Tips

Setting up a kettle braai for indirect cooking

How to bank the coals, place the drip tray and set the vents on a kettle braai so a whole chicken, a roast or a pudding cooks through without burning.

A kettle braai with the lid on is an oven. Anything that takes longer than about 25 minutes, such as a whole chicken, a lamb shoulder, a pork belly, a potato bake or a malva pudding, cooks better with the coals to the sides and the food in the middle. This is indirect cooking.

Direct or indirect

• Direct: food sits over the coals, lid on or off. For anything under 20 to 25 minutes: steak, chops, boerewors, sosaties, and wings that need finishing.
• Indirect: coals banked on two sides, food in the centre over a drip tray, lid on. For anything longer. The heat circulates around the food and there is nothing underneath it to flare.

How many briquettes

These counts are for a 57 cm (22 inch) kettle using standard briquettes. Treat them as a starting guide and adjust for your fuel and your weather. The direct counts come from the manufacturer; the per-side counts for indirect cooking are a working estimate.

On cooks longer than an hour, add 6 to 8 briquettes to each side every hour. Light them in a chimney first if you can.

The setup, in order

1. Open the top and bottom vents fully and take the lid off.
2. Put firelighters on the charcoal grate and set the two charcoal baskets, or two loose piles, over them.
3. Wait 25 to 30 minutes until at least 80 percent of the briquettes are grey. See how long to let the fire burn.
4. Push the baskets to opposite rims. Put a foil drip tray on the grate between them.
5. Fit the cooking grid with the hinged flaps over the baskets, so you can add fuel without lifting the grid.
6. Put the lid on. Preheat for 5 minutes, then brush the grid.
7. Put the food in the centre, over the drip tray. Lid on.

Where the lid vent goes

Turn the lid so the top vent sits over the food, on the side away from the coals. Heat and smoke are pulled across the food on the way out. If the vent sits over a basket, that side burns hotter and faster and the food cooks unevenly.

Controlling the temperature

• The bottom vent is the throttle. Closing it half to three-quarters drops the kettle from about 230°C (450°F) to 170 to 180°C (340 to 350°F).
• The top vent stays at least a quarter open. Close it and the fire smothers, and the smoke turns sooty and bitter.
• Hang a probe thermometer through the top vent, or use a dual-probe unit with one probe at grid level. The thermometer in the lid reads the dome, which is hotter than the food.

Keep the lid on

Every time you lift the lid the kettle loses heat and takes 5 to 10 minutes to recover. Check the meat with a thermometer, not your eyes. If you need to baste, do it quickly and once.

The drip tray

The tray catches fat before it reaches the bowl, where it would flare and eventually start a grease fire. For roasts longer than two hours, pour a cup of water into the tray so the fat does not smoke.

For very long cooks: the snake

For a four hour cook or more, lay unlit briquettes around half the bowl in a band two wide and two high, touching each other. Light 8 to 10 briquettes in a chimney and put them at one end. The fire creeps along the band and holds 110 to 130°C (230 to 265°F) for five to six hours without you adding fuel. Put the drip tray inside the curve and the food over it.

Reverse sear

For thick steaks and small roasts, cook indirect until the meat is about 10°C (18°F) short of where you want it, then move it straight over the coals for a minute or two a side to brown. The inside stays even from edge to edge. Then follow salting and resting meat before you slice.