Building Deck & DIY Platform for a Grill
BBQ Basics: Techniques You Need to Know

Grilling Tips

Weber charcoal grills and gas barbecues give you great grilled results every time because they are designed to give you ultimate control of your grilling temperature and cooking method. Here we explain the secret to great grilling.

Grilling Tips
Direct Method

The Direct Method is similar to broiling. Food is cooked directly over the heat source. For even cooking, food should be turned once halfway through the grilling time. Use the Direct method for foods that take less than 25 minutes to cook: like steaks, chops, kabobs, sausages and vegetables. Direct cooking is also necessary to sear meats. Searing creates that wonderful crisp, caramelized texture where the food hits the grate. It also adds nice grill marks and flavour to the entire food surface. Steaks, chops, chicken pieces, and larger cuts of meat all benefit from searing.

Grilling Tips
Indirect Method

The Indirect Method is similar to roasting, but with the added benefits of that grilled texture, flavour, and appearance you can't get from an oven. Heat rises, reflects off the lid and inside surfaces of the grill, and slowly cooks the food evenly on all sides. The circulating heat works much like a convection oven, so there's no need to turn the food. Use the Indirect Method for foods that require 25 minutes or more of grilling time or for foods that are so delicate that direct exposure to the heat source would dry them out or scorch them.

Grilling safety requires placing your grill on a flat, level surface that remains free of combustible materials that could catch fire should you experience grill flare-ups or your fire produces sparks.
Building a simple deck for your grill can provide a safe location to cook outdoors without worry. Choose from several different decking materials to build a deck that fits your style and level of building experience.
Regardless of which simple deck style you choose to use for your grill, you must prepare the ground beneath the area. You may need to level the surface if you intend to install the deck on the ground rather than install a raised deck.
You can find a variety of snap together decking tiles to use when building a simple grilling deck. These tiles are made from different hardwood and composite materials, such as teak, eucalyptus, recycled woods and recycled plastics.
As you can imagine, keeping weeds out of your garden takes a lot of hard work, particularly when they grow in hard-to-reach places, such as just under your decking boards, for example. Lawn care service in Cleveland, OH gone into a bit of depth on this article about just how it can help.
Weeds are the bane everywhere for gardeners and landscapers. In fact, it's probably safe to say that no one is especially taken by them and they can be an utter nightmare to pull up, as anyone who's ever tackled them knows. This is made much trickier-near impossible-when you have several thick decking boards in the way. Weeds need to be pulled up by the roots naturally, but if you can't do that it's almost inevitable you'll see them poking up again between the boards soon.
Weed control cloth, by building an impenetrable barrier between the weeds and your boards, helps to discourage you from having to do this in the first place. People used to do the job with old sheets of plastic, but our weed control fabric was specially designed to allow air, water and nutrients to move through to the soil below, unlike plastic. Although it takes a careful eye to use it effectively in normal gardening, weed control fabric is particularly well suited to where you don't want anything to grow at all-say, right under your decking area, for example!
When used in combination with any form of aggregate, many individuals find that it is most effective; pebbles and wood chippings are common choices for this aggregate. It forms a barrier together that will have difficulty breaking through even the most determined of weeds. That means that before you build your decking, you can lay it down, and then enjoy the area while absolutely comfortable in the knowledge that you will not see any unwanted visitors popping up between the boards.
Weed control fabric's environmental benefits may not be immediate right off the bat, but they make a perfect alternative to herbicides commonly used to get rid of weeds. The thing about herbicides is that they are very indiscriminate, which means that all kinds of plant life can be easily destroyed (as well as the ecosystems that use these plants to live). Landscape fabric gives these potent chemicals a brilliant substitute, since it does not have exactly the same adverse effect on nearby plants and wildlife.
What's more, weed control fabric is notoriously cost-effective, so on finite herbicide containers you would not have to keep shelling out. It's also an ideal long-term solution-it'll be years before you have to think about repairing it or re-laying it after you've laid it down. And you might even be able to expand the timeframe even further because you mount it under your decking!