Callie - Founder of SmartKitchens.Review

Many cooking enthusiasts who buy a brand new charcoal grill usually do not know how to prepare their first grill. If you break in your new charcoal grill incorrectly, you probably won’t like the results.

This blog post is for those who want to know how to break in a new charcoal grill properly so that it lasts longer and your food cooks evenly perfectly. So, here are the expert tips on what to do before firing up your new charcoal grill. 

1. Read Your Manual:

Most consumers have a problem because they forget to read the manufacturer’s manuals before using their product. It’s essential to understand how to do it before you start.

If you ignore the given safety directives, your only alternative is to contact the manufacturer. If they warn you against using something, don’t use it and stick to the instruction.

2. Examine if The Grill is Well Assembled:

Sometimes we think that everything is as it should be, only to find out later that something was missing. The best key to overcoming this problem is to check for faults. Just a few minutes are needed. Double-check your new grill carefully to ensure all the parts are there and the grill is well put together.

3. Get The Grill to The Safe Cooking Area:

After buying new expensive grills, people place them anywhere in their house, which is not a good idea. Doing so can cause considerable problems when the necessary measurements are not taken.

Spot a clean outdoor area and set your new grill there. If possible, do it in your backyard and avoid highly polluted areas. Also, for safety, please keep it away from flammable structures or objects.

4. Season Your Grill The Right Way:

A lot of people pay little attention to it, but seasoning your new grill is one of the best ways to gracefully break in your new charcoal grill and have a great cooking experience.

Simply put, if you are grilling food for the first time, before using your grill, you must first season it the right way with oil and preheat it to the ideal temperature.

5. Actionable Tips to Apply:

It will help if you use a direct and indirect heat mixture on your new grill during the cooking process. The coals should touch but not rest on any food at the top end. 

When you smoke the meat, transfer the heated coals away from your meal or lift one edge of your food to keep them from overcooking your meat so they don’t burn. Please switch off the burners beneath your electric grill and permit it to cool down fully after this critical break-in period. 

Don’t clean your new grill grate yet, since the residue might stick and make cleaning harder. You can also remove the grill grates from your charcoal grill, set them on a work table or flat surface, and scrub them with a nylon brush (not metal) and hot water when they’ve been allowed to cool. 

Be sure not to use any harsh chemicals like bleach when washing your grill grate. Once you have done all of this, you will cook mouthwatering food on your new barbecue.

FAQ – How to Break in a New Charcoal Grill?

How Do You Season a Grill Before First Use?

Grilling is all about the seasoning. However, if you don’t spend the time to prepare and season your new grill properly, you may be adding some harmful nasty ingredients from the manufacturing process into the food you cook. 

Seasoning your grill is a straightforward process of heating and oiling your new grill before you cook food on it for the first time. Here’s how:

1. Wash and air dry the grill grates. If you use dish soap, be sure to wash and dry them more carefully and thoroughly.

2. Use a soft basting brush, and wipe the grill grates with peanut oil, canola, or vegetable oil.

3. Open the lid before igniting up the grill, turn the burner to high and close the lid according to the manufacturer’s instructions. 

4. Burn it for twenty-five to thirty minutes before first use to remove oil, dust, coatings, adhesives, and other sticky substances that may have accumulated on new gills in the store or manufacturing process. 

5. Turn off your grill and let it cool. Your grill is seasoned!

Do You Need to Preheat Your New Grill?

Yes, we recommend preheating your new grill for 20 minutes before using it for the first time. Preheating helps stabilize temperature and enhance the coloring, surface, and flavor of food. 

Besides this, all toxic factory contaminants and oil can be burned away by this method. Afterward, put your food on the grill, and you are all set for grilling.

Is it necessary to Oil The Grate When Breaking in Your New Grill?

Before cooking for the first time, be sure to grease your grill grates to prevent food from sticking. Rub a paper towel steeped in high heat resistance oil (such as canola oil or peanut oil) all over the grate with your tongs to coat the grate’s surface uniformly. Be careful when using oil, as too much can cause a good flare.

Why You Should Season Your New Grill?

There are several benefits to seasoning a new grill. However, we will go through the most critical reasons later.

1. Safety:

After manufacturing, every new product will have oil, dirt, metal shavings, and dust. But seasoning is an excellent idea to clear impurities and make your grill safe for cooking. 

