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Gas grilling tips
 Think of your grill as an outdoor oven, similar to your indoor oven.
Preheat the grill for 15 to 20 minutes and adjust the temp before putting on the food.
Don't crowd the cooking surface. Leave room to move food away from flareups.
Put the lid down for foods thicker than 1/2" so it can cook from all sides.
Leave the lid up for foods up for thinner than 1/2" so the top remains cool and you can get good browning oneside at a timewithout overcooking the center.
Pat food dry before cooking unless it has been marinated.
Most foods will benefit from a sprinkling of salt and a thin coat of oil.
If you are using a sweet sauce, add it near the end of the cook because the sugar can burn.
Learn about 2-Zone and Indirect Cooking.
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How much gas is left?
Take a quart of warm water and pour it slowly over the side of the tank. It will warm the metal where the tank is empty and the metal where the liquid propane remains will remain cold. Run you hand down the side to locate the liquid level.
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How gas grills work, maintenance, troubleshooting, and the best setups
Gas grills can be divided into two categories, convection and infrared. To better understand these concepts, you should read my article on the Thermodynamics of Cooking.
Convection grills are the standard system of burners, usually tubes with holes, that sit below the grates upon which food sits. Between the burners and the grates are upsidedown V shaped drip deflectors, lava rocks, or ceramic briquets.
The burners generate heat which is transmitted to the food primarily by hot air flow, by convection. The drip protectors absorb some heat and it is transmitted by radiation. The grates also absorb heat and transmit it via conduction. Conduction is the most efficient method of heating, and that's why the grates make dark brown marks on the meat caused by the Maillard reaction, which kicks in at about 300°F.
What's all the fuss over infrared?
In the past few years a number of gas grills have been touting their superiority because they use "infrared" cooking. Well, if you took high school science, you know that infrared is simply another section of the wavelength continuum around us, just up the road from visible light and down the road from the radio in the car next to you.
Infrared is a section of the spectrum that generates heat, and all grilling is due to heat, so really, all grilling is infrared. What the marketing guys really meant when they called their newfangled cooking systems infrared, was radiant heat because there is a radiant surface, a plate of glass, ceramics, or metal, between the burners and the grates. The radiant surface absorbs the heat from the flame and radiates it to the food. The sun's heat is radiant heat. Usually when a manufacturer says its grill has a "sear burner", it is referring to a section of the grate that has a burner with a radiant plate to amplify heat.
The advantage of radiant heat is that it is more efficient than convection, it gets hotter than convection, often in the 500 to 700°F range, there is less dry air motion, and less moisture is lost. Them's steakhouse temps, pahdna. Also, the radiant surface is usually very close to the food so dripping juices or marinades incinerate and go right back up into the meat, adding flavor without flareups.
Worth it? Yup. Especially if you want good browning. And you do, because browning creates flavor.
If your grill doesn't have infrared, you can add it with GrillGrates, a great product that replaces the manufacturer's grates or sits on top of them and does the job wonderfully. Click the link for my explanation of how they work.
The truth about BTUs
Seasoning and calibrating your grill or smoker with dry runs
The first thing to do after you assemble your new grill or smoker is to season it and calibrate it by doing a few dry runs without food. This will burn off any manufacturer's grease, and give you a sense for how to set it up to hit the two important target temps that almost all my recipes use: 225°F and 325°F.
Of course, in order to do this, you absolutely positively must have a good digital oven thermometer. I don't care how much you spent on your grill, the bi-metal dial thermometer that came with it is probably cheap and unreliable and likely to be off by as much as 50°F. Worse still, it is in the dome, and the temp down on the grate where the meat sits is much different. Like a musician, you must master your instrument to make great food.
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BTU stands for British Thermal Units and it is the measure of energy in a fuel. Grill manufacturers state the BTU, actually BTU/hour, of their grills. BTU/hour is essentially a measure of how much fuel the burners can use in an hour derived from a calculation based on gas pressure, the size of the opening in the gas valve, and the type of gas. The more BTU, the more fuel used. Many people erroneously think that the more BTU the better. But BTU is not a good measure of a grill's cooking ability. It is really more like miles per gallon. The really important figure is what temperature a grill can achieve, which is a factor of how many BTU per square inch of primary cooking surface in a regular convection grill. But it is not a very precise measure because the distance of the heat source from the food is a major factor in how much heat is delivered. And even that doesn't tell the whole story, because infrared grills can generate more heat per BTU per square inch than convection grills because infrared grills are more efficient.
