Maybe you own a grill that isn’t being taken care of. Many people give up on their charcoal grill because they can’t control the temperature, which can lead to overcooked, undercooked, or charred meals. Unlike gas grills, charcoal grills require some skill to control the temperature. The following article by Sunset Bar and Grill will show the 4 ways to control temperature on a charcoal grill.
The 4 ways to control temperature on a charcoal grill
There are only four techniques involved in controlling the temperature on a charcoal grill effectively. Get a grip on them, and you will be well on your way to great grilling.
Start by building a two-zone fire
By creating a hot zone and a “cooler” zone on your grill, you can control how well your meat cooks by simply moving it to the right side.
To build a two-zone fire,
- First, place all your coals on one side of the coal grate.
- Spread them evenly across 1⁄2 to 2⁄3 of the area.
- Then replace the cooking grate.
If you want to stop, grilled food, or want to cook indirectly, just move the food to the side of the blister without coal below.
Food is in cooking indirectly will be cooked by convection, i.e. warm air circulates the food. This will lead to the cooked all the meat both inside and outside, not only on the surface.
Adjust the airflow on your grill
When cooking with charcoal, airflow = more hot grill. This is in contrast with the oven, a gas oven, when you open the cap will let the heat out.
The special thing is important to keep all vents fully open when starting the grill. To glow coals, they need more oxygen. The grill has vents at the bottom and the top. The vents at the bottom are called dampers. They provide airflow for coal.
The vents at the top are called dampers exhaust gas. The vent will suck the smoke away, like a chimney. When doing so, they suck the air through the grill, so keeping them open will encourage airflow through the entire system.
We can adjust the bottom intake damper and the top exhaust damper:
- To damper exhaust on the lid fully open and airflow control valve to regulate air intake bottom.
- Following the advice of Expert Weber, you damper exhaust on the lid fully open and airflow control valve to regulate air intake bottom.
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Move the food closer to the coal
Your food is as close to the coal, the more heat and cook faster. Just move the food out far more if you feel it’s too hot, and vice versa.
If the grill you don’t have this handy feature, there are ways to solve that problem. Use the first technique to create two (or more) combustion zone. Then you can move his food between the parts hot or cold of the grill if necessary.
Use a grill shield to avoid getting your gill marks on food
If things are cooked faster than expected and you need to do something quickly, you can make a shield with aluminum foil to block the heat.
- Simply grab some leaves
- Fold it over two or three times
- Slide it under the part of food that is about to burn.
This method will not prevent food fully cooked, but by blocking the amount of heat radiation in your food, you will slow down the process a bit.
Do you have any techniques tried and true on how to control temperature on a charcoal grill? Or still, a number of questions “hot” that you still want to be answered have not been addressed in this post.
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