2. Increase the Grill’s Lifespan by Using the Grill Correctly:

By preventing rust, seasoning your grill helps increase the grill’s lifespan. It is easy to make your grill extend its life span by removing the accumulation of things that could lead to rusting.

3. Easier Grilling and Cleaning:

The nonstick surface of the grill will help to clean it easily. Seasoning grill grates help smoothen the surface, making it nonstick and removing toxic ingredients. Oiling also makes the pan easy to cook on, as food can easily be tuned and rolled with ease.

You can use wood pallets in the charcoal grill as fuel, considering it a good idea to mix them with charcoal to carry out the best results in terms of flavor.

As you know, charcoal is the finest and most comfortable way to cook food, and charcoal grills are easier to use than gas grills and can be easily controlled over the cooking temperature.

These wood pellets are a prominent fuel choice for charcoal grills because they burn at low temperatures. Wood pellets are cleaned rather than cordwood, and as a result, no dirt and bugs are brought into your house.

The tremendous majority of contemporary pellets are made from a combination of sawdust and wood residues, which are called pellets.

Benefits of Charcoal with Wood Pellets:

The question arises as to why wood pellets might be used with a charcoal grill? 

Traditionally, people used wood chips or logs to flavor their food with charcoal. But here are to utilizing wood pellets has quite a few benefits.

Grilling wood pellets are really made from residual sawdust from wood yards and wood production factories. Scrap dust must be collected and then compressed into the little cylinder that’s called pellets. By using pellets, you are basically reusing old pieces of wood and helping a business that is good for the environment.

You can achieve some delicious, wood-fired flavors. Nothing beats properly wood-smoked foods–the flavor is so remarkably rugged and unique.

A broad variety of wood pellets is available. Almost every kind of wood you’d ordinarily be able to smoke in a pipe or cigar can be detected in pellet form. 

Which one is well-known? Mesquite, Maple, Apple, Cherry, Oak, Alder, and Pecan.

As compared to other fuels, wood pellets are most efficient. Due to the rigidly packed of sawdust particles, their contained energy turned into heat. Wood chips and logs are less expensive, but they don’t provide as much value as pellets. 

Wood pellets are clean, safe, and easy to work with, especially compared to charcoal. Their residue leaves minimal ash and residue because this cleanup process is pretty easy. 

How to Use Wood Pellets in a Charcoal Grill?

Always remember that pellets would not be the primary source of fuel. Its use is to make food delicious and smoky. And it’s already been mentioned that wood pellets are very fine and are useful for a charcoal grill.

How to use wood pellets in a charcoal grill?

1. Start a charcoal fire as you commonly would on the grill. It is suggested the easiest way to do this is with the help of a chimney starter, but you should use every method that is considered the easiest way. 
2. To show that your fire is hot and ready to cook, you must wait until the charcoal glows with the characteristic burning light.
3. The next step is to spread a blanket of your favorite BBQ wood pellets over the hot coals. There is no need to dump a small mountain on there, but you also want to make sure that there are enough pellets to emit the proper amount of smoke. 
4. An important thing is to wait for the pellets to ignite. When pellets emit the delicious smoky flavor. 

Related: WHY Won’t My Charcoal Stay Lit

How to Smoke Meat with Wood Pellets?

If this is your first-time experience cooking with wood pellets, then it’s necessary to understand how to use them. As with anything, you need to be understood the basics first before you can move on to some special tricks used by professionals. 

1. Wood-Fired Taste:

It’s a good thing pellet grills are constructed from sawdust hardwood, which is a by-product of furniture and other industries. You can save and protect your environment by using this clean source of fuel. 

However, the wood pellets have definitely had good taste and have better flavor than the smoke that comes from burning natural gas or propane. It was not mentioned that propane gas heats up too quickly and tends to dry up, which is a potential problem.

2. Grilling with Wood Pellets:

Is it possible to cook using wood pellets? Yes, and nothing compares to the flavor of wood-fired pizza or smoked meat. Wood pellet grill and smoker can have the same results. 

Hardwood pellets produce the best results since they burn more slowly, are easier to deal with, and produce less smoke when burning.

Burning hardwood pellets, which are more manageable to store and cart than logs, provide the same flavor as using logs. The flames from a wood pellet  are controllable and you can use them according to your needs to cook a meal on it.

