In the summertime, it feels amazing to spend time with family and friends while grilling and enjoying the weather, or on a summer vacation. No matter what your shore to be enjoying great food. But what about when the weather starts to cool down, and summer turns into fall, and fall turns into winter? Should you stop enjoying all of the outside fun and laughs, around the grill, with family and friends? Should you stop enjoying the amazing BBQ food? Well according to quite a few people, the answer is “No – of course not.”
Grilling in cold weather isn’t unlike grilling in the summertime. There are a few things you need to do differently, for example, doing all your prep inside, as well as a few safety concerns you’ll need to keep in mind. Like keeping the walkway free of ice and making sure loose or baggy clothes don’t get too close to the Heat.
For many people, grilling is not just a hobby or something they do occasionally – it is their past time. It’s their time to really enjoy multiple things they love, “at the same time” – Fresh air, family and friends, food, and relaxation.
Many people believe that as long as you know how to properly prepare for the winter weather – knowing what type of grills to use in the cold and what type of adjustments need to be made, then grilling in cold weather temperatures will not be a problem. Let’s discuss this a little further to give you a better idea of how you can still heat up the grill and have a good time with family and friends in those grueling winter months.
Safety Tips For Grilling In Cold Weather
It can be a lot of fun grilling outside in the cold weather, but when it comes to safety, there are even more than the usual safety tips that you must follow to protect yourself. Let’s go over a few here.
Safety tip number 1
Don’t be coughing and sneezing over everyone’s food. Make sure to bundle up, put on a hat, some gloves, a nice sized coat or jacket, and a scarf.
Safety tip number 2
have ice salt and a shovel. If you are out in the snow, in the cold, grilling, you want to keep a path cleared (the entire time) all around the grill, and you want to make sure that the entire area around the grill is safe to walk on, and not slippery.
If there isn’t any snow on the ground, and there is none in the forecast for that day, but the temperature is still at freezing levels, then you may want to bring the ice salt, just in case you spill water, juice, soda, or another liquid, anywhere near the grill. By having the ice salt handy, you will be able to melt the frozen liquid as soon as it hits the ground.
Safety tip number 3
Be VERY careful with anything dangling off of your person. In the cold weather seasons, we tend to have more items dangling off of us; from scarfs to jackets and coats, shirts to keys. Being around a flaming hot grill with so much drooping off of yourself, is a HUGE safety hazard.
If you know that you will be the person at the grill that day, you may want to think about making the necessary adjustments, such as not wearing a scarf, not wearing a jacket or coat that has things hanging off of them, and not wearing any shirts or keys that hang too close to the grill as well.
What To Expect When Using Charcoal In Cold Weather
When BBQ grilling with charcoal in the cold weather, there are some things that you want to keep in mind. First (as mentioned above), take all of the necessary safety precautions.
Next, you will need to understand that when grilling in cold weather, the charcoal will need to burn longer than usual to heat up your grill. Also, you will have to use a higher quantity of charcoal for it to stay at the temperature needed to cook your food.
Say, for instance, you used 25 charcoal nuggets in the summer to grill. In the winter it would be wiser to go with anywhere from 40 – 50 charcoal briquettes. If it takes 15 minutes for your charcoal to heat up in the summer, you can expect it to take around 25 – 30 minutes in winter weather.
In cold weather temperatures, you can expect your charcoal to cool down faster. So you may want to consider adding some wood chips to the charcoal once you have them heated up. Adding the wood chips will allow your charcoal to stay hot for a longer period of time, and it will give your food that smoky taste.
You will want to have a container (and/or pan) to put the meat in as soon as it comes off the grill so that it doesn’t get cold before people have a chance to eat it. You can expect the weather to cool down your food within minutes and if for some insane reason you are grilling in subzero temperatures, then it would be within a 60 – 90 second period.
It Takes Longer For Everything to Heat Up
You’re going to want to have a Chimney Starter or an Electric Charcoal Starter for lighting your charcoal. You’re not going to want to be messing around with getting your charcoal lit, especially in the cold weather, knowing it’s going to light on the first try is going to make everything go easier.
If you’re going to be using a Chimney Starter, you’re going to need a way to start a fire under it. You might be used to using some paper, or even some of the bag your charcoal came in to start a fire under it. Chimney Starters are my preferred method of lighting charcoal, but I’ve never used paper to light a fire under it. I prefer to use Paraffin Cubes or an all-natural fire starter cube. This way I know it’s going to light with no hassle.
It’s always best to not use any chemicals when lighting your charcoal. Using chemicals can add unwanted flavors to your food. You don’t want to ruin your food just because you were in a rush to get your charcoal lit. Chimney and Electric Starters are not only easier but faster and in cold weather, you’re going to want faster. If you would like to learn more about lighting charcoal, you can click here to read my full article on it.
After you’ve gotten your charcoal lit, depending on how cold it is (as mentioned earlier), it will determine how long it takes for the charcoal to heat up. Once the charcoal starts to grey, you can pour it into the bottom of the grill. This is where those extra charcoal briquettes will be needed. You will need to repeat this step, and then add the second batch of charcoal briquettes to the first.
