Comparisons · Two cuts
Cod fillet or Whole sea bass
Whether a whole fish is just a bigger fillet. It is not, and this is the pair where BBQHQ can now show why with two windows rather than one: the fillet is timed against an open grate and the whole fish against a lid, from different publishers giving different rates for the same reason.
What each one is
Cod fillet
Large-flaked lean white fish, and the food in this catalogue most likely to fall through a grate in pieces.
Whole sea bass
A lean white round fish cooked whole, and the standard case for fish sticking to a grate — lean flesh and delicate skin with nothing to spare.
What actually differs
| Aspect | Cod fillet | Whole sea bass |
|---|---|---|
| Typical weight | 150–250 g | 400–700 g |
| Typical thickness Thickness governs timing more than weight or cut name does — Weber's own chart roughly triples the time between a one-inch and a two-inch steak. | 20–30 mm | 40–60 mm |
| Bone Whether a cut is bone-in matters more as it gets thicker. | Boneless | Bone in |
| Skin | No skin | Skin on |
| What BBQHQ's evidence gives for time Windows from the cooking profiles, at the conditions each profile states. They are not comparable to the minute — the profiles differ in cooker and configuration — and are shown to give the scale. | 6–12 minutes | 15–29 minutes |
| How it is usually cooked | direct heat, two-zone fire | indirect heat, two-zone fire |
| What tends to go wrong From BBQHQ's troubleshooting index. Choosing between two cuts is partly choosing which failure you would rather risk. | came out dry, stuck to the grate, fell apart | stuck to the grate, fell apart |
Which one, for what
Conditions rather than a verdict. Each line below is a thing one of them can do that the other cannot, or does without arrangement where the other needs it — taken from the what each cooker is documented as doing, rather than from a preference.
Cod fillet, if:
- You want it to cook faster and carve without working around a bone.
Whole sea bass, if:
- You want the margin a bone gives you against overshooting.
Can one stand in for the other?
Not a substitute for this
BBQHQ does not treat these as substitutes. They want different methods, and swapping them without changing the cook is how one of them comes out badly.
Food safety — read this first
This swap changes the safe endpoint
These are different food forms — fillet and whole fish — and form governs the safe endpoint rather than species. Do not carry a temperature across this swap; check the endpoint for the one you are actually cooking.
What has to change
- They are not the same thickness, and thickness moves timing more than weight or cut name does. Expect the window to move substantially, and probe rather than transferring the time.
- BBQHQ's evidence gives these two materially different cooking windows, so the time moves even where the method does not. Take the window for the one you are actually cooking and probe towards it.
- One is bone-in and the other is not, which changes both the timing and where the thermometer has to go — never against the bone.