Wood pellets provide your food a pleasant smoky flavor that tastes like home instead of leaving a propane stink.

3. Different Pellets for Different Flavors:

Whether you’re smoking brisket or grilling burgers, the charcoal grill can do it all thanks to its built-in pellet door, which is readily located underneath the pellet hopper. 

This makes it easy for you to change pellets without slowing down the cooking process.

Types of Wood Pellets and their Flavor Profile:

Wood pellets can be classified depending on a variety of characteristics. And here we discuss two major sorts of wood pellets.

Hardwood Pellets: This type of pellet has a relatively higher density and a long burning time.

Softwood Pellets: This type has the characteristics of a high combination of lignin, which creates a high temperature.

Barbecue Pellets: These pellets are produced for BBQ grills for smokers. You can gain the most delicious wood-fired flavor in the cooked meat from these pellets.

Heating Pellets: These flare up home heaters. They usually contain some harmful elements and chemicals, so using these kinds of pellets for grilling or smoking is not a good idea at all.

Wood pellets are further classified based on the types of flavor:

• Apple 
• Alder
• Cherry
• Pecan 
• Maple
• Oak
• Hickory
• Mesquite

Can you leave pellets in the hopper?

Leaving unused pellets in your hopper reveals them to the elements of your outdoor surroundings, which might cause them to rot. After each cook, remove the remaining pellets from the hopper and store them in a secure container such as a sealed bucket.

Do pellet grills draw a lot of power or electricity?

Pellet grills do use electricity, although this is a small amount compared to the overall power use. Initially, the ignitor requires between 300 and 500 watts of power. To keep the auger, fans, and digital display running, you’ll need to use the watt’s leftover from the cook’s remaining power source.

How Many Pellets Do You Need?

The general rule is that the thumb is 1/2 cup of pellets per 40-50 minutes when used on a charcoal grill. You can always add additional pellets if you find that your burger or steak needs a smoky flavor. It’s true as well you can always reduce the number of pellets you see to make the flavoring less intense.

So, can you use wood pellets in a charcoal grill?

Many of the questions you must ask yourself are, “Can I grill with wood instead of charcoal?” Yes, but to get the most out of your charcoal grill, it’s important to combine it with charcoal to extract the most flavor from both fuel sources. 

Remember that charcoal grills work with charcoal as the major fuel source, and wood pellets aren’t exactly designed for charcoal grills either.

So there needs to be some common ground between the two, which means mixing them. To simplify the process, some people choose to invest in a pellet tube smoker, which gives the same result without the use of charcoal. 

It’s great at smoking meat, and it hybridizes the grill so that it’s able to grill and smoke meat.

There are plenty of reasons your charcoal grill won’t stay lit. For instance, you might not fire it up properly, added too much charcoal, your grill might have some moisture, or it isn’t well-cleaned.

In this guide, we will check in details why won’t my charcoal stay lit.

The function of your charcoal is very simple. If you’re using briquettes or hardwood lump charcoal, you need to monitor the airflow to ensure that the charcoal doesn’t go out. Insufficient airflow from the underneath of the grill causes a charcoal grill to go out.

Starting the Fire Properly:

Properly starting the fire is key to a good grilling experience. It is dangerous to burn and damage your charcoal if you don’t keep it lit. Your charcoal will end up burning out quickly or will not give heat properly if you haven’t fired it up properly initially.

Chimney Starter: You can easily start the fire by operating a chimney starter with little effort. Put the paper in the chimney’s bottom and then put in your charcoal; light up the paper in the fire. The paper’s fire will heat the charcoal, which will ignite a fire.

Lighter Fluid: This method removes the cooking grate and opens the vents. Remove the lid as well, as you will need as much airflow as possible. Make a charcoal pyramid with a glimpse inside the grill’s center. 

Again, squirt some lighter fluid here and there in the charcoal pyramid. A lighter can be used to start the charcoal on fire. And you’re good to go.

What Are the Reasons a Charcoal Grill Won’t Stay Lit?

Here are the possible reasons your charcoal grill won’t stay lit for long.

• Dryness of your Charcoal
• Charcoal is too damp
• Ventilation Problem
• Cleaning the Grill
• Making a stake of charcoal
• It’s too humid and windy weather
• Adding extra coal

Let’s discuss these in-depth:

Dryness of your Charcoal:

Is your charcoal dry? 

