Welcome to Grill Town Guide. Here you will find information about grills, grilling techniques and cooking tips. Charcoal grills typically use charcoal briquets as their fuel source. The briquettes, when burned, will transform into embers radiating the heat necessary to cook food. There are many different charcoal grill configurations - square, round, rectangular, with or without a lid, with or without venting - but the majority of charcoal grills fall into the following categories:
The Kettle Grill
The kettle grill is considered the classic American grill design. The original and often-copied Weber kettle grill, invented in 1951 by George Stephen, has remained one of the best and most reliable charcoal grill designs to date. The grill is composed of a lid, cooking grid, charcoal grid, lower chamber, venting system, ash collection pan, legs, and wheels. The lower chamber that holds the charcoal is shaped like a kettle, giving the grill its name.
The Cart Grill
The charcoal cart grill is quite similar in appearance to the typical gas grill. The cart grill is usually rectangular in design, has a hinged lid, cooking grid, charcoal grid, and is mounted to a cart with wheels and side tables. Most cart grills have a way to adjust heat, either through moving the cooking surface up, the charcoal pan down, through venting, or a combination of the three. Cart grills often have an ash collection drawer for easy removal of ashes while cooking.
The Barrel Grill
In its most primitive form, the barrel grill is nothing more than a 55-gallon steel barrel sliced in half lengthwise. Hinges are attached so the top half forms the lid and the bottom half forms the charcoal chamber. Vents are cut into the top and bottom for airflow control. A chimney is normally attached to the lid. Charcoal grids and cooking grids are installed in the bottom half of the grill, and legs are attached. Like kettle grills, barrel grills work well for grilling as well as true barbequing. For barbequing, lit charcoal is piled at one end of the barrel and food to be cooked is placed at the other. With the lid closed, heat can then be controlled with vents.
The Ceramic Cooker
The ceramic cooker design has been around for roughly 3,000 years. The shichirin, a Japanese grill traditionally of ceramic construction, has existed in its current form since the Edo period. The ceramic cooker is just as versatile as the kettle grill but the ceramic chamber retains heat and moisture more efficiently.
The Hybrid Grill
A hybrid grill is a grill used for outdoor cooking with charcoal and natural gas or liquid propane and can cook in the same manner as a traditional outdoor gas grill. The manufacturers claim that it combines the convenience of an outdoor gas grill with the flavor and cooking techniques of a charcoal and wood grill. In addition to providing the cooking heat, the gas burners in a hybrid grill can be used to quickly start a charcoal/wood fire or to extend the length of a charcoal/wood cooking session.

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Cooking Tips…
To charbroil is a means of cooking by placing meat, fish, or vegetables on a flat, horizontally lined surface. The steel grid-like lines are then heated by a fire below, which then creates the burned "lines" on a steak's surface. Charbroiling is a better means of cooking meat to well-done or near there instead of broiling it au jus because of the speed and tenderness it can maintain. It also does not dry out the meat.
Roasting
Roasting is a cooking method that utilizes dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting usually causes caramelization of the surface of the food, which is considered a flavor enhancement. Meats and most root and bulb vegetables can be roasted. Any piece of meat, especially red meat that has been cooked in this fashion is called a roast. Vegetables and poultry prepared in this way are referred to as roasted
Rotisserie
Rotisserie is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit and revolves over a flame or other heat source. The rotation cooks the meat evenly in its own juices and allows easy access for continuous basting if desired. Historically, rotisseries were turned by hand or by clockwork contrivances. Nowadays, they are usually driven by electric motors. Horizontal rotisserie mounts the spit horizontally. They are often used to cook whole chickens or roasts of various meats including beef and pork. The design may include a single spit mounted over an open broiler or grill, a single spit mounted within an otherwise-conventional oven, or many spits mounted within a large industrial oven. The latter are commonly used to mass-produced roasted meats for sale to consumers. The other common style of rotisserie is the vertical rotisserie; here, the heat is applied directly from the side or convected up from below. In this style of rotisserie, balance of the load is less important than with a horizontal rotisserie.
Smoking…
Smoking is the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to the smoke from burning or smoldering plant materials, most often wood. Meats and fish are the most common smoked foods. Hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, alder, maple, and fruit-tree woods such as apple, cherry and plum are commonly used for smoking. Other fuels besides wood can also be employed, sometimes with the addition of flavoring ingredients. "Hot smoking" is a several-hours-long process that can be used to fully cook meats or fish; barbecue is a form of hot smoking. Generally, hot smoking involves holding the food directly above the fire, or in an enclosure that is heated by the fire. The cooking temperature in a hot-smoking environment is usually between 55 and 80°C (130–180°F) the temperatures reached in hot smoking can kill microbes throughout the food. Cold smoking is an hours- or days-long process in which smoke is passed by food that is held in a separate area from the fire. Generally the food is held at room temperatures (15–25.5°C/60–80°F) as it is smoked. Since no cooking takes place, the interior texture of the food generally isn't affected; neither is any microbes living within the meat or fish. For this reason, cold smoking has traditionally frequently been combined with salt curing, in such foods as ham, bacon, and cold-smoked fish like lox (smoked salmon). Hardwoods are made up mostly of three materials: cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Cellulose and hemicellulose are the basic structural material of the wood cells; lignin acts as a kind of cell-bonding glue.
Spice rubs…
Spice rubs can also have ingredients like herbs, crushed garlic or oil added to make a paste. The spice rub can be left on or partially removed before cooking. Spice rubs are mainly used for preparing meats and fish There are a large number of different recipes for rubs and most of them are targeted towards a specific kind of food. The exact combination of spices that makes a good rub for a particular kind of food vary from region to region and culture to culture.

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