The joy of having a cookout at the beach or for an exquisite private holiday, or simply making some of your favorite barbeque grilled chicken on a lazy Sunday afternoon is the greatest of all pleasures. There is nothing more satisfying than watching that piece of chicken or steak getting nicely cooked on a grill. The sight itself is so fulfilling and the same is the process. But often at times directly heating your food on your charcoal grill may expose it to the flames and burn them. Thereby spoiling all the fun and the taste you were craving.
Cooking with indirect heat is the best way to make sure you don’t get flare up’s that will burn your food. To cook with indirect heat you simply need to place your food where the charcoal isn’t. Put another way if your charcoal is all at the back of the grill keep the food to the front. Doing this will not only help with flare up’s but is also a great way to cook chicken and other meats that need to be cooked slowly.
It is important to know how to set up your charcoal grill for cooking and how to cook your food over charcoal. In this article, we will walk you through the various aspects of setting up a charcoal grill. Along with how to heat the food on a charcoal grill by indirect heat.
Though there are many popular ways of indirect grilling, here we will look at some of the most used ones. Before getting into the methods let’s look at all the things that we may need to set up the indirect fire configurations.
Our Requirements for Setting up an Indirect Heating Zone
So before we can look into setting up our grill let’s look at a few things that we need for the setup. We will try and list everything.
- The first thing obviously that you would need is charcoal and loads of it.
- You need to make sure that the cooking area that you choose is big enough to allow the heat to dissipate and the smoke to go out and the air to come in.
- The next thing to make sure you have is a good quality charcoal grill and with a lid. Make sure that you open the lid only when you need to.
- You may also decide to include some special baskets to split the space in the grill.
- Get a Charcoal Chimney Starter that gets the chimney briquettes burning faster.
If you need help getting your charcoal lit you can check out my article on lighting charcoal by clicking here.
Setting Up the Grill for Indirect Heat
While it might seem to be easy to set up your grill, it may get difficult especially if you are a beginner and do not use a charcoal grill that often. Let us walk you through a step by step process to set up your grill:
- Open the lid of the grill and place it over the rim using the hooks inside the lid
- Remove and set the cooking grate aside.
- Use the handle below the bowl to open the vent at the bottom.
- Place a couple of lighter cubes on the grate and place the chimney starter over the cubes.
- If you don’t have lighter cubes you can use some newspaper with a little amount of Olive Oil on it. You can wad it up and place it under the chimney starter.
- After you have the paper or cubes ready, fill the chimney starter with charcoal.
- Now you can ignite the paper or the cubes through the bottom holes.
The briquettes take up to 20 minutes to light fully.- Once the charcoal gets a coating of white ash it is ready to cook over. Now carefully put on barbeque mitts and empty the coal on the charcoal grate.
- Using the rake spread all the coal into a couple of equal piles on the opposite sides of the grate. This helps in creating two zones one for high and direct heating on the sides, and medium or low indirect heat in the middle.
- Now put your cooking grate on and after closing the lid, open up the vent on the top and leave all the vents open
- Pre-heat the cooking grate for some time maybe 15 minutes.
- Place the food you wish to cook or heat on the cooking grate.
- Close the lid and only lift it to turn the food when needed or to check if the food is fully cooked.
This process is the step by step way of setting up your grill for indirect heating. The most important aspect as you might have seen is the setting up of zones for various types of heating. Let’s see some zone setups for Indirect heating.
Two Zone Indirect Heating Setup
This is the simplest and the most popular indirect heating solution that can be used in charcoal grills without any problems. In this setup, you need to split your grill area into two parts. On one side you place the briquettes and you leave the other side empty.
This method is extremely advantageous as this can be used for both direct and indirect heating at once. In this case, if the food needs to be grilled indirectly you can put the roast or the food you need to heat on the opposite side of the briquette. For the direct method, you can simply put the meat directly on the grates over the briquettes.
This arrangement is an efficient arrangement that can be used to heat a wide range of foods. Since it combines the effects of both direct and indirect heating it is an extremely good way of cooking your food. Especially since it involves cooking with live fire, you need to be able to control the heat by using indirect heating when required and direct heating when it is needed.
While direct heating is best for small chunks of meat, chops, steaks, etc Indirect heating is effective for cooking large tough foods that need to be cooked for a longer time. These include roasts, ribs, whole chicken, etc. Indirect heating is the best way of cooking since it cooks your food in and out including the surface.
Snake Arrangement Indirect Heating Setup
In this set up you would need to change your charcoal grill into a smoker. That means you save a good 500 dollars that you would have otherwise spent on a good smoker. In this method, you need to layout the charcoal properly in the grates. So what does it involve? In this setup a wall of briquettes is built that lean over one another. It resembles dominos but instead of nocking each other over, there lighting each other on fire.
