It was my father who bought the family their first charcoal grill way back in 1974. I remember it well, we bought it whilst camping in France and we\’d taken some advice from one of our French neighbors on the camp ground. Looking back I have fond memories of that grill, it cooked many a great meal but because it was only made out of steel, eventually it warped and had to be thrown on the scrap heap.

Having smiled at all the fond memories it did of course have it\’s flaws as well as it\’s star qualities. When cooking over open coals it can be really difficult to control the level of heat or indeed any flames that can sometime appear from time to time. There\’s two ways that you control the flames, one is to lift the food away from the coals so that less heat gets to the food, less fat melts into the coals and so the flames die down. The other way is to starve the fire of oxygen or in simple terms put a lid on it. This will have the desired effect but it won\’t effect the heat too much so even with a lid you still stand the risk of charring your food.

Having a lid on a barbecue does have it\’s advantages but for me the lid really comes into full force when we are indirect cooking. We\’ll come onto that later and just to finish the point on heat control, for me it\’s about being able to adjust the height at which the cooking rack is away from the coals. Whenever you\’re grill becomes ready to cook on, this is the time when the coals will be most hot so at this point it\’s good to have the cooking grid “high” above the coals so I always look for a grill that has the facility to adjust the height of the cooking grate. That said, to this day I\’ve never found a grill that has sufficient adjustment.

The next thing to think about is what style of cooking do you want to do? For example, our first family grill had a hinge at the legs so you could either use it as a traditional grill with the coals underneath the food or you could turn it through ninety degrees so that the coals are to one side and using it this way you could attach a rotisserie unit. If spit roasting is your thing then this is definitely a factor worth considering however I have to say that I haven\’t recently seen a grill like the one that my family had. I still have a similar one made by Le Creuset but sadly it\’s no longer manufactured – probably down to cost.

Let\’s get back to the indirect cooking. If this is your style of BBQ then there\’s a couple of features over and above the lid that I would consider.

1. Think carefully about the size of the cooking area. When cooking indirectly you effectively need part of the cooking area left without food on it because directly under this area will be your coals so if you like to cook for a lot of people or if you are planning on cooking turkey, you\’re going to need a pretty sizable cooking area.

2. Have you got the facility to do indirectly? Many grills have a separator to keep the coals clear from the food, it sound like an obvious thing but double check this point.

3. Has the grill got vents top and bottom? You\’ll need this feature in order to ensure that otherwise you won\’t be able to keep the fire going.

Author Bio: In addition to his knowledge about charcoal barbecue grills, Paul Yates has perfected how to build a brick BBQ and written many gas grill reviews.

Category: Cooking
Keywords: Charcoal Grill, barbecue grill features,