When calculating BTU/square inch of a convection grill, use only the size of the main cooking grate. Some manufacturers try to fool you into thinking their grills have much more cooking surface by telling you only how many total square inches of cooking surface the unit has, including the second grate it has hovering several inches above the main grate as a holding or warming surface. You can cook on the second grate, but the heat reaching it is much lower.
To guestimate how much punch a grill has, divide the BTU by the square inches. So the Weber Summit, which produces 48,000 BTU and has 538 square inches primary cooking surface, produces 89.21 BTU per square inch per hour. As a comparison, there Vermont Castings Heritage 5-Burner generates 62,500 BTU under the 651 square inches of grates, or 96 BTU per square inch per hour. But keep in mind, infrared surfaces negates this formula, and distance from the food can alter it significantly.
Liquid propane vs. Natural gas
You need a special kit to convert from liquid propane (LPG) to natural gas (NG) and some grills have it, but some do not. The BTU of liquid propane is higher than natural gas primarily because it is in a concentrated liquid state. NG kits are designed to deliver more gas than propane, so if you set up NG and LPG properly, the BTU ratings should be the same. In cold weather, however, the LPG tank becomes quite cold and some BTUs are wasted getting the liquid to a gaseous state. NG, however, comes from your house in a gaseous state, so it is a bit more efficient in winter. Just remember, the NG line is usually a hard line and that means you cannot roll your grill around. The real advantages of NG are (1) it is perhaps 20% of the price of LPG, (2) you don't have to run to the store for refill, and (3) you will never run out as long as you pay your gas bill.
The best setup for cooking on gas grills
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You control the temp more precisely with the burner settings. Here are some possibilities. You can also control the temp by placing a water pan above the burners. Size and location of the water pans are important. To get the setup right, do some dry runs without food. Experiment. Click the link to learn how to calibrate your grill.
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The key to success in any grilling project is control over time and temp. For cooking most foods, you do not want roaring heat, you want indirect moist heat. This is an important core concept in mastering outdoor cooking and you should read my articles on 2-Zone or Indirect Cooking, my article on Meat Science, and the Thermodynamics of Cooking.
Here's how to set up a gas grill for 2-Zone or Indirect heat cooking to get great restaurant quality flavor, the best you've ever made, and the best on the block. And, trust me on this, the flavor is as good as anything you can get on any fancy schmancy smoker. Really!
Most gas grills come with more than one burner nowadays because the concept of indirect cooking is becoming better known. If your grill has only one burner, you can still cook indirect with a water pan, described below.
Unfortunately grills don't have thermostats and the built-in thermometers are generally worthless. To become master of your instrument, you need a good digital oven thermometer and you will need to spend a few hours trying the different combinations and writing down the oven temp so you can use your notes later.
On a three burner grill such as the Weber Genesis, you can set up indirect heating four different ways. The one you chose will depend on how cold or rainy it is, how much meat you have, and how hot you want the oven. Don't forget to take notes!
As you can see, there are many many possibilities. What's the best setup? It varies for every grill, the weather,how much cold meat is on the grill, and the desired cooking temp. But some sort of indirect setup is usually the best.
For smoke roasting ribs, pulled pork, or brisket
 Every grill is different, so your exact setup will be different than mine, but if you follow the concepts, killer smoked meats are in your future. This method can also be used for indirect cooking without smoke. If you have a grill with only one burner, or if you have more meat than will fit in the indirect zone, try this technique.
The secret is to put the wood as close to the flame as possible and water under the meat. The water absorbs heat, and helps minimize fluctuations in temp. The moisture also mixes with the smoke and propane combustion gases and creates flavors you cannot get with smoke alone. But this is important to note: You are not steaming the meat! Steam can make the meat mushy and destroy the pork flavors. If you keep the oven temp at 225°F, the water should not boil because the surface area will allow evaporation that will cool the water keeping it below 212°F. Hard to believe, but true. If the water is boiling, you are running hot. Turn it down.
