Detailed Guide About How to Lower Temperature on Charcoal Grill

Curious about reducing the heat on a charcoal grill? If that’s the case, continue with this article to discover further.

When you are using a charcoal grill it is very easy and simple to bring the temperature high. But lowering the temperature on the same can be a challenging task for you. It’s not just like a gas grill where you just have to turn the knob to lower the temperature.

In this blog, we are going to discuss some tricky techniques by which you may cook down your charcoal grill during cooking.

How to Lower Temperature on Charcoal Grill?

Here is how you can lower temperature on a charcoal grill:

1- Adjust the position of grates of the grill

When your grill turns too hot and you want to cool it down instantly, then adjusting the position of the grates is one of the easiest and most effective methods of cooling it down.

The technique behind this method is that the closer food is to the coals, the higher the cooking temperature is. The further it is from the burning coals, the lower the temperature is.

When you want to cook your food at low or minimum heat, move the grate up a few steps. On the other hand, for high temperatures and faster cooking, you have to move the grates closer to the coals. For the first few trials, it can be hard for you to find a sweet spot, however, it gets better with time.

Remember that this trick only works when you have the grill with adjustable grates. In case your charcoal grill’s model does not have this feature, check out some other alternative methods discussed below in this blog.

2- Utilize vents to control airflow 

It might be one of the most simple and common ways of lowering or adjusting the level of heat in the charcoal grill. You may know that coals require oxygen to combust. The more oxygen is available, the more coals burn, and ultimately the hotter your grill gets.

These types of grills may suit their units with vents to give you aid in easily controlling the amount of oxygen flowing in. It is one of the most effective and best things as it provides you control over how hot your grill may get.

However, if you want to cool down the grill, you just have to close the vents to block the entrance of oxygen. But the question is which vents you should close? Because charcoal grills generally feature two types of vents and these are bottom or lower vents and top or upper vents.

• Top or Upper Vent 

These types of vents are also known as exhaust dampers. Upper vents act as a chimney as they may take away the smoke. For doing so, they try to get the air via the grill, and leaving these vents open will encourage airflow via the system.

It means you may not keep these vents until you want carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. You may need these gases to build up within your charcoal grill and starve your coals off the oxygen they have to keep burning.

• Bottom of Lower Vents 

The lower vents are also known as intake dampers and these are the ones that are tasked with providing airflow to the coals. In case you succeed in adjusting this lower vent opening, you also have to control how many oxygens enter the grill. And then you will be able to cook down the grill.

Keep in mind that closing this vent completely will cut off your grill oxygen supply completely and the fire will just burn out.

 Meanwhile, it is suggested to leave the upper vents fully open and control the airflow by using the lower vents. But you also have to experiment with your charcoal grill by doing the opposite and see if it helps bring the heat down or not.

3- Generate varying heat zones 

Here is another method of lowering or controlling the temperature of a charcoal grill and that is introducing the fire zones in it. You may simply achieve it by layering the coals in such a way that they generate various cooking zones for your food. These may be low, medium, and high heat sections.

• Generate Zone 1 (High heat area)

You have to put two layers of coal in this region and properly rake them out. It seems to be the ideal section for sealing and soaring the food. It is the place where you can cook any of the food you want to cook at high temperatures.

• Generate Zone 2 (Medium heat area)

Create a single layer of coals in this area and layout them flat. All the recipes that have to be cooked at a medium flame or heat temperature must be placed in this area.

• Generate Zone 3 (Heat-free or safe zone)

Never lay any single coal in this area because you want it to be completely free of heat. This region may act as the resting area for your flesh before or after cooking. Or if the other zones get very hot and you want to re-adjust the temperature.

However, you may also generate a two-zone fire regardless of three zones. For this setup, you have to put the coals to cover half the size of the grill and leave the other side completely coal-free. When you do this, the side with coals may act as the hot side and it may be ideal for direct grilling.

In addition, the coal-free side will give you indirect grilling and will cook your meat through convection which is by using hot air circulating the food. It may ensure the cooking of your meat, both from inside and outside.

We hope that you understand how to lower the temperature on a charcoal grill by now. So, deal with your grill accordingly.