The Best Method For Getting A Nice Char On Bone-In Grilled Meat

One of the activities many home cooks look forward to all year long is summertime grilling, with the plethora of delights it offers. Whether you're firing up some coals or igniting the propane to sear a juicy hanger steak, sweet and spicy shrimp, or even pink watermelon for a refreshing summer salad, there's just something irreplaceable about the smoky flavors imparted by grilling — plus, it's pretty fun to spend time outside cooking and sipping a cold beer, or lemonade.

Once you've nailed down factors like properly preheating your grill and not pressing down on burgers as they cook, grilling is actually pretty simple — though that's not to say the method is without its occasional challenges. According to Genuine Ideas, one of the trickier items to cook properly on a grill is bone-in meat, which takes longer to cook through than boneless items and is rarely uniform in terms of thickness. But, of course, the deliciousness of items such as chicken drumsticks, T-bone steaks, and lamb chops makes them well worth the effort of grilling. You'll just want to master getting a nice char on them.

Since bone-in cuts of meat such as chicken legs and ribeye steaks often take longer to cook through than boneless chicken breasts and pork tenderloins, it's important to learn how to manage these cuts on a hot grill without ending up with a super-charred piece of meat. As explained by Food Network, bone-in pieces of meat shouldn't stay on a hot region of the grill for too long, which will burn the exterior of the meat and produce a char that no one at the BBQ will want to suffer through.

Rather, the outlet recommends searing such parts on a hot area of the grill, then moving it to a zone where there's more indirect heat and allowing it to cook all the way through. Alternatively, items such as chicken drumsticks and pork ribs can be par-cooked inside in the oven before heading outside to the grill, such as in this recipe for barbecue baby back pork ribs.