There are two ways to use water pans, depending on the type of grill you have. Here is how I do it on my old Weber Genesis with three burners, front center, and rear. Some gas grills have more or fewer burners, so you may need to adapt this method to fit your rig. But the concepts are the same. Read my article the Zen of Wood for some tips on how to handle the wood.
Method 1: Water pans under the grates
 Get a disposable aluminum roasting pan or two that are, ideally, just about the same size as the interior walls of your gas grill. They should have 2-3" high sides. The pans will get smoke stains on them, so do not use your wife's best roasting pans! If you can, remove your grill's grates and put the pan on top of the flavor bars, lava rock, or ceramic. Do not put the pan right on top of the burners. Fill the pans to within 1/2" of their rims with hot water. Don't waste your money using apple juice or something else I don't think it makes a difference.
The grates are placed over the pans and a thermometer is placed on top of the grates over the water near the meat. I use my grill's center burner only and start on medium heat. You might chose to fire up only a back burner or the left burner. The number of burners may depend on the temperature of the day.
Let the oven come up to temp and stabilize. This could take 30 minutes or more with all that water to heat. The target is 225°F. Adjust the flame up or down, and if you need more heat, fire up a second burner. When you've got everything adjusted, remember the settings or write them on a cooking log, put the wood on top of the hottest burner, and put the meat on top of the water pan.
Method 2: Water pans on top of the grates
 If you cannot put pans under your grates, you can put them on top and use wire baking racks or the grates from your indoor oven on top of the pans. Another option is to use a broiler pan. It is shallow so you will need to watch the water level during your cook. Fire up the grill, bring it up to 225°F or as close as you can get, put the wood on top of the hottest burner, and add the meat above the water pan.
The smoke
For smoke flavor, use hardwood chunks, chips, or pellets. Make an aluminum foil pouch for about 1/2 cup of chips or pellets or place them in a small aluminum pan. Chunks can go on naked. Read my article on the Zen of Wood for a discussion of which wood to use, how to prep it, and how to make a pouch. Place the wood under the cooking grate as close to the flame as possible. Just make sure the wood is over the hottest jets as you fiddle with the burner config to get it to 225°F. If the wood won't smoke because the burners are not hot enough, try turning one burner on high and turn the other two off. Or try lighting them with a lighter. Depending on how many vents are in your grill (they are mostly necessary), you may need several pouches. You will need to experiment to find out.
The meat
Put the meat on the rack above the water. Close the lid and walk away. Add more hot water if you need it. As long as the meat is hovering above the water, it will not burn. You will be amazed at the rich, complex flavors you can get with this simple technique.
Why all the vents on gas grills?
Gas grills have lots of gaps under the lid. The gaps seem to prevent you from getting maximum heat to the cooking surface. They also make it hard to create, capture, and control smoke, making smoking tricky, but it can be done.
I asked Sean Tegart, VP Product Development at Weber, why so much air flow? He explained that for a gasser to burn cleanly, with minimal soot, the gas/air mix must be balanced. Most of this happens at the junction between the pipe just behind the knob and the pipe that goes to the burners. This is called the venturi, and you can adjust it on some grills if you need to. Others, Webers among them, lock the venturi so they cannot be adjusted. You shouldn't need to.
But gas grills also rely upon outside air to keep the burn clean and move combustion gases through, so they are engineered with louvres below the burners or in around the dome. There are also government mandated safety regulations that protect us from leaving scalded flesh on the handles.
But the marketing teams are well aware that shoppers look for the highest BTU production, even if this is not a direct indicator of how hot the cooking surface is and how well it cooks. So some will crank up the BTUs, and then allow the heat to vent out the back in order to meet regs. Others, like Weber, can dial down the BTUs, minimize the ventilation, and still generate plenty of heat.
