Imagine that you’ve been tasked with cooking beef tacos in your indoor kitchen using a tri-tip roast. You’d start by pan-searing the tri-tip roast over high heat, then transferring it to the oven to finish at more moderate temperatures. While the roast cooks throughout, you’d need to caramelize peppers and onions over medium-high heat, and maybe even get a light char on the tortillas in a separate pan. That’s 3–4 separate temperature zones used at the same time during a single cook, while moving back and forth from the stovetop to the oven. Your outdoor grill can accomplish this same scenario by using multi-zone grilling.
Thanks to our friends at BBQ Guys and Weber Grill Master Kelsey Heidkamp, they are going to walk us through the basics of multi-zone grilling to cook that tri-tip roast entirely on the Weber SmokeFire Pellet Grill. Any grill type can support multiple temperature zones, making this a universal master skill. Are you ready to master multi-zone grilling? Get ready to wow your friends and family at the next tailgate or backyard barbecue party!
What Is Multi-Zone Grilling?
The goal of multi-zone grilling is simply to create two distinct heat zones: one with high heat, and another with low heat. We call this dual-zone grilling, which harnesses the power of both direct heat (flames below the food) and indirect heat (no flames below the food) to expand your cooking options across the same grill grate. Using multiple grill zones to your advantage requires an understanding of how direct and indirect heat behave.
Direct Heat vs. Indirect Heat
There are 3 types of heat transfer: conduction (via contact with a heat source), convection (via moving fluid or air), and radiation (via invisible, electromagnetic waves). Each occurs inside a grill at the same time. Hot grates channel conduction heat, hot air dispenses convection heat, and infrared waves from the fire carry radiant heat.
Direct Heat Is Radiant Heat
By placing food directly above the flames, you have the constant emission of radiant heat waves. This means that direct-heat grilling is best for thinner foods and searing the exterior of meat. When Kelsey cooks the tri-tip roast, she starts by searing it for 5 minutes a side in the direct zone. “The 5 minutes over (direct heat) gives it a nice crust,” she says. “It caramelizes the sugars in the rub and binds them to the outside surface of the meat.”
Indirect Heat is Convection Heat
When food is placed above a flame-free section adjacent to the heat source, hot air circulates and cooks at a much slower rate. Shutting the grill hood with an indirect-heat zone recreates the same conditions as your kitchen’s convection oven. This is best for cooking larger and tougher cuts of meat. This is why Kelsey moves the tri-tip roast to the indirect zone after searing over direct heat. As she says, “Convection heat is really about bringing the internal temperature of the inside of the meat to whatever target temperature you want it to be.”
What about Conduction Heat?
If food is on a hot grill, then conduction is occurring. Conduction heat is what causes bold sear marks on meat as opposed to an all-over crust. This does not factor too heavily into the broader concept of heat zones.
Benefits of Multi-Zone Grilling
A single, hot temperature zone leaves you vulnerable to potentially dangerous flare-ups, limits your grill’s cooking style, and greatly reduces your margin of error on the grill. Besides, who wants overcooked or burnt food?
Better Temperature Control
Not all food cooks at the same rate, nor does it contain identical protein structures and chemical compositions. This is why food reacts to different types of heat in different ways. The key is controlling the heat to reach the desired outcomes. What if you have a thicker piece of meat that needs to go from direct to indirect, so it doesn’t dry out? This is when you should rely on multiple grill zones for temperature control. Have at least one direct zone of about 500°F–600°F and an indirect zone around 225°F. So, you can crisp chicken skin at the end of an indirect roast or caramelize the sauce on ribs after tenderizing it with convection heat.
Cook More at Once
Use your grill just like an indoor stovetop. You can set burners to different temps or arrange charcoal in different formations across the grill body. Roast a whole chicken in the indirect zone while searing veggies over direct heat, or a prime rib, grilled asparagus, and roasted potatoes all at once.
Manage Flare-Ups
Flare-ups can’t happen without fire, which is another great advantage of multiple grill zones. When fatty cuts like burgers make flare-ups unmanageable, simply transfer them to an adjacent indirect zone until the drippings stop. Once those burgers look ready for the open flame, return to the direct zone grilling.
Hold Food at Serving Temperature
Grill steaks for a crowd at the same time over direct heat, then move them to the holding zone until desired internal temp is reached. The finished steaks sitting in the holding zone won’t continue to cook, or cool past serving temperature. Everyone’s cut will be properly cooked and still hot from the grill.
How to Set up Multiple Grill Zones
The strategy differs depending on your grill type, its configuration, and what you’re cooking, but virtually every grill can house at least dual cooking zones. The only exceptions are gas and electric grills with only 1 burner or heating element which limits you to just a single zone.
