This is a thrifty modification that you can make to your gas grill to prevent those aggravating flare- ups. Make those flare-ups a thing of the past and a platter of beautiful grilled food a thing of the now. If you have a gas grill similar to the one above, with a just a few modifications you can prevent flare-ups for good.
First, cut four short pieces of angled aluminum or some other type metal. Just be sure not to use galvanized metal for these new brackets. Galvanized metals produce toxic, noxious fumes when heated and would certainly permeate your foods. Plus breathing fumes produced from heated galvanized metals will cause metal sickness.
Simply cut 4 brackets. They do not need to be very long, essentially what you are doing is making small shelves for a cut piece of expanded metal to sit upon.
The brackets should be mounted approximately four inches below where the grill grate sits. They need to be at the least 3.5"-4" below your grill grate for this modification to work properly. (enlarge above photo for details) Any closer and you could risk cooking your food a little too fast. You will understand what I'm referring to as you progress down this posting.
You can easily drill through the grill housing with any sharp bits without injury to the grill, it is an aluminum alloy type material and drills very easily. I used self tapping screws to drill directly into the bracket, thus I used no nuts.
A little closer view of these brackets added
Notice the screws that are holding the brackets in place.
Four little shelves.
Next, add a gas grill expandable burner cover. These can be bought from wal-mart or some of the online stores.
If you will take notice, I actually installed my brackets so the top would align with the apex of the burner cover for two reasons:
- First, you want the secondary grate that will be installed to be at the least 3-4" below your cooking grate. So making the brackets as low as possible would enable me to keep that minimal distance.
- Second, installing them in alignment with, provides a center-line support element for the secondary grate to come.
Install a piece of expanded metal that sits upon these newly installed brackets. Notice, because of the alignment of brackets-to-burner cover, I now support on both sides and in the center. I would suggest purchasing your expanded metal from a local welder in your area, it is overly expensive if purchased elsewhere. Definitely don't consider purchasing from Lowes or Home Depot unless your willing to part with the paper. Plus, your local welders have the necessary equipment to cut this stuff to your precise measurements.
Next you will need briquettes that are designed for use in gas grills, sometimes it takes two bags to have enough briquettes to line the grate completely. Found on Amazon. 
Simply line the briquettes on the expanded metal so there are not any holes located within them. This prevents any flames from protruding upwards. I like to over lap them a little whenever I put new briquettes in my grill. As you can notice these have been used for a while. By the way, they last for several years before needing replacing.Don't worry, the drippings on the briquettes only serve to flavor foods cooked in the future...no need to clean them off after cooking. Just an FYI, your new briquettes will look like those in the lower right corner of the grill- typically gray in color. I only needed to add a few to my grill today and while doing so thought I would share the concept. Otherwise, the new addition would have been all new gray briquettes....you get the story!
Cook an extra wing or two for me, thanks ~chris
If you have found this post useful, please consider donating.