Now that you’ve got your charcoal lit, you’re going to need to allow extra time for your grill to come up to cooking temperature. If your grill has a lid, you’re going to want to have it closed to trap the heat in and help get the cooking grates up to temperature.
This may take even longer if it happens to be a windy day. I’m sure you’ve heard of wind chill. If you’re not one hundred percent sure what it means, the basic idea is it causes heat to leave objects faster than normal. So if it’s windy, you might need to have your air intake open a little more to allow the charcoal to burn faster.
Keeping The Wind Off Of The Grill
Winter weather winds can be some of the strongest, most powerful winds that you will come across the whole year. So do your due diligence to prepare for them properly. When grilling in cold weather, it is very significant to your bbq grilling enjoyment.
Your going to want to make sure that your grill has a lid. Unlike summer weather where cold winds are not an issue, in winter weather, the cold winds can severely affect the temperatures of the charcoal and how well your food is cooked. So having a lid for your grill during cold weather BBQs is a must.
If possible, try to keep your grill somewhere where it’s not in direct wind. If need be, you can move it to the other side of your house or yard, wherever there’s less wind. It’s not only going to make temperature control easier, but it’s going to keep you out of the wind as well. If it’s not possible to move your grill, you can put something behind it to break the wind before it gets to the grill.
You’re also going to want to make sure that you have a sturdy enough grill that if the winds get so strong that it is able to push you, it does not knock over your grill. Depending on what type of charcoal grill you use, you may want to add some rocks or weights to the base of the legs. You can use tape or something else to hold them to the grill. This will help to ensure your grill does not tip over.
Because of all of the oil, heat, and fire elements in play, not taking this precaution is a fire (“and potential disaster”) hazard. If possible, it would be a great decision to have a small handy fire extinguisher available during your cold-weather BBQs.
Food Preparation
With the temperatures being so low, it is important to remember to get all of your food preparation done indoors; your seasoning, saucing, butter, etc. By doing this, you will first save yourself time from just standing or sitting in the cold (without at least being near a hot grill to keep you warm while you’re outside).
Second, if you try to prep your food outside, because of the low temperatures, if you have to touch the meat and apply sauces with your bare hands, your hands can go numb from being exposed to the cold, possibly freezing temperatures. Third, you will save yourself money on charcoal briquettes, from having to reapply more and more as your grilling.
Here is a charcoal grilling cooking hack if your grill doesn’t have a lid. During your food preparation time, cover the top of the grill with aluminum foil before it gets too hot. By doing this, the temperature will get even hotter than it would have, had you not applied the foil.
To better understand why this works so well, think of your house oven, and think about how long it would take to cook your food if you leave the oven open vs if you close the door. The answer is obvious – the foil helps contain the heat from the burning charcoals. In the cold weather, it’s always a fight to keep your grill hot. Using the aluminum foil allows you to keep food on the grill longer. For food like steaks and ribs, this is of extreme importance.
For cooking burgers with charcoal grilling in cold weather, once you have the charcoal heated up and ready to go, have your lid nearby to cover the burgers up to protect them from cold winds. You will then want to put your already prepared burgers on the grill, put the lid on, and depending on how you want them done (well, medium well, medium, or medium-rare) will determine how long you keep them on your grill.
Once you have food on the grill, try not to open the lid if you don’t need to. After the lid is on, a pocket of hot air is formed underneath that helps cook your food. Every time you open the lid, you’re letting the hot air out and the cold air in. This starts to cool the top of your food off and slows the cooking down.
For steaks, you will want to follow a similar method as the one used for burgers. But, taking the cold weather into consideration, it would be best to add a few minutes to the times you would normally give for the steak to cook, but not too much time. No one likes an overdone steak. Just make sure you give it enough time. You want to cook them well enough so that it kills off any bacteria that may be lurking inside your food.
For ribs, you will want to follow the exact method as with the burgers and steaks. But for timing, it will be more like the steak or longer. I like to do my ribs low and slow and if there is ever a good time for practicing cooking with low temperature on a charcoal grill, it’s in the cold weather. This way if your temperature starts to get too high you can get it back down and under control fast.
The heat from the charcoal briquettes will cook all these and those similar types of thick meat with no problem in cold weather, as long as you take all of the above tips and warnings into consideration.
Lighting
During the summer and warm weather months, lighting is not an issue. The daylight is usually visible well past 7 pm sometimes 8 pm local time, whether you’re on the west coast, east coast, or in the midwest. But this isn’t the case in the winter months. Some months the sun can be down as early as 5 pm. That can make it hard to grill if you worked all day. By the time you get home and get your food prep done, it might be dark out.
So it is important to have the proper lighting up and ready even before you heat up the grill. This way if you’re still grilling when the sun goes down, your food doesn’t get ruined over not being able to see it.
