Here's the most important thing to remember about the broiler: Never walk away. Food will go from gloriously browned & crisp to burned & unsalvageable in just a few seconds. You gotta stand there and be vigilant.

But it's not hard to do .. just stand there with your hand inside a potholder, and a plan for where you're going with the hot pan once you take it out.

What are you cooking?

Nothing in particular today, but often I see a recipe that says to finish under the broiler, and I'd like to make some of those. Thanks for the tips!

When I use a broiler, I don't even shut the oven door. This cuts down on the amount of smoke created, which seems to occur for even very short periods, relatively speaking.

Quite often, I will pull up a chair and watch every minute.

I'm envious of your oven!

Yes, broiling is basically putting food under a fire. Which is pretty similar to baking, but with more fire and generally less space between the food and the fire.

It's like upside-down grilling, if that helps you picture it? There's a flame at the top of the oven (it doesn't shoot out, just stays along the top of the oven), and you put food under it to cook.

With most small cuts of meat (like steaks or chops or burgers), you probably want the food pretty close to the heat, as you would on a grill. So you'll likely want to arrange the oven rack as high as you can.

With bigger meats or things that just need to be lightly browned on top, you'll want those farther from the heat, so move the oven rack down so that the top of the thing you're cooking will be about 6-10" away from the heating element.

It's safe to play around with the broiler just to learn about it. Open the door, turn on the broiler, and see what it looks like when it's on. That will probably give you a good idea of how it works -- it's way more intuitive, I think, than baking!

Oh, and you can use a broiler pan if you like (one might have come with your oven).

For meat, I like to use a cookie sheet covered in tin foil and then set up a wire rack on it, and put the meat on the rack. The general idea is that you want elevate the meat a bit so that the grease, as it melts, can drip away from the meat. (Broiler pans use the exact same principle, I just find them a pain in the ass to clean.)

You can also put cast iron or most other oven-safe items under the broiler. Just make sure you figure out where the oven rack needs to be first, so that the item will fit. (And if you screw up the oven rack placement, you can always fix it by using pot holders to move the rack down.)

Serial posting for pro-tip: When you're putting your to-be-broiled item in the preheated oven, first slide out the oven rack halfway or so (however far you can do so with the rack still stable), put the item in the middle of the rack, and then slide the oven rack back in.

Slide the whole rack out again to turn or remove the item.

This will save you some burned hands.

Assuming you mean what we call a grill...

On warming: you don't need to warm the metal grid that you're putting the food on. With some, especially electric, the metal at the top is what radiates the heat, and that's what needs to be warmed up.

A good place to start is toasted cheese/grilled cheese/Welsh rarebit. Toast both sides, butter the top side, put sliced cheese on top, grill till it just starts to bubble.

The broiler is pretty key for re-heating pizza.