Is it better to barbecue with the lid on or off?

There is a phrase amongst American barbecue aficionados that goes “If you’re looking, you’re not cooking”. Whilst this may be the case for American style barbecuing where they are cooking meat low and slow over several hours, in the UK we are often grilling food fast over a high heat and that edict does not necessarily ring true. There are plenty of instances when you may choose to cook uncovered, so read on as we lift the lid on is it better to barbecue with the lid on or off?

Why barbecue with the lid down?

Lets first examine why you’d want to barbecue with the lid down:

1. Trappping Heat – The main reason for cooking with the lid down seems obvious. Closing the lid traps in heat, meaning you are cooking more efficiently.
   • To illustrate this point, think of a saucepan on the hob. If you have a lid in place, less energy is required to achieve the same result, so food in a saucepan is normally simmered with the lid on, thus preserving energy.
2. Use Less Fuel – With barbecuing, having the lid down also wastes less fuel, which costs you less money, so for this reason alone it would seem needlessly expensive to have the lid open.
3. Cook Food Evenly – Keeping the lid in place also creates a convection effect, with heat encircling and surrounding your food, so that it cooks evenly from all sides at once.
   • There are many instances when this is what you require, such as when cooking whole roast chicken, larger joints of meat or if using a rotisserie.
4. Fewer Flare Ups – Flare ups can occur when cooking juices from the meat drip onto the flames (either charcoal or gas) and act as additional fuel for the fire, producing peaks of intense flames in a blazing inferno that can overcook the meat on the outside. Having the lid down however, starves the fuel of oxygen. As we all know from our schooldays fire needs oxygen to burn, so if you limit the oxygen by having the lid on, this creates fewer flare ups.
   • You do want just the right amount of fat to drip down, smoulder and vaporise in the flames as this is what creates smoke which engulfs and penetrates your food during cooking, producing that authentic barbecue flavour, but you don’t want excessive flare ups. Keeping the lid down will help to temper the flames.
5. Create flavour & Retain Tenderness – Lid on cooking lets the heat sink in and cook the inside of the meat like an oven would. Smoke will penetrate deeper into the food, resulting in extra flavour. Having the lid on also retains moisture within the barbecue, which circulates with the heat, producing meat that is tender and juicy.
   • When cooking over an extended period some barbecuers like to enhance this effect by placing a tray full of water in their barbecue to prevent their meat from drying out.

So, when cooking large joints of meat over an extended period when you want slow, even cooking with fewer flare ups, maximum smoky flavour and a tender texture, these are all good reasons for keeping the lid in place whilst barbecuing.

Why grill with the lid up?

Let’s look at the instances when you’d grill with the lid open:

• To return to the saucepan analogy, there are some instances when you don’t want the lid of your saucepan in place – think of when boiling a sauce or some stock at a high heat with the intention of making a reduction.

• The same is true with barbecuing. When you are grilling over a high heat in shorter bursts, having the lid open prevents heat building up and intensifying, so it doesn’t overcook your precious burgers or thinner cuts of meat and limits the potential to burn food.
  • In this case, leaving the lid up slows the cooking temperature around the meat, so you can precisely control the burst of heat just where you want it, hitting just one surface of your food at a time.
  • Conversely, when the lid is down, the heat surrounds the meat and cooks it from all sides, rather than just one.
• For example, with the lid closed, you won’t be able to achieve the same high quality sear on both sides of a steak, as the top will already be partially cooked by the time you flip it.
  • With the lid up however, steak should still be red on the top when you turn it over; with the lid down it will be grey as it has begun to cook. This is not necessarily “wrong” it is just a different result.
• Another advantage of cooking with the lid off is that you can see any flare ups that occur and quickly react by moving food out of the flames so that it doesn’t burn.

Is it better to barbecue with the lid on or off?

The basic guidance is any meat that is thicker than 2cm or that takes longer than 30 minutes to cook, you normally cook with the lid down, evenly and slowly for maximum flavour and tenderness, whilst anything thinner than 2cm you want to cook quickly with the lid up to intensify the sear and create delicious crispy brown edges.

For successful searing, you need an intense dry heat, whilst low and slow wants a moist warm environment.

• So, lid down for roasting a whole chicken, cooking joints on a rotisserie, baking barbecue pizza and any meat with a depth thicker than 2cm or that will take longer than 30 minutes on the grill.
• Lid up for anything thinner than 2cm that cooks quickly, such as burgers, sausages, chops, shrimp and anything on a griddle plate.

With that said, as everyone knows it’s the exception which proves the rule and in this case there are certain scenarios which definitely flex the boundaries somewhat:

• In the UK, it’s not uncommon to be battling against adverse weather conditions, even during the height of summer. If a wind whips up whilst you’re grilling some burgers or it begins to rain whilst you’re searing your sausages (let’s face it, this happens quite often), you have our full permission to close the lid, although you might want to dial down the heat accordingly. No one wants soggy food or, worse still, your flames to be extinguished by the wind or rain.

• Another special case is when reverse searing steaks. This is a technique which involves using a mixture of indirect (lid down) cooking to bring your steaks nearly to the desired level of doneness, before finishing them with a burst of high heat searing (lid up) to introduce carmelisation and deep flame cooked flavour.

Those are the the main rules of thumb when it comes to cooking covered or uncovered. For more information on cooking techniques, see our interesting and informative blog on How do you cook food on a barbecue? or you may wish to browse our barbecues and accessories which are available to purchase online for national delivery and can all be used with lids up or down, as the mood takes you.