


Oxygen is what feeds your charcoal – too much and it will flare up, too little and it will extinguish. Your charcoal grill’s vents help control temperature by regulating the flow of air both in and out of the grill. How Do Grill Vents Help Regulate Temperature? If you find that you need help regulating your vents, then an automatic BBQ temperature controller is a great tool to help maintain consistent cooking heat levels. Once you have finished grilling and want to extinguish the charcoal, then you need to close the grill lid and also shut both vents completely. Close the Vents Fully to Extinguish the Flames This takes practice and patience, but you will quickly learn how your grill reacts to changes in damper setting. It can take as long as 10 or 20 minutes for a grill or smoker’s temperature to settle, so try to be patient.
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Pro tip: Don’t get too restless and trigger-happy with adjusting the vents. If you think the inside of your grill is getting too smoky then open up the exhaust damper a little more. You don’t want more air to escape than you can allow going in. Try to keep the setting on both the intake damper and exhaust damper the same while you do this. This should help you achieve the magic 225☏ number that is often needed for proper meat cooking. This will limit the flow of oxygen without completely stopping it, therefore bringing down your grill’s internal temperature slightly. You won’t want to completely starve the charcoal of oxygen, so try closing the vents either halfway or three-quarters of the way shut. Partially Close the Ventsĭuring the main part of cooking, you will probably need to cool the temperature a little. Keep both your intake damper and your exhaust dampers wide open while your grill warms up. When starting your grill, we need to expose the inside of the chamber to oxygen while also keeping the lid shut. An accurate probe will help you ensure that temperatures are staying consistent at all times.įor me, there are three main stages to using a charcoal grill in which you will need to adjust your vents’ settings. To get the most out of this you will also need a good grill surface thermometer. If you close the vents then you cutting this supply, and therefore allowing less heat. The wider they are open, the more oxygen will feed your cooking chamber. The vents are a way of feeding your grill with oxygen.

With charcoal grills, we need to take a lot more care with our vents. This is because the majority of gas cookers (particularly built-in gas grills) come with built in controls that aid fuel supply more directly. If you have a gas or propane model, the way that these work is entirely different to charcoal and control of their vents isn’t as key to regulating internal grill temperature. The first thing to say is that this strictly for charcoal grills. They’re not just a chimney or exhaust for heat to escape, but instead a way for you to directly control the temperature in your grill. The key lies in whether your vents (also called dampers) are set open or closed, and knowing when to set them. Control of both is hugely important to the success of your cooking. The other is the oxygen flowing through it. One is the coals sitting at the bottom of chamber. Your charcoal grill essentially has two fuels. It’s a fine balance, but if you get it right then you’ll soon be presenting perfectly barbecued meat. If it’s to cold, your meat could be unsafe to eat. If it’s too hot, you’ll obliterate and dry out your food. Good charcoal grilling is all about temperature. The last is to close them completely in order to allow the heat to die out. The next is to partly close them to keep the heat at a consistent 225☏ (107☌). Using your grill vents comes down to three key stages: The first is to fully open both the upper and lower vents to feed your charcoal with oxygen.
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In my guide to using charcoal grill vents, I’ll show you exactly how to keep on top of the heat at your barbecue.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to good grilling but of all of these, temperature control is the most important.
