What's Infrared Grilling?

Normal strategies like charcoal or gas create heat that warms the air around the food and the warm air cooks the food. This works nicely, we have all have many nice tasting steaks cooked this way.

The issue is that the warm air dries out the food and ultimately the food can be overcooked on the outside and raw on the inside.

The drippings from the meat may also cause fire flare-ups that can cook the food irregularly.

Thereafter, clean up can be a controversy (if cleaned up at all). The fat from the meat can stick to the grates and because the grill customarily does not get much over 500 degrees, the fat never burns off the grates, causing sticking the next time you use the grill.

At last the conventional cooking strategy takes more effort to master and maintain, not to mention the additional effort for clean up.

Infrared grills eliminate all these issues. Infrared heat is a higher part of the range. It’s a higher degree heat that penetrates the protein and heats uniformly. There aren’t any cold spots or perhaps flare-ups.

But all tech stuff apart, infrared heat simply cooks a juicier, better tasting piece of meat and cooks it faster than a conventional griddle. Because it cooks faster, its also cheaper to operate as it uses 30% less propane.

Some models can be hitched up to natural gas. Check the specs before you buy.

Until fairly recently infrared technology was only employed in expensive cafes. That is the reason why you marched out of Ruth’s Chris or Mortons, thinking how good you steak was.

The patent for this technology lately expired and now companies like Charbroil are making quality consumer models that use this same infrared technology.

Click here to see specific Infrared Grill Reviews.

What's the cooking temperature?

Infrared grills cook at roughly 700 degrees. The extreme heat allows for an ideal sear on the outside of the meat while the infrared technology keeps the inside tender and delicious.

This truly means you burgers or steaks will not shrink or curl. You get to enjoy the flavour instead of it dripping out into the grill.

What about clean up?

Clean up, you mean you're essentially meant to clean a grill????? OK, anyone who has ever feared cleaning and scrubbing a grill with the faithful grill brush will appreciate my attempt at humour here!

In truth, the infrared will do most of the work for you. It heats up high enough to burn up anything that sticks to the grates. It works kind of like the cleaning cycle on you inside range.

To scrub, simply heat to griddle for one or two minutes and anything that was left will turn to ash. 1 or 2 swipes with the grill brush and you are done. Intermittently, just empty the bottom of the griddle and you could have a perfectly clean grill.

Concerns

Realize it does take a little longer for an infrared grill to heat up. Most gas grills take in the region of 5 minutes or so. The infrared will take roughly 10-12. This is just because you’re cooking at 700 degrees vs 400 degree.

It can take a couple of times to find out how to cook on infrared. Since you’ve always used charcoal or gas, the tendency is to leave the meat on the grill as long. Remember, infrared cooks much quicker and it will take you a couple of times to adapt to the smaller cooking times. But this isn’t major and now that you know this you may probably get it right the 1st time you grill.

Mark Adams is an ardent griller and user of several grills. To read his specific product reviews to to Char Broil Urban Gas Grill Review and his Char Broil Quantum Grill Review


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