Gas & Electric Grills
Start by preheating your grill, then set some of your burners to high heat and the rest to low. How you divide the zones depends on how many burners your grill has and what kind of food you’re trying to cook. For example, you can do burgers on a 4-burner grill that’s evenly split into a pair of 2-burner zones, or, if you have a 5-burner grill, put two burners on high and leave the rest on low when using convection heat to slow-roast a whole chicken.
Charcoal Grills
Once your coals are lit, simply push them to one side of the grill. Though hot coals will be below only half of the cooking grate, the other side will still offer heat at lower temperatures. A half-moon heat deflector or a Weber charcoal tray can also help you achieve the same setup without having to physically bank coals to one side. You can even place a water pan on top of a heat deflector, adding moisture to your versatile dual-zone setup.
Pellet Grills
Pellet grills are largely designed to hold steady, even temperatures across the grates, and only a handful of models allow direct-flame grilling. To reduce temperatures on the indirect side, a SmokeFire Wet Smoke Kit is used as a water pan/heat deflector hybrid above the grill’s Flavorizer bars. Water pans are great for slower cooks because they add moisture, but the real benefit is their ability to absorb heat to keep temperatures down in lower-heat zones.
In Closing
How about a few examples of multi-zone grilling to get inspired? Atlanta-based pitmaster Rasheed Philips leans heavily on multiple grilling zones for both his Surf ‘n’ Turf with Compound Butters and Lemon Scotch Bonnet Pepper Chicken Wings recipes. We have included Kelsey’s grilled tri-tip tacos recipe below. So, now it’s your turn!
Grilled Tri-Tip Tacos
Ingredients for Rub
1 Tbsp ground dark-roast coffee
1 Tbsp light brown sugar, packed
1 Tbsp ancho chile powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp smoked sweet paprika
Ingredients for Tri-Tip
1 tri-tip roast (2–2½ pounds)
1 small poblano pepper, sliced
1 small red bell pepper, sliced
1 small red onion, sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
Ingredients for Adobo Sauce
1 cup whole milk, European-style yogurt, or sour cream
2 Tbsp sauce from canned chipotles in adobo
1 garlic clove, minced or pushed through a press
1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp kosher salt
⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Ingredients for Tacos
12 corn or flour tortillas
1 avocado, smashed
4 radishes, thinly sliced
Cilantro leaves
1 lime, sliced
For the Marinated Tri-Tip Roast
- On a cutting board, use a filet knife to trim the silver skin from the underside of the meat and the fat cap from the top side. To remove the silver skin, stick the knife between it and the meat, then slide the blade along the meat’s surface while peeling back the thin membrane. For the fat cap, cut it away in small slices until you’ve exposed the meat beneath it.
- In a small bowl, combine all the rub ingredients and blend well.
- Place the tri-tip roast in a baking dish or sheet pan, then generously coat on all sides with the rub. Cover the tri-tip with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or up to 24 hours.
For the Grilled Tri-Tip Tacos
- After the meat has marinated, place the Weber SmokeFire Wet Smoke Kit on top of the Flavorizer bars (located below the cooking grate) on the left side of your grill. Fill it halfway with room-temperature water, then preheat the grill for high heat (500°F).
- In a small bowl, combine and whisk all the sauce ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Combine the poblano pepper, bell pepper, and onion slices in a bowl and toss with olive oil. Set aside.
- Remove the tri-tip from the refrigerator 30 minutes before grilling. For an accurate reading, ensure that the temperature probe tip is inserted 2 inches into the thickest part of the tri-tip.
- When your grill has preheated to about 500°F, sear the tri-tip over direct heat on the right side of the grill with the lid closed. Let it sear for 10–12 minutes, splitting the time evenly between both sides.
- Move the tri-tip to indirect heat on the left side of the grill (above the Wet Smoke Kit) and adjust the temperature to a medium heat of about 400°F. Shut the lid and continue cooking until the thickest part of the roast registers your preferred internal temperature (for reference, beef reaches medium-rare doneness at 135°F, and medium doneness at 145°F).
- While the tri-tip roasts, place the Weber Deluxe Grilling Basket over direct heat on the right side of the grill and preheat for 10 minutes.
- Add the pepper-and-onion mixture to the Weber Deluxe Grilling Basket and grill for 8–10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove them from the grill once the veggies have an all-over caramelization, then season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Once the tri-tip hits the desired internal temperature, remove it from the grill and rest at room temperature, indoors, for 20 minutes.
- While the tri-tip rests, grill the tortillas over medium heat (400°F) for 1–2 minutes, flipping once.
- After the roast has rested for 20 minutes, cut it across the grain into thin slices, then cut the slices into bite-size strips. To identify the grain’s direction, look for the parallel lines of muscle fiber running down the meat. Cutting perpendicular to the grain shortens those muscle fibers for a better eating experience, cutting with the grain results in chewy bites.
- Build the tacos by first layering the adobo sauce on the grilled tortillas, followed by the onions and peppers, tri-tip slices, smashed avocado, radishes, cilantro, and fresh lime. Serve warm and enjoy!