Turn Up The Heat!

Before you toss your steaks or chicken or burgers on the barbecue grill, make certain you have given the grill time to heat up. Generally it’s a good idea to turn the grill on – close the lid – and let it heat up for at least 5 minutes. That also softens the grid and makes it easy to clean.

We’re talking about a gas grill right now. Many have the temperature guages on the front which measure from low temperature to high temperature. Wait until the needle reaches the high temperature mark and then . . . . . start to grill.

Use direct heat on steaks and other meats that you generally grill quicker. Use indirect heat on meats and whatever that require longer cooking periods, such as spare ribs or chicken.

A grilling technique I use regularly when grilling for just my wife and myself, is to alternate sides of the grill to grill the meat on everytime I grill. In other words, I grill steaks today and grill them over the right burner and center burner, then the next time I grill I switch to the left burner.

When I am slow cooking over indirect heat, I will generally have the unused burner on high. That makes the cooking temperature high to thoroughly cook the insides of the meat. Pretty much like an oven.

Obviously if grilling for a large number of people, the entire cooking surface is used, and you need to adjust your burners as such. Keep in mind that even though the new grills with the porcelain grids cook evenly, you will still have areas where you might get flare up so you need to keep an eye on the meats and move them around occassionally so they all finish at the same time.