Light up one of the ends and the fire gradually burns down the charcoal till it gets to the other end. This method works perfectly with almost all types of round grills. This set up allows you to maintain the temperatures for very long hours without any issues.
The longer the snake that has been created and arranged, the longer it burns. You can choose to put wood on the snakes that add a unique flavor to your food. If you can use a charcoal chimney starter to get it firing it will result in better and faster results. You can put a tray filled with some water that will maintain the temperature and the humidity.
Once all this is set up close the lid and open the lower vent fully and the upper one partially. Once the right temperature is achieved you can put the meat right at the center of the grate. Make sure you don’t put your food over heated charcoal or else the food will get burnt and chances are that flames may rise due to the grease and oil in most meats.
Now the food is in there on the grates, keep checking the temperature once in a while. If you wish to control the temperature keep adjusting the air vents by opening or closing them when needed. This is the ideal method to cook foods that are large in size, such as large roasts, ribs, chicken, turkey, pork shoulder, etc.
If you’d like to learn more about controlling the temperature in a charcoal grill you can do so by clicking here.
Three Zone Indirect Heating Setup
In this method, you will need to split the grill into three parts. How does it work? You need to put the charcoal baskets on either side and a grease tray in the middle of the grill. If however, you do not have charcoal baskets, simply putting the charcoal on either side shall work. Now you’ll need to put more charcoal on one side of the grill and less on the other.
In this set up the heat on the side where there is more charcoal will be high heat. On the other side, where there is less charcoal, you’ll get medium heat. Last in the middle, you’ll have your low and indirect heat over your grease tray.
If you add a little water to the grease tray it will help with keeping the temperature your trying to achieve, and add a little humidity into the grill. This will help keep your food from drying out if its in the grill for a long amount of time.
You’ll need to make sure the tray is set so that all the grease is collected in it to avoid any flames from flaring up. Once your charcoal is all hot and ready, you can place your favorite meat right at the center of the grill.
In this set up you get direct heating from two sides and indirect heat in the medium which provides a perfect set up to cook your food faster and from all sides.
Apart from the above main types of arrangements the grill can be arranged in a few other ways which we will cover as well. Let’s have a closer look.
Evenly Indirect Heat Setup
In this setup, you can place a disposable pan between the coal and fill it halfway with water like mentioned above. This allows you to catch any drippings thereby enhancing the life of your grill. In fact, the water also absorbs and releases the additional heat.
That means if the pan is filled you’ll need less charcoal to maintain the grill temperatures. Use charcoal baskets on either side for best results as they help in keeping the coal clustered and together and keep them burning for longer.
Ring of Fire Set Up
In this set up the charcoal is spread through the perimeter of the circular grill with empty space in the center. Placing a circular pan ensures that your food gets indirect heat from all sides with some medium direct heat from below. This is useful for medium-sized chunks of food that can be placed at the center of the grill.
Bull’s Eye Set Up
In this set up all the charcoal is clustered at the center and small chunks of food can be heated and cooked through the empty perimeter. This is the best way of indirect cooking and warming of food items such as chicken, etc.
Things to Remember
Now that we have covered almost all types of grill setups that involve indirect heating and direct heating as well let’s talk about a few things that you would always need to remember while setting up your grill.
First. Always remember to place the grease tray directly beneath your food in the indirect method. This would ensure there are no troubles due to flare up’s caused by the grease falling into the fire.
Second. Always keep the lid closed and open it as little as you can. Only open it when it is absolutely required. In indirect heating maintaining the right temperature is crucial and you would not want all the hot air to escape each time you open the lid.
Third. If possible buy a little tool to help you known as a Meat Thermometer. It does not cost much but it will always help you know the right temperature of the grill.
Even if your grill has a thermometer in the lid having a meat thermometer is a good idea especially when making different zones. A lot of times the thermometer in the lid won’t read the right temperature but more so an average temperature of the grill. With a meat thermometer, you can check the temperature in each zone and the meat itself to know if it’s been cooked to a safe temperature.
Conclusion
With all the methods and setups that we have provided, you are sure to enjoy all the crazy food and barbeques you ever wanted. Cooking the right kind of food with some lip-smacking taste might need some skills and some basic science too. Science has been taken care of with all the information at your disposal. Now make sure you use your culinary skills in getting the best out of the science and the knowledge of Indirect Heating of Charcoal grills.
So, make those barbeques, those grilled chicken and chops a little more tender, a little more soft, with all the Indirect ways of firing them up on a charcoal grill.
As Always, Happy Grilling!
