Direct Heat and Indirect Heat
Grilling is perfect for cooking everything from hamburgers and hot dogs to tender brisket to roasted whole chickens—and the way you use a grill can have a dramatic effect on how your food turns out. Direct grilling, which exposes food to high heat, is perfect for burgers and steaks, while indirect grilling, which surrounds food with lower, indirect heat, is optimal for smoked foods and tender meat that falls off the bone.
What Is Direct Heat Grilling?
Direct heat grilling is a cooking process that involves heating food either above hot coals (in a charcoal grill) or above a propane flame (in a gas grill). When you cook food with direct heat, you place food directly on the cooking grate with the heat source directly beneath it. The cooking process tends to be fast, and your main job is to regulate the temperature (either by adjusting the top vent of your grill or by removing the grill lid entirely) and regularly flip your meat to prevent it from burning.
The direct cooking method produces food that has a crisp, slightly charred outside and a tender juicy inside. This is why it works so well for hamburgers, sirloins, tenderloins, chicken breasts, and meaty fish like salmon and tuna.
What Is Indirect Heat Grilling?
There are two ways to cook with indirect heat: grilling and smoking. The indirect grilling method involves placing meat on a grill so that it is never directly above the heat source. In the two-zone method of indirect grilling, heat comes from one side of the grill, while the meat cooks on the other side. In other words, you might place burning coals on the left side of a kettle grill and place the meat on the right side of the charcoal grate.
The other indirect cooking method is smoking. Smoking takes place in a closed grill or—even better—an actual pellet smoker, gas smoker, or electric smoker. These smokers mix wood chips with their primary heating sources of coal, gas, or electric rods. Smoking is great for anything from beef brisket to fish fillets to large cuts of meat, but it does take a long time.