How the gas systems work and how to troubleshoot them
 Gas grills have a system for regulating the flow of gas from pipeline or tank, mixing it with oxygen, igniting it, and turning the flow up or down. A number of things can go wrong with the process, although they rarely do, but you need to maintain the system to keep it efficient, operating at optimum heats, and make sure it is safe.
In order to function properly the propane tank or natural gas pipe must be connected properly. Keep in mind that for some odd reason the connection works in reverse of the normal "righty tighty, lefty loosey" rule. Gas connections tighten when you turn them to the left.
There is often a flexible hose connecting the gas to the grill, and somewhere along the line is a flying saucer shaped regulator. It has a small hole on the top. Make sure it is not clogged. This regulator is specifically matched with your grill, so if something is wrong with it or the hose, don't fiddle with it, just get the numbers off them and get the same kind. No substitutions. Look for cracks, cuts, or kinks in the hose. If there is anything suspicious, replace it.
If you smell or suspect a leak, mix up some soapy water and with a brush or cloth, paint it on the tubes. Open the tank or pipeline valve and look for bubbles. If you find leaks, turn off the gas immediately and call the manufacturer or a licensed technician experienced in working with gas systems.
The hose will probably connect with a brass pipe that carries the fuel to the valves, one for each burner. That connection needs to be tight. The valves are controlled by knobs. Each knob must turn easily. If a valve is acting up, you can remove the knob and look around, but you should not risk breaking it. Contact the manufacturer for instructions on replacing it.
There is a short brass pipe coming from the valves. It floats inside another pipe called the venturi. It is like the carburetor. It is where air and gas mix. Make sure the pipe is centered in the venturi and there are no obstructions like leaves, spider webs, or wasp nests.
The venturi connects to the burners. They are usually brass, stainless steel, or aluminum pipes with small holes, or jets, from which the flames emit. Sometimes you can remove the burners to clean them, but often that is a real pain. But you need to make sure the burners are clean, so once a year scrub them with a wire brush, and stick the end of a paper clip into the holes to make sure no carbon is blocking them.
If you can easily remove the burners do so and clean out holes, scrape underneath, and put a hose on the end to force water out the jets and flush out any dirt or insects.
The next step is to check the color of the flame. This is best done at night. Reconnect the gas supply and open the valve. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for igniting the burners. If the ignition doesn't work, light the burners with a long handled match or a stick butane lighter. After about 10 seconds the flame should be mostly blue with a small orange or yellow tip. If it is not, you need to adjust the mix to get maximum heat and not waste fuel.
The venturi were set at the factory and should not need adjustment, but occasionally the do. There is often a screw on the side of the venturi that allows you to rotate the air inlet cover and control the amount of air entering the system. Some venturi, like the ones on Webers, cannot be adjusted.
Troubleshooting ignition
Always remember, ignite the grill with the hood open. Gas can build up under the hood and when you hit the ignition the lid can blow open. Or worse.
If you can't ignite the grill it is usually either an ignition system problem or a gas supply problem.
The ignition system. There are two basic ignition systems, electronic, which uses batteries, or piezo electric ignition, which generates a spark by friction. If your electronic ignition isn't working, check the batteries. Some ignitions create their spark by friction, usually a piezo electric system. When you turn a knob or press a button a small quartz crystal is struck by a small springloaded hammer which creates voltage which creates a spark that arcs from a wire to the burner tube. It makes a distinct clicking sound. If it does not work, and if it is aligned properly, you may need a new one, unless you are at very high altitude where they sometimes fail. If there still is no ignition, locate the spark generator, usually a wire, where the spark jumps to the burner. Make sure the spark generator is located properly, usually about 1/8" in front of a gas jet. If there is no spark, clean the igniter and check all the wiring to make sure it is connected properly. If it still doesn't work, you should be able to light the burner with a long match, one of those long handled butane lighters, or a match held in a pair of tongs.
The gas supply system. If it still won't fire up, then the tank may be misbehaving. Some propane tanks contain a safety device that slows the flow of gas if it thinks it's moving too fast. I don't know how it comes to this conclusion. To outsmart it, turn the tank valve off and disconnect the tank. Turn the knobs on the grill to high for one minute and then close them to bleed off any gas in the pipes. Connect the fuel tank and turn on the valve slowwwwwly. It should light now.
