Flame Zone Question...

If you use the Flame Zone, holy plate, can you still set the PB to lower temps and if so, what happens?

I just did some chicken thighs with just EVOO, salt and pepper for seasoning. I had my MAK grill grate in the back half and the FZ uncovered underneath it. Front was the regular stainless grill with the FZ covered. PB set to 350 using apple pellets. I did it this way to grill the skin side for about 15 minutes to crisp the skin. Then pulled the thighs to the front over the covered FZ section for about 20-25 minutes. Excellent, crisp skin, moist meat.

You can set the PelletBoss to whatever temperature you want. Just realize that any time you remove the FlameZone covers (exposing the holes), you are allowing more heat to come directly up to the grate. Therefore the actual grate temperature overtop an uncovered area of the FlameZone is going to be hotter than the set temperature.

This is NOT a bad thing. As Sam pointed out, you can have one half of the FlameZone covered and the other half uncovered, giving you a searing zone and a cooler indirect zone. It's great for chicken (like Sam did), reverse searing, etc. The flexibility is awesome!

I've been playing around with using my upper shelf with both covers off. It's giving me a little bit of a Carolina direct heat flavor.....and I'm digging it.

I love how you guys are using the MAK in different ways!
Only thing to be conscious of is when the grill is cooking at high temps with flame zone open the heat will burn up the grease that happens to drip in the holes. On a low temp the grease could drip through and cause some additional cleanup after your cook. There is also a potential for the grease to run down to the firepot and cause a flare up. As an example, if you were smoking a pork butt for 12hrs which will produce a lot of grease I would not recommend having the flame zone open.

MAK DADDY said:

I love how you guys are using the MAK in different ways!
Only thing to be conscious of is when the grill is cooking at high temps with flame zone open the heat will burn up the grease that happens to drip in the holes. On a low temp the grease could drip through and cause some additional cleanup after your cook. There is also a potential for the grease to run down to the firepot and cause a flare up. As an example, if you were smoking a pork butt for 12hrs which will produce a lot of grease I would not recommend having the flame zone open.

Click to expand...

Yep, I was irresponsible with my wording. I have been doing this with small cuts of pork and NOT pork butts for that very reason. Thanks for catching that and pointing it out!