Three Zone Fire
If you’ve done any reading about grilling, you’ve likely heard of building a 3 zone fire. It sounds silly in a way… My dad never built a 3 zone fire! He piled up charcoal briquettes, poured on the lighter fluid and ignited the fireball that became hot coals!
Today’s grilling is a bit different. A charcoal chimney is used more and more often, negating the need for lighter fluid. And fire control is the name of the game.
A three zone fire is a way to control hot direct heat is used in a grill to allow better control of the cooking process. Typically, once side is set up with the most coals, the next area has about half the density of coals, and the other side is left with little or no coals. This allows for the most heat in one area of the grate, good cooking heat in the center and a ‘warming’ or slower cooking area over the area with no coals. The graphic on the right shows the basic set up of a three zone fire.
The use of a three zone fire is to use the hottest part to sear, the middle to cook, and the cooler part to keep warm or cook indirectly. Cooking times should reflect the use of heat, but using the three zones correctly can help eliminate that burned chicken or dried out burger. When I do a steak, I start it on the very hottest part of the grate. I put it at a 45 degree angle for 45 seconds, then turn it 90 degrees, then flip it and repeat. This puts those great sear marks on the steak. Then to cook, I cook at a slower temp over the medium part of the grate. For steaks of different done-ness, I use the cooler part of the grate to keep steaks more rare, while cooking to medium over the middle part of the fire.
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egetables also get done at different times, and the use of the three zone fire help with this, too. Most veggies don’t want the heat of the high heat section of the grill, so they’re done using the medium part of the fire. Once veggies are done, they can be kept warm on the coolest part of the grate. If I’m just doing veggies, I make more of a two zone fire, using a medium and cooler part instead of a very hot section.
This can all go out the window when you’re cooking for a lot of people, using the whole grate just to cook burgers. Then I go with a medium heat throughout, and just hope to get it all done without burning!
The 3 zone fire works great on a gas grill, too. For a 2 burner gasser, a 2 zone fire is about all you’ll get, but that works pretty well for most things.
Pardon my “gasser” comments …. This is how I generally run my gas grill when cooking a mess of food. As luck would have it, my gas grill has 3 burners that I can use in this method.
Thanks, Curt!