Barbecue Tips and Tricks

One of the joys of BBQ is that the sky’s the limit; practically any meat or vegetable can be grilled. The important thing to remember is time. If you’re reading this article an hour before guests start to arrive and you haven’t even bought groceries, then slow smoking an entire pork shoulder is probably out of the question. Don’t stretch yourself so thin that you can’t accomplish the meal. Planning ahead and keeping the recipes quick and simple will help see that your backyard barbecue is a successful one.

Now if you do have the luxury of time than you should start thinking about “cooking” at least two hours before you actually plan to grill.

• Start with marinating your meat. Cooking on a grill is going to impart a nice smoky flavor to everything, but the majority of the flavor is either in the meat itself or will come from the marinade or the rub you put on before cooking. A good marinade consists of three things: an acid (vinegar, lemon juice, etc.), an oil and spices. Do not use BBQ sauce as a marinade. There are a few exceptions to this, however, using BBQ sauce as a marinade will typically only lead to blackened charred food (a little bit of char is good, a lot is bad). This is because most BBQ sauces have loads of sugar in them that just caramelize and burn onto the food long before the food is actually cooked. To play it safe, stick to a simple marinade and then brush on the sauce the last few minutes of cooking or after the food is off the grill.

• Prep your vegetables and other sides. If you plan to grill your veggies, slice them nice and thin so they cook quickly and evenly. Don’t mess with adding oil or spices to them, let the grill do its thing and add the flavoring after. Other great sides to go with your meal can be a nice potato salad, deviled eggs, coleslaw, and other items you can make in advance and have waiting for the rest of the food to come off the grill. Having this prep work done before it’s time to grill will save you some headache, and allow you to pay closer attention to the grill.

• Prep the grill. Make sure your cooking surface is nice and clean, get rid of any old ash left over from the last time you used it. Arrange your charcoal to suit your needs if you’re only cooking one type of thing than a simple split between high direct heat, and low indirect heat will likely work. If you’re cooking multiple things than you may want to go with low, medium, high heat areas (see below for tips on getting the right heat). Just before you throw the meat on you’ll want to take a rag or paper towel soaked in olive oil and coat the grill in a light layer. You want to oil the grill, not the food. Oiling the food can result in oil dripping onto the coals and flaring up. Contrary to popular opinion food that is actually “flame broiled” isn’t so tasty, the fire tends to just burn things.