The Right Temperature for Grilling or BBQ

Up North, it is said that if you are having a BBQ there could be anything from brats and chickens to hamburgers and hotdogs, all of which certainly have their own place in the kitchens of Americana. Here in the South, if you say the word BBQ (yes, those three consonants make a word) you are referring to a food that has been set into motion at least a day in advance. Every pit master has their own preferences just as any chef has preferences. Strip away all the secrets for rubs, marinades and recipes handed down by generations, and you end up with one common denominator. Temperature – cooking at a rate so painfully slow it seems like your belly button is going rub a blister on your backbone.

You will get most to admit to a temperature somewhere in the neighborhood of 175-190ºF, but asking for more could be too much. For grilling, there are actually two ways to cook but only one fuel, and that is charcoal. Anything less is cheating yourself of the reason you are standing outside cooking to begin with. Take it a step further and put a nice piece of hardwood in with your coals and it’s almost frontier like.

The temperature at this point really depends on the protein that you are cooking. The simplest way to control temperature is to move your protein closer to or further away from your heat source, so my suggestion would always be to put your coals on one side of the grill to make sure and have a side that does not have hot coals beneath the grate. For steaks, you want the temperature somewhere north of 400ºF to get the beautiful caramelization and crust on the steaks. The idea is to start the steaks on the hot side to get some nice grill marks and move them over to the cooler side to rest and reach the desired doneness.

– Chef Josh Feathers