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Originally Posted by TLO
I'm just now learning to grill with charcoal. (Hank Hill is rolling over in his grave)
What are some tips you'd give to a n00b?
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Learn how to cook on direct and indirect. Direct is easy for the most part. You're going hot and fast over a constant flame with you tending and flipping. This guy is a great resource for cooking on basic charcoal style grills and figuring out indirect configurations that make sense based on what you're cooking. There are a number of others I'll recommend if you like.
Buy a charcoal chimney to get your coals heated and evenly ashed over before you cook. These things are foolproof and will always produce ready to use charcoal. Buy some starters like tumbleweeds or little wax cubes if you like. You can put vegetable oil on a paper towel and get it going. Newspaper works great too. Lots of options but do it this way. DO NOT USE STARTER FLUID
Understand what your vents do. You are drawing air from the bottom and pushing out over your cooking surface. You vent from the top so personally I control the input and leave the output wide open for the most part. This is where you'll learn how to manage temp in the grill. Realize the dome is going to read about 50 degrees hotter than the grates on average.
Buy a decent thermometer, especially if you progress from grilling to trying your hand at mixing in hard woods and smoking. You can add on hard woods directly to the coals when doing burgers or chicken or whatever and get that charcoal/smoke flavor very easily.
Just spend at least $10 bucks and you'll get something decent off amazon.