How To Know When To Put Your Food On A Charcoal Grill

It can be hard to know exactly when it’s ok to add your food to a charcoal grill. You don’t want to do it too soon or the smoke from lighting the charcoal can give your food a bad taste. On the other hand, if you wait too long your charcoal might burn out before your food is cooked all the way. Neither of these is going to leave you looking like you know what you’re doing.

It’s safe to add your food to a charcoal grill once you stop seeing heavy white smoke. You may still see a light smoke with a blue tint to it. You also want to let the grates heat up so that your food doesn’t stick to them. Another thing you can look at is the charcoal itself. If most of it has white ash on it you should be good to put food on the grill.

So now that you have a basic idea of what to look for. I like to dig into it a bit deeper. As well as give you some tips and tricks to help you look like a grill master at your next cookout.

For starters, not all charcoal is going to get white ash over it. Also most grill, at least most newer grills, come with a temperature probe in the lid so why can’t you just look at the temperature. Last but not least do you need an even bed of charcoal or should you set your grill up for two zone cooking or even three-zone cooking.

Knowing Your Charcoal

So for years, I read that your charcoal should have a layer of white ash on it and you’ll know its ready to cook on. But that’s not always true. You see in the case of charcoal briquettes you’ll get a layer of white ash but if you like to use lump charcoal you won’t all ways get it.

Sins lump charcoal is all-natural, meaning its just wood that’s undergone a process to turn it into almost pure carbon. But nothing else was added to it then it doesn’t have the additive that is used in briquettes to make them turn white. So it’s better to watch the smoke if you’re going to use lump charcoal. Once the heavy white smoke dies down the charcoal should just be glowing bright red with some ash on it.

On the other hand, if you’re like me and still go for the briquettes. Sins there cheaper than lump then you should not only look for the white ash but also look at the smoke. Briquettes are mainly sawed dust but they do have other additives in them so it’s important to let them burn until the smoke is all but gone.

You still may have the light blue smoke off of both lump charcoal and briquettes after there lit, and that’s ok it’s still safe to add your food to the grill. If you’d like to learn more about charcoal and all the different types of charcoal from around the world then click here to read my full article on it.

How Hot Should The Grill Be Before You Add Your Food

Using a temperature probe

So if you have a newer grill it more then likely came with a temperature probe in the lid. If not it’s not a big deal. You can get one and add it into the lid if you feel the need to. Otherwise, you can just do the hand test after the charcoal stops smoking. So after you add your charcoal to your grill it’s a good idea to put the lid back on. This is going to let the grill start to preheat just like you preheat your oven in your house.

Pro Tip: Make sure you have your air intake and the exhaust vents all the way open. This will help the charcoal light off one another and get your grill preheated as fast as possible.

After the lid has been on for about 15 to 20 minutes it’s probably just about to stop smoking if it hasn’t already. But now you temperature probe more then likely says its somewhere between 450F and 550F and your thinking that’s a little too hot. It’s normal for a charcoal grill to hit higher temperatures when you’re preheating it. Just take the lid off for a few minutes to let some of the heat out and start to close the air intake and the exhaust vents.

Now you’re just about ready to start cooking on your grill after a few minutes the temperature will start to come back down, you’ll have to play with the air and exhaust vents to get the temperature your looking for. Once you get it to the temperature your looking for you can go ahead and start adding your food to the grill. Remember not to crowd the grill you want some space between the food to get an even cook on it.

Pro Tip: Before adding food to the grill it’s a good idea to oil the grates first. You can use a paper towel and long-handled tongs to do this safely. Just put some cooking oil on the paper towel and hold it with the tongs now. Then just rub the oil onto the grates.

The Hand Test

So if your grill didn’t come with a temperature probe and you don’t feel the need to add one, there’s all ways the good old hand test. You just need to hold the palm of your hand about 3 inches from the grill and count how many seconds you can keep it there comfortably. Remember you’re not trying to burn yourself your just trying to get a feel for how hot it is.

• 2 to 4 Seconds is High Heat
• 5 to 7 Seconds is Medium Heat
• 8 to 10 Seconds is Low Heat

Make Different Cooking Zones

So now you have a nice hot bed of charcoal and your grill is up to good cooking temperature. But not all of your food is going to cook at the same temperature some of it needs high heat but some need’s medium heat. Well, there are a few things you can do. The easiest is to rearrange your charcoal so its all on one side of the grill.

This is known as two-zone cooking with one side of the grill being a high temperature and the other at low temperature. Doing this will make it easy to sear a thick steak getting your grill marks and sealing in the juices. Then you can move it to the low heat to let the internal temperature come up without burning it on the outside.

This is also good if your cooking different types of meats like burgers and chicken legs at the same time. Your burgers can be done over high heat but chicken legs take time to cook without burning them so you’d want to put them over low heat.

Pro Tip: Its best to set up your cooking zones before your charcoal is all the way lit. This way you’re not moving the charcoal around when it’s a full temperature. If you do need to rearrange it’s after it fully lit. You can use a metal spatula with a long handle to push it around. Or better yet you can get a charcoal basket and then it’s just a matter of putting the basket where you want your high heat to be.

Another option is to set up as three-zone. Where you’ll have a large amount of charcoal on one side a small amount in the middle and none on the other side. Doing this will give you low, medium, and high all on one grill. But you need a large enough grill to be able to do this kind of setup. If you only have a small grill then your zones will just blend and you’ll just end up with high heat or high and medium heat.

Conclusion

It’s not just about knowing when it safe to put your food on the grill. Its also about knowing what charcoal to use so you know whether to look for ash or not.

Knowing how to set up your cooking zones so that you don’t end up with a steak that’s burned on the outside and undercooked on the inside. As well as letting the grill heat up to good cooking temperature before adding food to it.

I hope this has been helpful to you in knowing what to look for when adding your food to a charcoal grill. I also hope that it makes you look like a grill master in front of your friends and family. Just think of what there going to say when you put your hand over the grill and say I think it needs a few more minutes.

As Always, Happy Grilling!