Legs up or Down

Tillerman

I am having a brain fa^t.  Can someone give me the basic idea on when you should have the legs up or down when using the BGE?  Also, is there any time when you would not want to use the platesetter at all?

gdenby

Legs up with grill on legs to put the cooking level up to the rim, and make the cook session "indirect." Legs down commonly for a baking surface.

Personally, I don't use the platesetter much at all, most often when I'm baking bread. I just use a raised grill set up w. a drip pan beneath for indirect cooks, and no drip pan for faster grilling type cooks.

SmokeyPitt

Short answer...just always go legs up with the setter.   They used to recommend legs down for baking, but if you have a pizza stone it works better to go legs up+grid+stone on grid.  Only reason I see to go legs down is if you don't have a pizza stone and you want to cook directly on the setter (but I would recommend just getting a stone!).

There is definitely a time for no plate setter.  This is cooking direct, aka "grilling".  If you are cooking a steak or burgers then no plate setter.  Lots of folks like cooking things like chicken direct as well.  

lousubcap

As noted above, when cooking w/o a platesetter or some other heat diffuser device (stone, fire bricks etc) you are cooking direct.  Food is exposed directly to the burning lump.  With direct cooking there are two options, "direct"-cooking grid on top of the fire ring and "raised direct" where the grid is elevated above the fire ring usually to the gasket line or above.  FWIW-