Amount of Charcoal

• When using a Weber grill, it's important to choose enough charcoal to generate enough heat to cook your food, but not waste charcoal by using more than you need. A good general guidelines is 30 to 40 charcoal briquettes. For smaller items such as hamburgers and hot dogs, you can use slightly fewer charcoal briquettes. For larger items such as roasts, you want to consider using 50 to 60 to start your Weber grill.
  
  

Keeping the Fire Going

• Oxygen is essential to keeping the fire going to light your charcoal in your Weber grill. Weber grills have airflow vents at the top of the lid and at the bottom of the grill. Make sure you have your air vent completely open at the bottom when starting your charcoal on the Weber. Do not place the lid on the grill when starting it. Leaving it off will allow more oxygen to get to the coals, helping spread the fire. Placing the lid on top, even with the air flow vents open, can limit the oxygen supply enough that your fire will go out.
  
  

Smoking and Using Indirect Heat on the Weber Grill

• Smoking meat is the process of cooking it slowly. While the Weber grill is not a smoker, you can adjust it to work as one. Once your charcoal briquettes are hot with a light ash covering, move half to each side of the Weber grill. Place a drip pan in the middle of the grill between the charcoal piles. Place the meat that you plan to smoke over the drip pan. This set up will allow your Weber grill to act like a smoker. Place smoker wood chips that have been in water for at least an hour on top of the coals to produce smoke and cover the grill with the lid.