1. We deliberately made the hood low because most of the time you are not grilling "big" items and you will get more concentrated heat and smoke in a smaller volume with this design. If you need to cook a big bird or roast, just use the slow cook rack which is explained below. The coals are to the side of the food, for smokey, indirect heat, there is a drip pan under the food, and you have 14" of clearance for the largest of items.

2. The coal basket lets you adjust the fire from11" below the food to 3" below. A typical bed of charcoal is about 2" thick, so you can get the coals within an inch of the bottom of the cooking grate and back them off to 9" when you need to.

3. The coal basket has room for 200 briquettes which is a lot of heat! In most cases, you will use less than half this amount of charcoal.

Functional Features Light the charcoal fast without lighter fluid You light it without starter fluid or red hot chimneys using crumpled newspaper. Click | here | to see a short video of the charcoal lighting process. The hardware is designed into the grill. Pour in charcoal, add newspaper through a door at the bottom, and light it. The burning paper quickly ignites the coals. You'll be grilling in less than 15 minutes. If the kids are screaming and you are in a hurry, simply add additional loads of newspaper and it will light even faster. Lighting your charcoal takes less time than with a chimney or starter fluid. You'll be ready to grill in roughly the same time it takes to heat up a gas grill. If you are in a hurry, you can add another load of newspaper and speed up the process even more. You can also use some of the more environmentally friendly starters that you place under the charcoal. But nothing seems to work as fast as newspaper. (Another tip that adds to the "master griller" factor: Pour some vegetable oil on the newspaper before you light it. You'll see a longer, hotter flame that lights even faster.)   Control the heat with a simple lever on the side The charcoal fire is contained in a movable basket inside the firebox. You raise and lower it with a simple smooth motion. Click | here | to see how the heat control lever works. At the "high" end of the spectrum the coals are directly under the grate for intense radiant heat.   In the "medium" range, the coals are 4 to 6 inches below for traditional "backyard barbecue" temperatures. (The center of travel is the same as the fixed distance in a typical kettle, so you can use the same techniques and timing.) At the "low" end the coals are 9 inches from the food for slower cooking turkeys, brisket, ribs and other slow foods. You can also drop the coals after you sear a steak to get the middle exactly how you like it without burning the outside.   Access the fire without lifting the hood Another way to control your heat is by adding more charcoal or moving it around to form different patterns under the cooking grate. It's eay to do this through a door in the front that opens wide—like an oven. This means you can tend the fire without opening the cover, touching the grate or moving the food around. And you can add more charcoal or wood chips for smoke at any time during the process. You can get at the inside of the grill when it comes time for cleanup.(Another cute little trick: you can open the door to look up through the bottom of the cooking grate and see if the steaks are ready to turn.)   Control the airflow for low heat and high smoke The grill has heavy-duty vents that are easy to operate. The vents control the convective heat by changing the airflow past the food. Open for a hotter fire, closed for less heat and more smoke. They are located on the side and front—not on the bottom, like a kettle.   Create bold char marks with a heavy grate When the food hits this grate you get smoke and sizzle ... conductive heat in action. The grate is a hand-welded chunk of stainless steel that's heavy and solid. The heavier the grate, the better the char. You get the deep, dark marks that are the signature of fine food properly grilled.   Keep the grill clean All the mechanical processes are designed for cleanliness. The grill funnels ash, spent coals and general messiness into a removable stainless pan at the bottom. All internal surfaces are flat, not curved, with fewer nooks and crannies to collect dirt. And there is little exposed hardware inside, so it's easier to scrape down.   Quality Features • The firebox of the grill is hand-welded of eleven gauge (1/8 inch) steel. All parts that touch the fire are coated with a ceramic paint formulated to stand up to the heat, acids and fats from the food.  • The hood, cooking grate, trim and all moving parts are made of 11 gauge (1/8 inch) 304 stainless steel. (You can test it. A magnet won't stick. it's not that Chinese junk that will start to rust in a year!)  • All hardware is marine grade stainless steel. • The cooking grate is heavy gauge hand welded 304 stainless. It flips up for access to the fire, or to clean the bottom where the gunk builds up. All the crud falls inside where you can dispose of it.This grate is removable, will fit inside a self-cleaning oven and will come out looking like new. The grate hangs from hooks on the side of the firebox when not in use. • The universal mounting rails at the top of the firebox will accomodate our specially designed skewer rack, our rotisserie rack and other accessories yet to be released. The cover will close and seal with the accessories in use. • The ash pan is 16 gauge stainless steel and has a large handle to make it easy (and safe) to dump the ashes. The pan is long and skinny so you can dump the ashes into an empty charcoal bag. (Please make sure that all the coals are out and stone cold before you do this. I have learned this lesson the hard way!)   • All internal grates are easy to remove when it comes time for a thorough cleaning. The inside surfaces of the firebox are deliberately flat and straight to make it easy to scrape down the inside of the grill with your spatula or the cleaning tool we include with the grill.   • The coal basket has plenty of room for a drip pan when you are barbecuing with indirect heat or when you are using the slow cook rack. • The access door on the front of the firebox is large and can be opened without opening the hood and releasing heat. The door is large enough to add charcoal, wood chips, rearrange your fire or look up through the bottom of the cooking grate to see if it is time to turn the steaks. • The vents are 11 gauge stainless steel. The vents are designed with a larger opening so that when the top vent is open you can actually see what is going on under the hood. • The handles are insulated with a special foam material that will keep them cool to the touch.			How to Use the B1 Grill Set it up for functional grilling There are three basic types of cooking when you are using a charcoal grill. Pure searing, sear then rest, and roasting-smoking. Let's start with the type of grilling that most people do—grilling meat and vegetables. For this, you will get the best results using the sear then rest method. Click | here | to see a video of this process. It's a three-step process that you'll use over and over for everyday grilling. We designed it so that when you light the grill it automatically creates this versatile setup.  You get a zone on the grill for each function and your work will flow logically from left to right. Why didn't anybody think of this before? Let's assume that you have a nice load of charcoal lit. You automatically get the two-zone configuration, but you can move the coals into whatever pattern you want. Prep your foods in the kitchen on the cutting board. The cutting board drops into the side worktable on the right side. Raise the handle for heat high so you have a nice hot grate. Start the food on the left side directly over the coals for searing and crisping. Rotate 90 degrees for crosshatch char marks. Flip and repeat - still on the direct zone to the left. Move it to the right side to rest and reabsorb juices. A foil drip pan under this side will keep things clean.  Then it's back to the cutting board for carving and service Meanwhile another cutting board of food is on it's way from the kitchen. Repeat until everybody is happy.    Grill for a crowd, there's plenty of room Same process, but if you are serving a large crowd, you can light more charcoal, spread it evenly across the coal basket and make the entire 400 square inches a direct heat zone. Remember that you can bring the fire right up close to the top, so you usually don't need as many coals as you think you do. You can move a lot of food in a very efficient manner. We have grilled hundreds of steaks at festivals and parties in just a few hours, and you will intuitively "get" how this works once you try it a few times. The grate is 400 square inches and it can be configured for all indirect, two zone, or slow cooking. It's the right compromise between size and charcoal use. You really don't want to fire up a whole bag of charcoal every time you want a burger. We've had several customers concerned about the size, but once they get the grill, they are very pleased with the efficiency and the way the process works. Or you could buy two grills.... Roasting-Smoking, Traditional Barbecue This is the setup for turkeys, beer can chickens, roasts and anything else you want to play around with for a low and slow barbecue. Remove the cooking grate. Add a load of charcoal along the left side of the coal basket. Place a drip pan and the slow cook rack in the right side of the coal basket. If you want a long slow burn, put newspaper only in the front of the lighting chamber which will light only part of the charcoal. The charcoal will burn gradually (sort of like a cigar) and increase the interior temperature more gradually yielding a longer, lower burn and the food will have more time to absorb the smokey flavor.  Place your food on the slow cook rack to the right of the coals. Close the cover and adjust the vents for whatever temperature you need. By watching the thermometer and adjusting the vents, you can easily get a 250° - 400° fire that will last for three hours. You can open the front door to add smoke chips at any time without lifting the cover or moving the food. With a little practice, you can achieve anything from a Thanksgiving turkey to competition-quality brisket and ribs.   Examples of the grill setup for slow cooking:  We cooked up five racks of baby back ribs for my Dad's 92nd birthday party in September. We used both the slow cook rack and the top grate and had plenty of room. We used cherry wood chips and lump charcoal for three hours at around 250° F.   Five racks of ribs and two chickens for a large birthday party It was a chatty bunch who got very quiet when the food came out. Two people said they were the best ribs they ever had in their entire life! We also grilled up two chickens while the ribs were tenderizing in the foil. We fed 16 big eaters and had a lot left over, all on less than one bag of good quality charcoal.   A 20 pound turkey from Thanksgiving '09. This turkey took about four hours on the grill and one hour resting in a tight cooler to keep it warm. It was very moist and tender and the oven was free for side dishes.