505-00100 Rev A
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4.3.
Controlling the heat
The charcoal fire is contained in a movable basket under the cooking grate. The entire bed of coals is
raised and lowered with a lever on the side of the grill. You don't have to turn cranks, move the food or
reset the grate to a different notch. The heat control motion is a simple lever that is smooth and
instantaneous. You control the heat of a live charcoal fire across a complete range of heat settings—just
like the temperature knob on a gas grill.
At the "hot" end of the spectrum the coals are up directly under the food grate to generate intense
radiant heat. If you like your steaks "Black and blue" (sometimes called "Pittsburg Style"
1
) or want
them prepared as if they came out of an 1800 degree steakhouse roaster, you can do it with the German
Grill. Use the lever to "blast" foods for a few seconds: to add a final char to meats, toast bread, crisp a
pizza, caramelize fruits, or sear vegetables.
At the "medium" range of the spectrum, the coals are centered in the firebox for familiar barbecue
temperatures and cooking times. Use this setting and your usual kettle techniques with hamburgers,
chicken, steaks and shrimp.
At the "cool" end of the spectrum move the lever down to provide constant low temperatures and
indirect heat for ribs, brisket, and other slow cooking foods.
Radiant Heat and the Lift Arm. 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.
Your grill will allow you to vary the heat a multiple of roughly six times the heat energy 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, caramelize and generally take advantage of Maillard reactions.
1
Black and Blue = black and crusty on the outside, red and barely warm in the center.
