When you read about cooking with indirect heat on charcoal or gas grills, it’s all about moving the food around relative to the heat source—putting your big beautiful brisket in between or off to one side of the coals or burners. But let’s face it: that’s not indirect heat, it’s UNEVEN heat. And your cooking will be off-kilter as a result of the surface of the food that’s closer to the heat getting ‘hot spots,’ while the midsection is not nearly so well done.
Good news: a wood pellet grill does not use direct heat.
It’s convection cooking, the only true kind of indirect heat. Under the wood pellet fire box, there’s a fan that circulates heat throughout the cooking chamber, creating even temperatures all around. In fact, the temperature is so consistent that you don’t really have to turn your food. You only flip your food on a wood pellet grill to create nice-looking grill marks or to baste.
Wood pellet grilling is a pretty perfect solution for slow-cooking outdoors, including not just roasts and braises and briskets, but smoking and even baking.
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