Whoa, what is this? Indirect grilling, why bother with that? I thought we were supposed to just fire up the ole grill, open a can of beer and when it is hot, just throw on the steaks and go sit down? As my kids would say when they were younger, "silly goose!"
If you want BBQ done right there are some steps that you have to take, but it really is not that hard. And it is not hard to master grilling and barbecuing so well that you will be known around your circle of friends and neighbors that you are the "go to guy" for BBQ tips. Now that way when you go out and check your mail you can hold your head up higher, puff your chest out a little larger and kinda strut for you just might be the BBQ King of your cul-de-sac. It's possible!
One of the methods of grilling to get a superior product delivered to your table, or picnic table in the park, is to use a method known as indirect heat cooking. Indirect grilling is very important to us backyard chefs, especially if we want our food to be bragged about next Sunday at church….or on Friday night when you are on your bowling team and the guys are all bragging about your grilling skills.
All indirect grilling is:
*fire on the left
*no fire on the right
No, no, no, it can't be that easy? Sure it can. Oh, well, you're right, the fire could be on the right not on the left. Only kidding with you, but you get the point, I am sure. One side has the fire, or heat source, and the other side of the grill does not. And cooking with indirect heat can be done at any temperature, but the lid, or hood must be closed. You want to keep that heat in.
The Process
Here is how you do it. Place your well-lit briquettes on one side of the grill and not on the other. So just one side is hotter than the other. If it is a gas grill, then just turn on one side, duh? Oh, but what about a Weber, it is round? That is so easy you might as well say, "Alex, can I have the round Weber for a hundred?" With the Weber you have a choice, you can pile up the briquettes on one side and on the far other side there will be no heat.
Or you can place your briquettes all around the Weber in a circle and nothing in the middle. There in the middle you would place an aluminum tray for a drip pan to catch all the drippings. Here is a good tip: sometimes when we do brisket instead of that drip pan, we would place our pan of baked beans, cowboy bean, whatever you want to call them. And as the fat melts down with all the drippings (with all that flavor) they go into the beans. You talk about flavor! We have a lot more tips like that in our free newsletter that you can sign up for.
So you want to get the part of the grill that is going to have the fire under it as hot as you can get it. Place your meat there and sear it on both sides. Let us say we are talking about a thick-cut pork chop. I have that in mind because that is what I had for dinner on a date with my wife the other night at TGIFridays. And it was pretty good, by the way.
Ok, you have this thick inch pork chop, preferably bone-in and you season it real well, salt and pepper, or you can use our product, ChefMichaels signature Blend hickory BBQ Rub. But whatever, you season it and place it on the hottest part of the grill and after a few minutes, you rotate it to get those good grill marks. Now, turn it over and do the same thing with the other side. After you have marked it on both sides, you can then move the thick pork chop over to the cooler side where there is no fire under the product. This would be the indirect side.
And you can leave it there to finish cooking/grilling….but with the lid down….always. You always want to leave that lid down on cooking with indirect heat because you want to keep the heat in and not let it escape.
Food you can cook with the indirect method:
* Ribs
* Chicken
* Beer can chicken
* Thick cut pork chops
* Brisket
* Tri tip
* Roasts
The question, indirect grilling, why bother is important because there are some cuts of meat that we would be cooking that would just simply be charred to a crisp if we left them over direct heat. remember the chicken story I told when I first started to learn how to barbecue? It was my first Father's Day present: a brand new barbecue and I could not wait to use it. So after trying to figure out how to put the thing together I did my famous Blackened Chicken. Black, black, black on the outside, frozen on the inside. Nobody ever told me about indirect cooking and why we need it. And that is why I am sharing this with you. Remember, we are going to make you the BBQ King of your neighborhood.
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