Anatomy of Fire 🔥
Cooking with Wood Fires & More
Greetings Friends, 🔥
The feedback from the last Grilling Substack has been phenomenal! Nice to see all the DM’s etc from people with success stories. The best recipes truly come from good measurements/instructions, but just as important are the tips/tricks and troubleshooting help… that’s when you can start stacking knowledge and reps, becoming a better cook on a daily basis…
In case you missed it, we threw down a masterclass in grilling whole fish. Including finding at the grocery store, prepping to grill, lighting your fire and finally, grilling the fish. ⬇️
Today I’m going to walk you through the anatomy of a fire. There are 6 stages in the lifecycle of a fire, and knowing these will make you a foundationally better cook. Then in the next Substack i’m dropping a Smoked Chicken recipe with one of my favorite BBQ Sauces so it’s gonna be a tasty weekend all around.
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Anatomy of Fire 🔥
Most people think of cooking with fire as lighting some wood or charcoal and cooking when you see smoke or hot coals.
In reality cooking with wood are charcoal are different. Charcoal has already undergone a few of the stages of fire 🔥 before being snuffed to preserve the coals that you can light and then cook with.
So lets go through from match to ash on the cycles of fire… which stages are good to cook with, and which stages you want to avoid… good smoke/bad smoke… etc.
To make fire you need (3) things. Heat, Fuel & Oxygen. Known as the fire the triangle, we can regulate all three of these variables depending on the type of fire we want… but all (3) are essential to building a fire… keep in mind as we go through the (6) stages.
As for fuel we are talking about wood. Keeping high level keep in mind that freshly cut wood contains a lot of moisture. If you try and burn freshly cut wood, that moisture will hinder you from creating the best fire. The fire is more likely to smolder (while burning off that excess moisture) as well as spitting and sputtering. From a flavor perspective also not optimal. So you want to find “seasoned” wood. That is wood that has been aged, and essentially dried out.
Igniting
The first stage of the fire involves igniting (or lighting) the wood. This is where a lot of people use additives, fire starting chemicals. Would highly recommend against using these additives. Also avoid treated woods that contain chemicals we want to avoid.
The actual ignition can be from a match, lighter, propane starter, etc. The use of kindling that will catch quickly and keep the heat in contact with the wood for an extended period of time will ensure a well lit fire.
Keep in mind the temperature of your fuel will also factor into how long your fire will take to ignite (eg: outside temperatures of 50F vs 85F will make a difference).
Smoke
After ignition begins the smoking stage. You will see white/gray billowy smoke start to rise from the fire. If your wood has higher moisture you can even see dark gray smoke. None of these are optimal to cook with. This smoke will persist until the fire reaches full combustion.
Flame
Now you will see flames emerging from the fire wood pile. The heat level will start increasing more rapidly now. During this process volatile gases are created, which then add to the combustion which creates a more intense heat. Keep in mind that adding more wood to the pile at this point would cause a decrease in temperature which isn’t optimal.
You can cook with these flames in an indirect manner. You wouldn’t want to cook ingredients in direct contact with the flames. Indirect heat, or even direct smoking is fine; just avoid flame contact with your food.
This is also the stage you will start seeing what BBQ purists call “blue smoke”. This is the most desirable smoke to to BBQ with. All of the acrid or bitter compounds from the smoke stage earlier have been burnt off now. *Smoke should be used as a perfume… not an overpowering dominate flavor.
Embers
As the flames die down, heat will continue to intensify and now you will see orange-glowing chunks of wood radiating heat. At this point the only remaining fuels in the wood are carbon and sugar chains of cellulose/hemicellulose/lignin. (Deeper dive on this at a later time)
These embers are perfect for directly over, as long as no flames are still present. Why? These coals/embers provide the most intense, clean and consistent heat now. You’ll start getting some white ash that can blown off or left on depending on how intense you want the heat.
It’s important to note that grilling foods over embers can create flames that are a result of compounds (fats, oils, natural juices) from the ingredients dropping onto the embers. This is fine.
You can add more fuel to these embers to create a longer lasting fire, just allow the new fuel to burn off all flames before cooking over. (You can do this by maintaining a larger fire with a section to create more embers, not for direct cooking)
Ash
Once the embers begin to decline in heat, they will start ashing over with more ash. This stage of the fire still contains a fair amount of heat that is good for slow cooking. Burying onions, beets or potatoes for example, can be slow cooked as the slowly declines.
Cinders
These are the left over pieces of the fire that are no longer hot but still solidified. You can’t cook with these but they are useful to keep for starting your next fire.
Flame, Embers and Ash will be the 3 stages that are optimal for cooking. Whether is smoking for BBQ, grilling over direct heat… and even slowcooking (as described above)… knowing these 6 stages of fire will help immensely in knowing how to maintain a fire and the optimal times to be cooking over.