If you do not have bright outside lights in the area that you are grilling, you might want to consider getting portable lights. It would be wise to purchase some wireless but very bright battery-powered lights you can put near or on your grill. There are lights on the market just for grills. They have a magnet on them to keep them on your grill. There are also ones that go on the handle of your lid. But if your grill has a smaller handle, as my grill does, these lights don’t leave a lot of room for your hand. You can click here to see my reviews and recommendations on portable lights for grilling.
Now because you are grilling in the wintery weather, it is important to remember that after the sun goes down, winds tend to pick up. So with the proper lighting, it will be easier to find things if the wind blows them over or anything you might knock over accidentally, especially the grill full of burning hot charcoal briquettes.
For those people with no interest in charcoal grilling in cold weather at night, it would be best to start your grilling early – particularly before 1 pm so that you can be finished around 3 pm depending on how much food you are grilling. This will give you around 2 hours – ample time to clean out the charcoal grill – before the sun goes down. It usually goes down around 5 pm at least where I live in the winter seasons.
You’re going to know better than myself about what time the sun goes down in your area. So you can adjust the time to what’s going to work best for you. So whether you are a morning person, or a night person, and whether you have night lights available or not, you can still enjoy charcoal grilling in cold weather.
Tracking The Temperature Of Your Charcoal Grilled Food
When grilling in winter weather, the cold temperatures can be a real hassle. Standing in front of the grill in that atmosphere for hours on end can be tiresome and very stressful which is the complete opposite of what you had in mind when you decided to grill dinner. To help you combat this, it would be wise to get a wireless “meat thermometer” with a long needlepoint. This helps you keep track of how your meat is cooking from your warm house.
To make sure the chicken is cooked to 165 Fahrenheit, or the beef 165 degrees Fahrenheit, etc., etc., with a wireless thermometer once you put all of your food, or at least your first batch of meat in if you’re cooking a large amount of food. You can then put the lid on and go back inside and stay warm and just come back out to check the food when your wireless thermometer says it’s close to being done.
This will take a lot of the stress away from just standing in the cold and waiting for 5 – 15 minutes to turn the food over, and then another 5 – 15 minutes to take it off the grill. Grilling with this strategy in cold weather will make the experience much more enjoyable.
Charcoal Is Better In Cold Weather Because It Won’t Freeze As Propane Tanks Do
When deciding on which route to go with charcoal vs. propane when grilling in the cold weather, there are some important factors to take into consideration. With charcoal, you do not have to worry about the briquettes freezing over, but with propane tanks you do.
Charcoal can be in subzero temperatures and not freeze over or become destroyed and not able to burn. But propane tanks don’t do so well in cold weather. It is scientifically stated that the propane inside the tank freezes at -306.4 degrees Fahrenheit, while the tank itself will freeze at -44 degrees Fahrenheit. I know you’re not going to be using any type of grill at those temperatures.
What most people don’t understand is propane is actually a type of refrigerant. It is liquid in the tank and when it evaporates to a gas it naturally cools. You might have noticed this in the summer when using a gas grill and the regulator has condensation on it, especially if you have all your burners on.
This is because you’re pulling a large volume out at one time. It’s fine in the summer but in the winter the regulator will start to freeze over. This will cause the gas flow to slow down, causing your BTU’s to drop and your grill to not be able to hit the temperatures you may need to properly cook your food.
In winter, weather in some parts of the country does drop to negative temperatures. With wind chills that make the temperature feel as low as -44 degrees Fahrenheit. You wouldn’t want to even try to use a gas grill. I wouldn’t ever go outside, let alone make dinner on the grill.
There are other parts of the country that don’t feel these negative temperatures even with the wind chill. So in states such as California, Nevada, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, going with either route when grilling charcoal or propane in cold weather is fine. But in states such as Washington, Colorado, Wisconsin, New York, Vermont, and Maine, when those winter months hit, and that temperature starts to drop, when you got the feeling to go outside and grill, it would be wise to go with the charcoal over the propane.
Conclusion
Grilling outside in the cold weather can be a ton of fun. You should not allow the low-temperature weather to stop you from going outside and enjoying yourself with family and friends as you grill.
But it is extremely important that you first follow all the necessary safety tips and precautions, such as shoveling all the snow around the grilling area if there has been some that has fallen, and having a bag of ice salt available, to keep the area from icing (freezing) up. Also of key importance, having a fire extinguisher nearby, just in case something gets blown over by heavy winds, and a fire breaks out.
Second, prepare all of your food inside (season it, butter it, sauce it, etc.), so that you will not have to spend that extra time in the cold weather getting the food ready. Next, decide whether you will want to be grilling at night or during the day, and if it is at night, make sure you have the proper lighting.
Last, make sure you are dressed warm enough to withstand the cold for a few hours, without anything dangling from your person. Also, make sure that you have the right amount of charcoal briquettes available since you will need around double the normal amounts, to combat the cold (possibly freezing) temperatures.
As Always, Happy Grilling