Indirect grilling or two-zone fire in a pellet grill?


 
Chris Allingham

Chris Allingham

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I have no experience with pellet grills, so perhaps those that do can educate me on this point.

When we cook over charcoal or gas, we setup for direct heat cooking or indirect heat cooking. Or we have a two-zone fire with a hot zone and a cool zone, so we can move meat between the two zones. I don't see the potential for indirect cooking or two-zone cooking in a pellet grill. It's described as an oven, and in an oven there may be some temperature differences between upper rack and lower rack, but not indirect heat and certainly not a hot zone and a cool zone.

In this video showing Kevin Kolman grilling a batch of steaks:

https://youtu.be/WPcYxx6s_5s?t=245

He seems to get a very manageable amount of flare-up from those steaks, but I've had times on my gas grill when the fattiness of just two ribeye steaks creates such a flaming conflagration that I really appreciate having a cooler area where I can temporarily move those steaks and knock-down the flare-ups. I guess in the SmokeFire this would be done by moving steaks to the upper rack? That would be my "cool zone"?

But what about indirect grilling? Is there no such thing in a pellet grill? I guess I should download the SmokeFire manual, maybe my question is already answered there.
 
Yeah Chris if you look at the design of the pellet grills they're a one temp/zone grill. I still kinds question trying to use one for super hot grilling. Getting the amount of BTU necessary gets really expensive with pellet fuel which seems to cost about $1.00 per pound and given the low BTU of wood my guess is to keep high temps they need to burn nearly 2lbs per hour or more to get that much heat. So I still think the best use is more like an oven or smoker than a hot/fast grill
 
I'm grillin some " porterhouse " pork chop this evening. They're well over 1" thick. I'm gonna use a two zone fire and reverse sear them. On a pellet grill I'd have to smoke them at a low temp, then pull them off and turn up the heat to sear.
 
A pellet grill is a convection oven. One zone. On both my grills the RTD (temp detector) is next to the left wall of the grill because it's wired into the controller and the controller is on the left. If you set the temperature on a pellet grill the controller raises the temperature until it reaches set temp at the probe. So if you set the temp to 600 to sear 600 will be the cool zone temp.. Essentially one zone. I was initially enamored with the Weber sear capability but the more I thought about it the more I think I would rarely use it. My pellet pooper doesn't have a sear plate so all cooking on it is with indirect heat.

In actuality a Weber kettle is much more flexible than a pellet grill in configuration choices but a pellet grill is much more convenient and has a lot more cooking space and headroom in the cooking chamber. I'm sticking with both.
 
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I think we all need to have a charcoal grill, a gas grill, a smoker and a pellet pooper; and maybe more than one of each. :coolkettle:
 
I,ve got an EX6 on order and it will be for smoking only. If I want to reverse sear anything I’m going with my kettle. I’ve got a pretty good system going where I use my kettle for all meats and my Q-320 for veggies, I’ll be using the SmokeFire to do some briskets and pork. I never really fell in love with my WSM 22 and look forward to some set it and forget it cooks.
 
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Chris,
My answer to your question, based on using my Rec Tec is that the entire grill is indirect cooking. Mine has a thick solid sheet of stainless between the firebox and the grilling grates. This is really a lot like how a Big Green Egg functions when you use the ceramic “place setter” that creates a shield between the charcoal fire below and the grates elevated on top of the place setter. The difference is that you can’t cook on my grill with that shield removed since it is an integral part of the grease management. Of course, on a BGE or any charcoal grill you can readily choose to not use any shield at all and have all the high heat searing you want. And you mention two zones which can be achieved on these with a “half” shield.

Weber’s engineers seem to have found a way to partially open up more of the firebox heat to the cooking grates using their trademark flavorizer bars while coming up with a different way to manage grease. I guess now you could call it “semi-indirect” grilling with the transition being governed by how hot you set the grill. I would love to try one of these out!

As some have mentioned, a pellet grill is probably not the most cost-effective or efficient way to grill steaks. But I think it is still pretty cool to have that option. If the SmokeFire holds up to the promise it shows, I do think it will be a game changer in the pellet grill arena.
 
From what I can gather, that top rack is going to be your "cool zone". I know I have seen people put a shield over half of the cooking surface and create their own cool zone, but that top rack seems a but more practical.
 
When I did my strip steak on my camp chef it has a device that takes the top off the fire box and that allows the heat to come straight up, creating a sear zone. Crude but effective, not a true two zone but when I moved the steak off to the side it quits sizzling. So I'm assuming it was much cooler than the area right over the fire box, sort of like a vortex effect.
Here's my thread on the subject.
I also agree as you will see in the tread it's not my first choice for indirect or searing.

https://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?79772-Strip-Steak-on-the-Camp-Chef
 
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Chris, absolutely. Check out the MAK line up of pellet grills. They have different set ups to change the inside of the grill & do anything that you want to do. Off side direct, all direct searing, what ever you can dream up. Just by changing out the bottom. They even have custom sear grates. Built in the USA, like a tank. 110 Volt motor, does not jam, but most people don't want to pay the money for this type of quality. I may look at one when I get old some day...…. lol For the money they are a life time grill. And all units can be updated with the latest electronics & change overs. Check them out.
 
Comparing a Weber SmokeFire, Rec Tec or Traeger Ironwood to one of those MAK pellet grills is a little like comparing a Weber Genesis - even a classic one - to a Wolf, Fire Magic or Lynx grill. They each fill a need. Which one you choose depends on a number of variable, not the least of which is what you can afford.

It's not totally different from the protracted discussion we had about instant read thermometers. MAK is a top-drawer choice like Thermoworks. But you can do good things with my ThermoPro TP-19 just like you can with a Rec Tec, Traeger and it looks like for sure with the new Weber SmokeFire. Will one of those last as long? No. But with good care you can certainly get your money's worth. One last plug for Rec Tec customer service. I would say about impossible to beat.
 
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