from a previous grill session does not add flavor. It’s gross.

Every grill session:

• Brush or scrape your grill grate conscientiously both before and after grilling.

• Hose off the exterior of the grill using a grill cleaner, or scrub with a brush and soapy water or vinegar as needed. Note: Make sure the grill is cool before you do this. Cold water against a hot grill can crack the enamel or built-in thermometer glass.

• Once the grill is cool, empty the ash that’s accumulated in a charcoal grill. (Place it in a metal—not plastic—container; it may still contain some hot embers. When in doubt, douse with cold water.)

• Empty the grease trap.

Once a week or as needed:

• Using a wire brush, brush any flakes of soot (“scale”) off the inside of the grill lid.

Every few months or at the end of the grill season (of course, more and more of us grill year round):

• Make sure the ash catcher and grease trap are really empty. (I know I told you to do that daily—just checking.)

• Clean off any stubborn grease inside the grill or outside, using a grill cleaner like Safecid as needed.

• Lubricate the damper vents with WD-40 so they open and close easily.

• If using a gas grill, disconnect the regulator hose from the propane cylinder. If using natural gas, shut the valve leading to the grill. Secure a plastic bag or plastic wrap around the coupling to keep it free of dust, spiders, or bugs.

• If you leave your grill outside, cover it tightly.

Woods Commonly Used for Grilling
Wood	Where used	For what
Oak	Everywhere	Everything
Mesquite	Texas, the American Southwest, Hawaii, and Mexico	Beef, poultry, and seafood
Hickory and pecan	The American South	Pork and poultry. Remember, in traditional North Carolina barbecue, the pork actually roasts directly over a hickory ember fire.
Alder	Pacific Northwest	Salmon and other seafood
Cherry	Michigan and the American Midwest	Works well with all meats, especially beef, poultry, and seafood
Apple	The American Midwest and New England	Works well with all meats, especially pork and poultry
Beech	Germany and Eastern Europe	Works with all meats, especially pork

The Basic Grill Temperatures and What They’re Used For
Heat	Temperature (in degrees F)	Method	Good for
Low	225°–250°	Smoking/true barbecue	Brisket, ribs, pork shoulder
Medium-low	275°–300°	True barbecue/indirect grilling	Ribs, pork shoulder
Medium	325°–350°	Direct grilling Indirect grilling/smoke roasting	Roasts, pork loin, poultry (whole birds), whole fish, large dense vegetables
Medium-high	375°–400°	Direct grilling Indirect grilling/smoke roasting Plancha and salt slab grilling	Chicken pieces, planked fish, large vegetables (all indirect grilled)
High	450°–600°	Direct grilling	Steak, chops, fish steaks, chicken breasts, small or high-moisture vegetables, fruit
Incendiary	650° and higher	Direct grilling and infrared grilling	Searing steaks and chops

Judging Doneness by Feel
Feel	Doneness	Food	Corresponding internal temperature
Squishy	Blue (blood rare)	Steak	100°–110°F
Soft	Rare	Steak and lamb	120°–125°F
Gently yielding	Medium-rare	Steak, lamb, and veal	130°–135°F
Barely yielding	Medium	Steak, lamb, veal, and pork	140°–145°F
Firm	Medium-well to well	Steak (if you have to), lamb, veal, and pork	160°F
Soft and jiggly (I know this sounds paradoxical, but when tough, collagen-filled meats are cooked, they become soft and jiggly.)	Very well done	Brisket, beef clod (shoulder), beef plate ribs, and pork shoulder	200°–205°F

Judging Doneness By Temperature
Internal Temperature	Degree of doneness	Appropriate for
100°–110°F	Blue (sometimes called Pittsburgh rare)	Steak, tuna
120°–125°F	Rare	Steak, lamb, tuna, duck breast
130°–135°F	Medium-rare	Steak, lamb, tuna, veal, duck breast
140°–145°F	Medium for fish	Steak and fish (other than tuna)
145°–155°F	Medium for meat	Steak, lamb, veal, and pork
165°F	Medium for poultry	Pork, chicken, and turkey
170°–175°F	Medium-well (for pork and poultry)	Pork, chicken, and turkey
175°–180°F	Well (for steaks and roasts)	Pork shoulder (for slicing) and pork ribs
200°–205°F	Very well	Brisket, beef clod (shoulder), beef plate ribs, pork shoulder for pulling