"Grilling. As complex as dating, but usually less expensive."

There are two major divisions of grilling -- heat source and method.

Heat Source

The old "standby" heat source in grilling is charcoal briquettes. The classic hotdog and hamburger grilled over a briquette-fired Weber grill...ah, the good old days. There are other heat sources that are more popular, but not as nostalgic. The charcoal grill has been displaced as the most popular type of grill by Liquid Propane (LP) gas grill. Other common types of heat sources are wood and electric, neither of which is truly suited for cooking the wide variety of foods that charcoal and LP can handle.

For true Barbecue you need to be able to generate a certain amount of smoke to influence the flavor of the foods. This can be done with a classic smoker (see the Style-Smoking page) or by placing wood chips in other types of grills. Barbecue can be done fairly equally on any source of heat, but for the true richness of flavor, a wood fire cannot be beaten. The challenge with a wood fire is the time it takes to get it started and time time it takes to smoke food to the doneness desired.

Gas grills (natural gas or LP) both work well for basic grill foods (hamburgers, etc.) and for the less "enthusiastic" grillers. The ease of using gas has made it the number one choice of the casual griller. LP gas has the inconvenience of the tanks that need to be refilled periodically and natural gas, although more convenient, usually can't get the grill hot enough for some styles of grilling. The choice of LP is probably the smart choice for the griller that wants to cook well, quickly, and without a lot of fuss.

Grilling Methods

Given a nice gas or LP grill , there are really two choices of grilling method...direct and indirect. Direct is how you usually cook "comfort foods", such as hot dogs and hamburgers. This is where you put the food directly over the heat source and cook it using medium to high heat. Indirect is used with larger cuts of meat where you don't want to char the outside while the inside is still raw. The simplistic way of cooking indirect is to turn on the burners on one side of the grill and place the food on the other.

Direct Grilling is easy-- just crank up the fire, put the food directly over the fire, cook until done. Simple. It is the direct exposure to the heat that cooks the food. Because the food is directly over the coals, it is important to watch closely for flare-ups, because fat from the food can drip directly onto the coals.

The foods you usually cook over direct heat are traditional grilling items: hot dogs, steaks, burgers, fish fillets, etc. Anything that is less than 1.5 inches thick can usually be grilled with direct heat. These are things that generally cook quickly and benefit from the fast cooking on a hot grill. This is also the fastest way to cook on the grill--ideal when time is an issue.

Indirect Grilling is more realistically placed in the "baking" or "broiling" category, rather than the classic "over the fire" method of grilling. This approach needs the "fire" to be built near, but not uder the food. On a standard gas grill, this means turning on only part of the burners, placing the food on the grill away from the heat and closing the lid. In essence...an oven. Since the food is not directly over the flame or heat, food will cook more evenly and is less likely to be charred. This is the ideal way to cook foods over 2 inches thick, but of course, this takes considerably more time to cook than direct grilling.

Now charcoal and wood can work just as well as gas. With a charcoal or wood grill you simply build the fire on one side of the grill and cook on the other. When using a charcoal or wood grill to cook indirectly, it's best to build the fire like you always would and then use a small fireplace shovel or something similar to move the tools to the side.