Those infrared plates are meant for specific type of cooking, for example if you are doing chicken or maybe pork or anything that needs a even heat for a longer amount of time. If you are just doing normal direct heat cooking for burgers for example, just do it without the plates. I have the 5 burner one and did 6 burgers at 400F for 8 min total and they were perfect. I still haven’t tried cooking with the infrared plates, only used the thing once, but will experiment more when I have time.

My Operation Manual has a whole section on those plates, the combinations you can do and how to use them for various types of food you want to cook. I can’t find a copy of it online but if you want to see it I can upload it and share it with you.

It cooks a lot better with the infrared plates flipped upside down and underneath the grill grates. Also keeps the even.

I just put mine together and cooked on it yesterday. 4 burgers on the stainless grates and dogs on top. Heated up quickly and cooked to perfection. I’m gonna try flipping the stainless grates and putting the regular grills on top right now. The fold down sides make this grill perfect for compact spaces.