Demystifying Barbecue

Let me be clear up front, I am a BBQ fanatic!

I love to both cook and eat BBQ, and probably dream about it as well.

Over the past few years, BBQ seems to have surpassed baseball as “America’s Pastime”, with a plethora of new restaurants, TV shows, cooking contests, and recipe books now available that are completely dedicated to barbeque.

For someone like myself who was been religiously tending to the grill for on average 2 to 3 times per week, including during the winter months, this is a great development.

Over the past 10 days, I’ve barbecued ribs, pulled pork, steak, chicken, and salmon and eaten at 2 barbecue restaurants (more tomorrow).

At the same time, I do chuckle about all the fuss, as creating very good BBQ is not rocket science. (Please note that taking BBQ to a level of “excellent” does require a bit more skill and expertise—and I do highly value, appreciate, and enjoy this talent!)

So, thought I’d share a few thoughts to demystify barbecue, and provide some helpful hints.

1. Creating great BBQ requires the right equipment. I suspect that this is a key issue for most of those reading this article.

Forget about your outdoor gas grill—it won’t work. I mean BBQ needs hardwood or charcoal to get the proper smoky flavor. While a nice gas grill is convenient and easy, you’re fighting a lost fight.

Find yourself a nice traditional charcoal type grill (e.g. a Weber, or a similar alternative), or a bigger smoker grill, and your on your way. (BTW- with today’s grills offering built in “starters” or by using an electric grill starter, most of the “extra work” required to cook with wood is removed. And please do not use lighter fluid. This stuff is totally unnecessary, and can only impart bad tastes to your food). So I don’t buy this excuse, this is just laziness! Very good BBQ is work of few extra minutes of time.

2. Great BBQ requires getting the right ingredients.

This challenge is often more difficult to address than #1. I mean getting a nice steak, some chicken or fish is easy enough. Obviously freshness counts. For those organically inclined, there are implications here as well, but in general you can rely on quality food suppliers, whether they are butchers, fish purveyors, specialty grocers, or supermarkets to meet your needs.

More traditionally barbecued foods (ribs, brisket, pulled pork) require a bit more attention to get the right cut of meat. You want a piece of well- marbled meat, and for brisket and pulled pork cuts (butt or shoulder), having a nice ½ inch layer of fat on top is best. Of course, with most meat pre-cut before going to the market these days, this can be tough to find, but if you can find the right provider, it will help simplify the cooking process.

3. Great BBQ requires proper food preparation.

For the traditional BBQ meats, you’re probably looking at rubs, although marinades can also be used. Like most barbecuers, I typically use a paprika based rub (paprika, cayenne, garlic salt, dry mustard, cumin, pepper, salt, a little brown sugar) in varying amounts for ribs or pulled pork. There are also many pre-mixed rubs you can buy today, and they do the job just fine.

Then you rub the spice mix into the meat, let the meat rest in the fridge for 3+ hours, and you’re ready to rock. (There are also a few other recommended pre-steps like removing the membrane on the back of the ribs before pre-rubbing the spices into the meat, but to be honest, they are not really mission critical.)

4. Traditional BBQ meats require slow cooking over indirect heat.

What this means is that you need to get your grill hot, and cooked down a bit, and then moderate the temperature using the grill flaps under and on top of the grill. Most recipes look for a temperature of ~350 degrees for meats that require time to cook properly (ribs, brisket, pulled pork). You may either have the wood or charcoal on one side of the grill, or have a grill pan (typically a cheap aluminum foil tin) that you place in the middle of the bottom of the grill with the fuel surrounding the pan. For some BBQ, you fill the grill pan with water, which helps to keep a bit more moisture in the meat.

To be honest, proper cooking of the meat is typically the biggest challenge of the barbecuing. Having a grill with a thermometer (or getting a portable one) is important here, and being diligent in adding additional fuel to the fire, and regulating the vents is the key to success. It’s always tricky to keep the fire burning moderate enough, but not too hot so that the meat dries out. There’s more than a bit of trial and error here—and well, this is why the pit masters get paid the big bucks! (Of course, they may also have some fancy equipment…)

5. Adding sauces and mops toward the middle to end of cooking can enhance the BBQ flavor.

This is not as big a critical success factor as the prior steps. And, there are some, like myself who tend to prefer their BBQ without sauce.

That said, there are many excellent BBQ sauces and a whole industry that has been created around them! I’ll share some ideas on this blog in future articles—but in general the thing to keep in mind is that sauce is added towards the end of the cooking process. Mops moisten the meat (e.g. I use a vinegar and mustard based mop when cooking ribs), and are applied more consistently (about every 20 minutes or so, after the first hour of cooking).

So, think this completes the basic primer. If you follow these rules you will create some very good BBQ.

Hope this helps as you BBQ away over the July 4^th weekend.

Have a great holiday, and look for some more discussion tomorrow about BBQ places I’ve recently visited, and helpful websites and books!