A Pro likes to have a controlled temperature variation, a hot area and a not so hot area. In grilling this is called a two level fire, are you taking notes? Because we do have a bonus at the end of this book for those who keep reading.
If you have a dual burner gas grill just set one burner on high and the other on medium. The advantage to this is that you will have one area to sear foods and another area to cook them through.
For a charcoal grill you will want to set up half of your fire grate in a single layer of coals and the other half in two or three layers of coals. This will give you the hot and medium areas to do your cooking. Never thought of that, did you?
This method is great if you are cooking different types of foods at the same time.
For instance if you were grilling fajitas, you would sear the steak over the high heat and cook the peppers over the lower heat. After you have mastered the two level fire you will certainly see the advantage of this method.
The other type of fire you need to learn how to build is the indirect fire.
The simplest form of this of this fire is to put all the coals on one side of the grill and no coals on the other side.
But what if you have a gas grill? Can you even do this, indirect fire technique?
Yes!
For a gas grill this is equivalent to turning the burner on one side on and leaving the other off. Wow, we are geniuses aren’t we.
However, with a charcoal grill you can do much more than this.
The Johnny Cash Burning Ring of Fire Technique
The ring of fire is an excellent strategy for an indirect fire if you are using the kettle style of grill, you know the type that we’re talking about?
To build this type of fire, after you have hot coals, push the coals to the outside of the coal grate leaving the middle empty. This method gives you an even heat around the entire grill and a good indirect cooking space.
When building an indirect fire one of the most common problems is having the fire on just one side of the grill. If you are using a gas grill there isn’t a lot you can do to avoid this.
The problem with this is that the heat will be uneven and one side of the food you are cooking will get more heat than the other. This will require you to turn the food often to have it cook evenly.
When you use a charcoal grill you can build the fire everywhere except under the food you are cooking and this gives you a more even heat.
Where Does The Smokey Flavor Come From
Another thing to consider when building a fire is using hardwood.
Using slow burning wood chips will add a smoky flavor to your food. In our catering smoker at the restaurant, we use hickory. Now, if you are going to add wood chips to your fire then you will want to have a place to do that.
- For a gas grill you can use a firebox or wrap the moistened wood chips in foil.
- For a charcoal fire you will just need to leave a small area of the coal grate with just a coals. This makes a good place to put wood chips and they will smoke but not burn away quickly.
Have fun,
Kendall E. Matthews, The Barbecue Apostle
![[Post to Twitter]](http://mspiggiessmokehouse.com/mspiggiessmokehouseblog/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
