Two Level Fire:
With this grill you can make any size and shape of fire that you need, and the classic "two level fire" is automatically created by the process of lighting the grill. The charcoal lights in the front of the coal basket, so you get direct heat at the front and indirect heat at the back. If you are doing pure grilling, flip the dozer blade and spread the coals evenly for 100% direct heat. If you want to change the pattern, open the front door and you have complete access to move the coals around for your latest adventure.

Suggestions: Remember that you can move the coals without opening the hood or moving the food. Always use a simple foil pan at the back of the grill to catch drippings. You can add wood chips and also add or remove coals.

Radiant Heat and the Lift Arm:
As you may recall from high school physics, radiant heat energy (infra-red) varies as the square of the distance from the source. This means that as you change the distance from fire to food, the change in heat energy is much faster than the change in distance. For example, if you raise the coals from 8 inches below the food to 4 inches below, you only halved the distance, but you get four times the radiant heat energy. 

This grill allows you to vary the heat roughly 6x from the bottom of the stroke to the top. This is what we mean when we say you can give your food a "blast" of radiant heat to brown, carmelize and generally take advantage of the mysterious Maillard reactions ...

There are hundreds of chemical reactions going on here.

Browning the food:
Food scientists refer to "browning" or "searing" as Maillard reactions. They are named after Louis Maillard, a physician who, in the early 1900s, described some of the chemistry behind cooking and may have been the first food scientist.

Maillard browning describes the affects of high heat on meat, vegetables, and other foods that are not primarily composed of sugar. (Sugar "simply" turns to caramel when you heat it. Caramelization is a less complex process ... one you can appreciate when you sprinkle a little sugar on a slice of pineapple and caramelize it on the grill for a few minutes. Eat with ice cream. Life is good ... but back to meat and vegetables...)

Maillard reactions involve carbohydrates and amino acids reacting when they get hot enough to produce browning, crispness and intense flavors. The flavors come from pyrazines, oxazoles, and hundreds of other by-products caused by the heat.

BOTTOM LINE: Food tastes better when is has a little "char" on it!

Sweet, caramelized carrots

Now, these tasty reactions don't get going until the surface of the food reaches at least 250 degrees (F). But your masterpiece can't get any hotter than 212 until the surface moisture boils off. (Most foods that we grill are about 80% water, and, in its liquid state, water can never get hotter than 212.) Nothing happens until the water evaporates from the surface and the magic starts. This is another reason that charcoal is better than gas. A gas flame is about 30% water vapor. It simply can't create the same intense, dry heat as charcoal.

BOTTOM LINE: Avoid limp vegetables, grey steaks, and steamed ribs. Use a real fire.

Suggestions: Dry the surface of your food before you put it on the grill so it can brown quickly. Oil is your best friend ... almost everything you put on the grill can be dried and oiled before you start. Also, before you put the food on the grill, get the grate very hot to sear in the flavors. Use rubs instead of sauces. Sauces usually contain sugar (which burns) and water (which turns to steam). Both ingredients prevent the Maillard reactions that are the hallmark of true grilling.

Once the surface moisture is gone, things start to happen fast.

Once the magic starts, you need to stay in control. The art of grilling is using high heat to char the surface of your food while controlling how much heat is absorbed into the center of the food. This is why a "Pittsburg" or "Black and Blue" steak is possible. Some of us like the outside almost incinerated and the inside barely warm. Some of us think that's disgusting. But nobody likes a tough, gray steak.

However you like your steaks, or any other foods, the German grill gives you unique tools to balance and control heat transfer. You can get things perfect.

Suggestions: Raise the coals to make sure you get browning on the surface, then lower the lever to get the food exactly how you like it cooked in the center. Don't be afraid to throw in some wood for a live flame. Use a thermometer or master the "chef's touch" to see if a steak is done the way you like it.

Don't nick it with a knife. All the juice runs out.

Grilling, Barbecuing, Smoking, Broiling:
There's a lot of discussion about this, but here's how the various cooking methods seem to relate to the German grill.

Grilling: Direct heat ... expensive meat ... constant attention. You should use a fairly large load of charcoal (lighting chamber full to the top) and after the light, flip back the dozer blade and spread the coals evenly under the cooking grate. If you need more heat, add some more charcoal after you have spread out the lighting chamber.

Only grill tender meats such as steak, hamburger (pre-chewed steak), chops, shrimp and fish filets. Grill vegetables, mushrooms, and pizza. Don't close the cover; grilling is a radiant heat process and convective heat is a minor factor. Most of these foods are fairly juicy and will dry out and be ruined if you cook them too slow. They are also fairly thin so that the inside can heat up before the outside turns to black crunch. Properly done, you heat the grate for deep char marks, raise the coals to brown, then lower to finish. The high heat sears the outside, gives great flavor and seals the juiciness inside.

Be careful. The key to the perfect steak (or any ongoing obsession) is knowing when to stop. With our grill, you are controlling a lot of heat and the interior temperature of a steak can rise more than 10 degrees per minute. So the difference between a perfect, rare $30 steak, and shoe leather, is less than three minutes.

Barbecuing: Indirect heat ... cheaper meat ... have a drink. To barbecue, you want medium-high heat, but not directly under the food; and you want the cover closed to get smoky, convective cooking. Your grill is engineered for this. Use less charcoal than when you are grilling (lighting chamber roughly half full) or the temperature under the hood will shoot up to 700 degrees when you close the cover and everything dries out. After the light, you leave the dozer blade in the forward position and place the food on the back.  (The grill automatically creates an indirect cooking zone at the rear of the grate unless you flip the dozer blade.) You should barbecue meats that have to cook longer because they are thicker such as chicken, sausage, filets, small turkeys and roasts. These cuts are also usually "messier" in that they drip fats down into the grill and make a mess inside. We always place an aluminum foil drip pan under the food. It fits nicely into the rear of the coal basket.

Temperature plot using the train method with lump charcoal. Briquettes will also work for this, but some people feel that briquettes give you "off" flavors as they light.

Smoking: Lowest heat ... cheapest meat ... take a nap. You can "smoke" on the German grill, but it's not going to be the same as a real competition side smoker. We use a technique where we light one end of a train of charcoal and it burns without any attention at a low smoky rate for up to two hours like a cigar. (For the light, form a "train" of charcoal around the edges. To light it, put paper in only one side of the lighting chamber.)

You can also use a modified Minion method that burns from the top of the stack down. (Light a small load, move it back, add fresh charcoal and rake the lit on top.) But either way, you have to add wood chips to generate the smoke, and more charcoal through the front access door to keep the heat going long enough. (Remember that you can do this without opening the cover and losing more heat.)

You will generate a passable "smoke ring" on brisket, ribs and roasts, but you can't get the tenderness of a true smoker without one additional step. You must wrap the meats in aluminum foil for an hour or more with some liquid inside the package and put them in the oven or back on the grill. Do this in order to get the meat hot enough (for long enough) to get to the "melting" point of the collogens. This can only be done using moist heat. The melting point occurs around 170 degrees F and it has to stay there for an hour or more without drying out. But it's worth the trouble. This is when you get meat that is smoky and brown, yet so tender that grandma can take her teeth out to eat it. Use this method for brisket, ribs, cheap roasts, turkeys and hams. Use a foil drip pan and avoid a big mess. Throw the meat over direct coals for a few minutes after it comes out of the foil to char the crust and wow your guests.

Broiling: Broiling is the same as grilling, except the fire is over the food instead of under it. Do not try this on the German grill :)