If not, then it could be the exact reason your charcoal will not stay lit. And charcoal naturally absorbs or holds moisture. Charcoal may not operate as effectively if it is kept in a damp environment. Damp charcoal does not light up or keep lit. 

It is very important to have your charcoal dry for grilling. If it’s not dry, then your charcoal grill will never stay lit.

When you are storing charcoal for later, make sure the space is dry enough that it will not affect the charcoal.

Charcoal is too Damp:

In the same manner that you can’t cook with damp charcoal, you can’t cook with damp wood. Charcoal collects water vapor from the air through its pores, so it’s likely to be moist if it’s been stored in damp conditions. Protect your charcoal from getting moisture by keeping it in well-airtight storage and storing it in a dry place.

It’s still salvageable if it’s only slightly damp. Wait for a sunny, dry day. Place your charcoal on a cloth in a light, but not direct, area. After two to eight hours, your charcoal will have dehydrated, and you can use it for the next cook.

Ventilation Problem:

Here, the best thing is that oxygen is necessary for fire. You might also think that charcoal is used as fuel here, but it’s the air. However, you have noticed vents in your grill. They caused combustion by allowing air to reach the burning embers. And here, the problem is that vents are small that they can get blocked by ash, briquettes, or smaller pieces of lump charcoal.

If you notice that your charcoal does not stay lit, understand that there is a ventilation problem. And the good thing is that you must only allow some ventilation before trying again. As a result, you will easily light your charcoal, particularly if you have a firelighter.

Cleaning the Grill:

Keeping your grill clean is the key to starting a fire. The ash in your charcoal barbecue collects at the bottom and becomes excessively moist if you don’t remove it after you have put it out. If you don’t wipe the ash off your grill, your next barbecue will be a disaster. 

Grease might also clog the vents and obstruct airflow inside the grill or smoker. 

And if your ashtray is loaded with ashes, the bottom damper becomes partially worthless. Cleaning the ashes ensures not only better grilling, but also increases the durability of your grill.

Related: How to SEASON a Charcoal Grill EFFECTIVELY

Making Stake of Charcoal:

Having the best charcoal and keeping it dry is crucial. It’s good practice to hold your charcoal vertically as well. If you cannot put charcoal sticks in the ground vertically or you turn them into the ground horizontally, some of them might not stay lit. 

Even worse, they won’t reach the right temperature before they burn out. So, put them on vertical stakes if you want your charcoal to stay lit.

It’s too Humid and windy weather:

If you want to grill in a humid place, the coal might go out faster. Coal absorbs moisture that can result in coals not staying lit for long. It’s difficult to light charcoal under humid or windy conditions. 

So use a light cover to regulate your heat. 

If you intend to barbecue on a windy day, take some precautions. A breeze or wind can extinguish your fire, so cover the grill with a lid.

Adding extra Coal:

Adding the extra coal helps to keep your charcoal lit. If you like to last in the heat longer, you will need to add more cool. Otherwise, you may manipulate yourself into difficulties with grilling. 

Make sure that you have burned half of the charcoal and never wait until the last. The time interval should be thirty minutes for adding coal from the beginning.

Right Wood for Right Taste:

How would you feel when you find a wooden smell from your charcoal grill?

For this reason, it is very much annoying and very much frustrating. It occurs when you add low-quality or wet cooking wood to charcoal grilling. 

Again, adding seasoned cooking wood might ruin the flavor of charcoal grilling. You have learned how to get a charcoal grill to stay lit. Now it’s your chance to master the grill.

Related Questions How do you get a Charcoal Grill to Stay Lit? (FAQs)

What’s the furthest idea from lighting a charcoal barbecue?

When you start lighting it up, place a dry and quick-to-burn thing under the charcoal. It can be a piece of cloth or paper.

The paper will burn and light the charcoal in front of it and later that charcoal piece burns the neighbor one. It is an easy and traditional way to start a fire.

What is the most useful method for maintaining a grill fire?

To keep the fire, you need proper air. If there is proper airflow, then there isn’t any need to worry about it. But, if there isn’t any proper airflow, blow the air with your mouth after a while.

See, when the charcoal is stopping burning, blow the air so that it can get enough oxygen.

Do you close a charcoal vent?

Only when then there is enough heat inside. But if the charcoal is just started burning, I will keep it open so that it can get some air.