distance from coals to grill

S

stonelake

Guest
I'm building a grill from a 300 gal. tank and making the coal height adjustible would take quite a bit of work. I'm wanting to start out with a fixed height, and was curious as to the best distance between the coals and cooking surface? It will be used for grilling, using charcoal, and has a stainless steel screen cook surface .
 
The distance from fire grate to cooking grate on my Weber Kettle is 5 inches. I think this would be a good starting point.
 
I'm using a 250 gallon tank and decided to use three shelves to control the distance.
 
something big like that is going to have to be further away if it's full of coals.. I'd start out with at least 2ft..
 
How are you going to load and contain your heat source?
 
qman said:
For GRILLING Chavo??
Click to expand...
if it's like I'm thinking.. A long grill loaded with charcoal is going to get allot hotter than you think. You'll burn your stuff up if it's to close.
 
Chavo27 said:
if it's like I'm thinking.. A long grill loaded with charcoal is going to get allot hotter than you think. You'll burn your stuff up if it's to close.
Click to expand...

I have cooked on a lot of big flat grills in the past. You control the heat by bunching up the coals for more heat, spreading them out for less, or moving them to the sides to cook indirect.
We used to do a three level charcoal fire on an 8 foot grill, with a real hot zone at one end, medium-hot in the middle, and low heat at other end.

you start burgers, steaks, whatever at hot end, move them as they cook, then use low heat to hold product if necessary.

If cooking grate is too far from coal grate, you have to have a huge pile of fuel to generate searing heat at grill level.
 
qman said:
I have cooked on a lot of big flat grills in the past. You control the heat by bunching up the coals for more heat, spreading them out for less, or moving them to the sides to cook indirect.
We used to do a three level charcoal fire on an 8 foot grill, with a real hot zone at one end, medium-hot in the middle, and low heat at other end.

you start burgers, steaks, whatever at hot end, move them as they cook, then use low heat to hold product if necessary.

If cooking grate is too far from coal grate, you have to have a huge pile of fuel to generate searing heat at grill level.
Click to expand...
yeah that's right depending how many coals you have will depend on how far away you need it. I like you 3 section idea...
 
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