…to think “set grill to high” is an unhelpful cooking instruction?

[girljulian]

Posting here for traffic because I’m sick of incinerating things and Dr Google, for some reason, could not help me.

When you buy a food item which has to be grilled, why doesn’t it give you the temperature? I’ve tried searching what is meant by “set grill to high” but I only get a lot of American websites about outdoor barbecues. For a British grill incorporated into an oven, what would you consider to be “high”? What’s medium? Do some grills just have low, medium and high settings?

Mine automatically tries to heat itself to 300 degrees C but can go quite a lot higher than this. If I put cheese on toast under the grill at 300, it becomes charcoal in mere moments. So what does “high” mean and why don’t food packets just give the bloody numbers?

Your grill has degrees?

Most are a dial with 1-6ish notches.

1 is low, 3 is medium, 6 is high.

Yes, mine just has low medium and high. I think you just need to watch it more closely and judge for yourself probably!

Your grill goes a lot higher than 300°c? What is it? A kiln?

I'm not surprised you're incinerating everything. Try about 250. Even that's quite scorching. Move the pan lower if you can.

My grill is part of the top oven (electric) so it has either on or off!

my old house had gas double oven/ grill and the grill had, as pp says, high, medium or low.

I've never had a grill with temperatures. High to me would be all the way on, medium is middle of the dial.

I would move the rack lower if it was in the instructions for low though or if I found I was incinerating things.

My oven has a setting that allows the oven and the grill to be on at the same time but I would only use that for browning something that was baking too.
For cheese on toast I would use the grill only setting.
No wonder you are burning things!!!

Buy a cheap airfryer, good for so many things (including cheese on toast) and much cheaper than your over / grill.

Numbers would be great, OP, but as has already been said, there's no standardisation for grills.

It's not like 200c or gas mark 5, which are specific temperatures for ovens.

Grills can have anything as their temperature increments, so "grill mark 3" might be low, medium or surface-of-the-sun, depending on the appliance.

I've never had a grill that you could set to anything less than 'incineration.'

I just grill for less time or put the tray lower a lot lower or both.

Mine only has 2 settings for grill. Low and high.

I've never seen a grill with degrees If it's a double oven, are you sure you are not confusing the degrees with the oven setting.

Many grills will indicate either Hi / Lo, or little flame settings to indicate low, medium & high. Also, you can often turn on half the grill or full grill.

I can't see how a grill would have specific temperatures.

The term grill sometimes means using a grill pan, I have noticed, as in a griddle pan.

What oven do you have? I’ve never seen a grill with degrees. My oven has low medium and high but can also have the oven on at the same time if I want - is that what you’re doing maybe?

Girls usually have numbers so 1-2 might be low 3-4 medium and 5-6 high. I'd usually err on the side of caution and use 5 for a high setting. Use a similar division strategy for your degrees options and choose the lower end of the high bracket to avoid incineration

Our combination grill/microwave has degrees - it automatically starts at 275 but that is quite high so if I'm using it I turn it down a bit to 265deg for sausages, bacon etc

Mine just has a stripe that gets wider the higher it goes. Just keep an eye on it. When it's brown it's done, if it's black it's buggered.

Mine has degrees, one knob switches to the grill function and the only way to set it is with the other knob that's the temperature one for the oven. Grill doesn't seem to go on unless I set it to at least 250 though. I have no idea how its supposed to work so rarely use it.

Our single Zanussi oven has temp settings for the grill - it's not separate but part of the oven. I just whack it on a high temp and then lower the rack if it seems too hot 🔥

Surely high is the highest setting, medium is the middle one etc? What am I missing OP?

Mine just does high or "medium" or "low" medium and low just sort of warm the oven up a bit so they are never used.

Thanks all, this is very interesting! Yes, our grill has degrees, but if most are just low/medium/high then that explains the packaging. I haven’t worked out how to turn the grill and the oven on at the same time. The grill is a different setting on the knob and it goes up to 350 which is, as pp have said, like the surface of the sun. But therefore I thought surely the highest it went was “high”!

Yes ours is a Zanussi. Honestly it’s helped me just to know that this is unusual!

So if max is 350, high is anything from 230ish onwards. Go for about 250 I'd say!

My oven is AEG and its all electronic touch controls. The highest grill temperature is 280 and the lowest is 30 degrees. I can't even think of anything I'd want to grill at 30 degrees ....

My grandparent's London flat had a gas cooker - the old fashioned type with flames on the eye level grill and in the oven.

You could adjust the flame and put the rack either low or high in the grill pan. The only grill I have ever used that caramelised a brulee.