Keep the Lid Down

After it's lit, the grill's lid should be kept down as much as possible. Each time it is opened, heat escapes, and you lose some of the smoke that adds to that grilled flavor. However, the only practical way I know of to keep track of what the food is doing is to look at it.

My compromise between culinary vigilance and energy conservation when grilling hamburger is to check no more than about once every two minutes, until very near the beginning and end of the process. With steak, I try not to check more often than every five minutes.

Theoretically, hood windows let you see what's going on, but in practice they soot up pretty fast. And, since I don't believe in working any harder than necessary at grill maintenance, I haven't put a lot of effort into de-sooting.

Again theoretically, it should be possible to precisely calculate the required grilling times, but in practice differences in the meat's starting temperature and outside conditions make observation the reasonable choice.

Getting back to food safety for a minute, I'm concerned about fluids from raw meat staying on the spatula, or other tools used to handle the meat, especially in the early phases of grilling.

To make sure that little tiny stowaways don't survive the voyage from freezer to serving plate, after putting meat on the grill, I leave the spatula (or whatever tool I used) over the grill for about a minute. That cooks whatever remains on the tool. My grill has slots in lid's side, which makes it possible to close the lid over the spatula handle.

Next: You've Grilled It, Now Serve It

Copyright © 2005-2010 Brian H. Gill