What Is Direct Grilling?

As the name suggests, direct grilling involves cooking food directly over a fire, usually three to six inches above the flame. This method is used to cook relatively small, thin, tender pieces of food - steaks, chops, chicken breasts, fish fillets, vegetables, tofu, sliced pineapple - foods that cook quickly, benefiting from the searing heat of the fire. To grill using the direct method, all you do is place the food on the grate over your heat source. The challenge of direct grilling - especially when using charcoal - is to control the heat. One way to do this is to build a three-zone fire.
A three-zone charcoal fire:
To build a three-zone fire in a charcoal grill, rake half of the lit coals into a double layer on one side of the grill, so that they cover about a third of the bottom grate (you can use a garden hoe to rake out the coals). The rest of the coals go in a single layer in the center of the bottom grate. Leave the remaining third bare. This gives you three heat zones - a hot zone for searing, a medium zone for cooking, and a cool or safety zone where you can move what you are grilling if it starts to bum or keep cooked food warm.
A three-zone gas fire:
To control the heat on a gas grill, you could adjust the burner controls, but I prefer to set up a three-zone fire here, too. Turn one burner on to high heat, then turn one or two burners on to medium. Leave the remaining burner turned off. If your grill has only two burners, use the warming rack as your safety zone.
A two-zone fire (charcoal and gas):
When you are grilling only a couple of steaks or chicken breasts, you can use a two-zone fire. Depending upon what you are cooking, if you are using a charcoal grill, spread the coals out in an even layer, leaving a quarter of the grill bare, or make a double layer of coals in half of the grill and a single layer in the other half. If you are using a gas grill, preheat half or two out of three of the burners to the desired temperature; leave the rest turned off. This gives you a hot zone for grilling and a cooler zone for dodging the flames or resting the meat.

R.E. Ferguson has been in the grill and outdoor products industry for over 10 years. He is a frequent writer and industry expert on gas grills, charcoal grills and just about every other type of grill on the market. For gas grills and grilling accessories, you can visit his website at BuyGasGrills.com.

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