Grilling

Get some good oven thermometers. Putting a high—temperature thermometer inside your grill will help you get a feeling for how warm it is, and eventually, you'll come to understand how your cooker operates.

Invest in a good instant—read digital thermometer for taking temps inside your meat.  You'll be tempted to go to your local kitchenwares store and purchase one there. That's a great start, but eventually you'll want to upgrade to a Thermapen. They take all the guesswork out of cooking the perfect steak.

It's OK to pierce the meat with a thermometer. We've all been told that sticking a fork in the meat will rob it of its juices. But I'd rather be confident that my meat has been fully cooked to the appropriate temperature. I'm OK losing a ¼ teaspoon of juices.

That being said, don't lose any more delicious juices than necessary. Always use tongs or a spatula to handle meat. Piercing meat with a fork allows juices to escape, making the meat less moist.

Take the time to apply good food-handling techniques. Keep raw foods away from cooked. It sounds simple enough, but don't forget to use a different plate to carry in the cooked meat—do not use the plate you carried the raw meat out to the grill on. Wash your hands and any utensils right after they've touched raw meat.

To keep food from sticking the grill and make it easy to turn, brush the hot grill with vegetable oil before cooking.

Allow the grill to heat thoroughly before starting the food.

Always leave your self an "out".  All fires used for grilling, whether gas or charcoal, develop areas that are hotter than others. These "hot spots" are good, for instance when you are searing a steak. But sometimes these hot spots just scald and burn the meat. So, it’s good to know where the hottest and coolest spots are on your grill. When things get too hot, and there are too many flare ups from dripping fat, move the meat to a cooler spot. It's not a bad idea to have at least one area that has NO charcoal underneath it as an "escape". Learn to use the differences in temperature to your advantage.

Understand that meat continues to cook, even after it’s been removed from the heat source. Sometimes, the rise in temperature is modest and only happens in the first couple of minutes after the meat has been removed. Sometimes the rise is more dramatic…10, 15, maybe 20 degrees, depending on how big the piece of meat is and the temperature at which it was cooked. The hotter the temperature at which the meat was cooking the more the temperature will rise when removed from the heat.

If using charcoal, stop using lighter fluid. It imparts an odor that is very difficult to remove. If you must use lighter fluid, soak about six or seven coals and light them. As they get hot, start piling up more coals on top of them. This will ensure that you burn off all of the lighter fluid. A preferred method is to use a charcoal chimney, or one of the electric element lighters.

The secret to evenly cooked vegetable kabobs is to parboil solid or starchy veggies before they are threaded onto skewers for grilling. For best results, grill veggies on skewers separate from meat. If you use wooden or bamboo skewers, be sure to soak them in cold water at least 20 minutes before grilling.

Clean Those Grill Grates

Warm soapy water and SCOTT^® Shop Towels are perfect for the job. Only nasty flavors reside on dirty grates. Check out How to Get Clean for more ideas to care for your grill.