Basics of Grilling: 1 - What to buy







If you are going to grill charcoal is your best bet. For thousands of years it was the only way that people cooked, and in many parts of the world it is still the primary method of cooking. Once you get the hang of it cooking on charcoal can be just as easy and fast as cooking on a stove or gas grill. With the right techniques you can get a Weber kettle grill preheated to oven temps just as quickly as an oven or gas grill. And most importantly, it allows you to add smoke as flavor.

What to buy

The best set up for charcoal grilling includes these basic tools:

• Weber kettle
• Charcoal chimney
• Grill brush (to clean grill)
• Metal tongs with a long handles
• Metal spatula with a long handle
• Cheapo welding gloves ($10-15)

That is it. There are a number of accessories that can certainly help, and if you're a gear head grilling offers a wide array of tools of varying usefulness that you can spend your money on. But the items above are all you really need to start with.

What size grill should I get?






It is important to realize that you don't want the entire grill to be covered in coals, you should leave half of it empty so you create a cooler zone than the direct fire (cooler is a relative term, it can easily still be around 350-450 degrees). Keeping that in mind, the size depends on how many people you want to cook for and how large the items are that you want to cook. The 22" kettle is the standard size and will allow you to roast chickens, small turkeys, smoke a couple racks of ribs, and grill plenty of burgers and hot dogs. An 18" grill (pictured above) is still plenty big enough for small birds and for most parties of 5-10 people.

Why do you need a charcoal chimney?





Would you put gasoline on any food you cook? If that doesn't sound appetizing you should not use lighter fluid or matchlight charcoal. These things can add a petroleum taste to whatever you cook, or increase the amount of time you have to wait to use the fire. A chimney avoids this problem, and will light the charcoal faster than fluid. To really speed things up buy a turkey fryer and place the chimney on the burner going full blast. You'll have hot coals in no time at all.

Do the utensils need to be metal?





Yes. Metal utensils are very important for grilling. They allow you to sanitize your utensils while cooking, and you don't have to worry about leaving melted plastic on the food you're grilling. After touching raw meat you can rest the tongs or spatula on the grate and cook the raw meat juices that are on them it takes about 10 seconds to cook the thin layer of raw meat on the utensils. This effectively sanitizes them. The need for long handles is obvious - fire gets hot. Short handles will get frustrating very quickly, and most likely result in some minor burns. You shouldn't need to wear gloves when handling utensils on a small grill.

Aren't welding gloves overkill?
No! They are much cheaper than most of the grill gloves on the market, and they work much better. They are meant to be used to manage the fire, not to be used while turning the food or doing the general cooking. They allow you to pick up and move burning charcoal, rotate the grill grate while it's hot, move the grill, remove a lid while it's hot, etc. Grilling is basically fire management, and if you can just put your hands in the fire and grab any part of a hot grill without worry you'll save yourself a lot of frustration.


So those are the basic things you'll need. Next up I'll get into what to do with these tools.