9 Tips and Tricks to Attaining Grillmaster Glory
By Kansas City Steak Company
As any good baseball coach will tell you, it’s always about the fundamentals. It’s the hours you put in perfecting your form off the field that pays the most on the field. And, every good coach has their own groups of tips, tricks, and drills to shape each athlete into the best possible player.
Well, mastering the grill is no different. You’ve got to understand good form and approach. Then you have to put the time into practicing that form.
In that spirit, we’ve put together a list of some basic tips and tricks we think everyone should know – and practice ardently. Some of these will probably be familiar, but some might be new and, just maybe, move you from batting a .210 to ending this season over .300.
- Brush the grill grate with oil. – Keep food from sticking to the grill and make clean up easier by simply brushing the grill with a neutral oil.
- Use a chimney to start charcoal. – Lighter fluid has a certain taste that tastes, well, like lighter fluid. It’s not really what most people want their meat tasting like. Instead, buy a chimney and start all your charcoal with a little newspaper and a match.
- Keep the grill closed. – Fight the urge to constantly open your grill. Remember: “It lets out the heat and dries out your meat.”
- Try adding smoke. – You don’t have to own a smoker to give your food a smoky flavor. Have some woodchips on hand for anytime you want to add a little smoke. Play around with different types of woods to see what kind of smoke flavor you like best.
- Create heat zones. – Pile your charcoal in a way that creates heat zones on the grill. You can move the items that have finished cooking to the zones with less heat and use the hotter zones for items that might need additional heat. If grilling steak, it can also serve as a sear zone.
- Leave your mark. – Put a deep thumbprint in the center of the finished meat patty. Burgers tend to plump up in the center, which is not the desired burger shape. A quick divot in the center of each patty will prevent this.
- Always lay things in a uniform line. – Lay all of your items uniformly from left to right or right to left in a line. This makes grill management easier and allows for quick, uniform flipping and removal from the grill.
- Once is enough. – Only flip your burgers once. All the experts agree – you only need/should flip a burger once on the grill. Don’t be the nervous flipper; just let the grill do the work.
- Know your grill. – Above all, know your grill. Every grill is a little different and learning how your grill works is as much a matter of achieving greatness as basic safety.
Happy grilling!
