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grilling at two temps?

post #1 of 5
7/16/09 at 12:15pm
Thread Starter 
hi. love the forum here! i'm just a backyard bbq'er and i had a question that's been bothering me for some time. if i want to grill two types of food that both require different temperatures to be cooked at (i usually grill with the lid down so that i can get an accurate reading of the temperature inside the grill) how can i tell what the temperature is at different parts of my grill? like if i want the left hand side to be at 450 and the right hand side at 350 or something like that. is it possible? i always have to grill one thing at 450 first, then put the other item on at 350. then my mother-in law yells at me for taking so long to grill! any help would be appreciate. i hope my posting makes sense. i'm thinking that maybe it's not possible with the lid down as it turns the bbq in to an oven and it would just be one temp across the grill? i'm confused.

thanks!
liver
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post #2 of 5
7/16/09 at 1:40pm
Grilling with the lid down will not help you do what you want to do. If you're grilling something that can be cooked start to finish in 10 minutes or less, you don't need to put down the lid. Further, temperature gauges only report the temperature in a specific location. You'd be better off learning to gauge temps with the hand test unless you wan to do some indirect grilling and then you need a remote thermometer for best results.

Put the lid on only for longer cooking items indirect grilling or if you're doing some smoke cooking.
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post #3 of 5
10/7/09 at 12:45pm
The only way to really tell would be to use two seperate thermometers... I don't know how easy that would be. However, it is fairly easy to create two temperatures if you use a charcoal grill. Simply pile most of the coals on one side. The side with all the coals will be hotter. As far as measuring the temperature, maybe you could gustimate using an average temp. For example if you want 350°/450°, aim for 400° with the lid closed and have a hot and cool side of the grill like I suggested above.

-Damon from amazing-easy-recipes.com
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post #4 of 5
10/7/09 at 1:43pm
The lid thermometer could be off by as much as 100 degrees depending on where its mounted. If you really want to know grate temps by some oven thermometers and set them in various places to get a pattern of the hot and cold spots.
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post #5 of 5
10/7/09 at 7:12pm
Like Mary said, the thermometer in the lid can be 100 degrees F off from the temps on the grate where the food is cooking. Some years ago I did some testing with my offset smoker and measured such a difference. After some simple mods to the unit I got the grate temp and lid thermo to be within 25 - 30 degrees of each other.

If you have a multiple burner gas unit leaving a burner off on one section can accomplish the same effect as piling all the charcoal on one side.


mjb.
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