If the problem persists, you may have a regulator problem. Regulators are those gray disk like devices on the gas hose near the place where your tank connects to the hose. They occasionally stick and you don't get enough gas flow. To keep your regulator from sticking, when you are done cooking, make sure that you turn off the control knobs on the grill first, then turn off the tank valve. Then when you want to cook, open your tank valve slowly. If it still doesn't work try your spare tank. You do have a backup tank, don't you? This is always a good idea so you don't run out of gas in the middle of a cook.
1) Turn off the gas at the propane tank.
2) Disconnect the gas line from the tank.
3) Open the grill lid.
4) Turn all control valves to high.
5) Wait for about a minute.
6) Turn all control valves to off,
7) Reconnect the gas line to the tank. Slowly turn on the gas at the tank.
8) Light the grill normally.
9) Your grill should now heat normally.
If it still won't fire up, call tech support.
Troubleshooting low heat and hotspots
I often hear complaints about older gas grills that are just not getting up to the old temps or they are heating unevenly. Often you can troubleshoot minor problems yourself, but if there is any difficulty, don't force anything unless you want a spectacular explosion.
Most gas grills have minor hotspots, but some can have major hotspots. A good sign that something is wrong is when the flame is mostly yellow. You want to troubleshoot by turning off the gas and disconnecting the hose from the tank or the source. Check all the connections starting at the tank and all the valves. Play close attention to the venturi, the place where air is mixed with the gas. Spiders often get in there when the grill sits idle.
On a piece of paper draw the cooking surface of your grill, roughly to scale. Divide it into quadrants by drawing a line down the middle of both sides. Then cover your grill grates with heavy duty aluminum foil from corner to corner. Place strips of bacon evenly spaced across the surface. With the lid up, turn the heat to medium high and cook the bacon. Notice which pieces cook fastest and mark them on your drawing. Those are your hotspots. Make note of your cold spots too. Now eat the bacon.
This page was revised on 7/2/2011
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Read this before posting a comment please:
1) If you are looking for info, please use the table of contents or the search box, at the top of every page.
2) Don't ask me any questions that involve temp or time unless you tell me that you are using a digital thermometer! Bi-metal dial thermometers are often off by as much as 50°F! If you are not using a good digital you have no idea what the temp really is so I can't help you. If you are still using a dial thermometer, please read this article about thermometers, then buy a good digital, and then, if the problem persists (chances are it won't), hit me with your questions. Then, please tell me everything I need to know to answer your question. Like the type of cooker you are using. Remember, I am not a mind reader.
3) Please don't ask me "What grill (or smoker) should I buy?" Read my Buyer's Guides and the buying checklists and follow the links. I've shared just about everything I know. Pay attention to the awards I have given my faves. I cannot pick the right cooker for you any more than I could pick the right car or spouse for you.
4) If you have problems posting with Internet Explorer, please read this. If problems persist, send me a note.
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AmazingRibs.com Best in BBQ Gold Medal Winners
Here are three great products that have earned The AmazingRibs.com Best in BBQ Gold Medals. These are not ads!
GrillGrates Take You To The Infrared Zone
GrillGrates are the best new product I have tested in years and the best thing to happen to beef since salt and pepper. The base superheats, eliminates hot spots, and blocks flareups. This is the concept behind the expensive new infrared grills. A must for gas grills. Click here for more about GrillGrates.
The Smokenator: A Necessity For Weber Kettles
If you have a Weber Kettle, you need the amazing Smokenator and Hovergrill. The Smokenator turns your grill into a first class smoker, and the Hovergrill can add capacity or be used to create steakhouse steaks. Click here to read more.
ThermoWorks Pocket Thermometer - No More Guessing
A good thermometer is why I never serve overcooked or undercooked food. This one has a very thin tip with a tiny thermocouple so it gives an accurate reading in just six seconds. I cannot recommend it more highly. It will improve your cooking overnight and pay for itself in a hurry. And it is inexpensive. Click here for more about thermometers.
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