MISTAKE #1: MAKING USE OF MATCH-LIGHT COALS OR LIGHTER FLUID
The thought: Most beginners are often faced with the temptation of dousing their coals in liquid fuel because they want it to light faster! It also doesn't help that these lighter fluids and match-light coals can be found in large quantities at almost every grilling aisle in supermarkets and at the home centers. It's actually not that difficult to figure out why so many people go for lighter fluid. Try to hold a match right under a coal and I bet you won't get very far off.
Reality Check: These fires, after blazing up in a little flame of fire, quickly fizzle out and die. This way, you find yourself pouring more and more lighter fluid over the coals just so maybe you can keep the flames up. All appear to be normal, not until your first bite of a gasoline-scented hamburger. The fact is, even if the lighter fluid fire only lasts a few seconds, you are still going to taste it on your food and trust me; you're not going to like it.
Fix it: What you actually require is a chimney starter. Put some old newspapers beneath it, pack coals on top of it light some fire on the newspaper with a lighter or a single match, and allow it to do its magic of drawing oxygen up and through the coals, making them burn efficiently without you requiring any lighter fluid at all.
MISTAKE #2: SPREADING THE COALS BEFORE THEY BECOME FULLY GRAY
The Thought: But my stomach hurts! You’re hungry, I get it. Especially with the feel of a spatula right in the palm of your hands, everything begins to look like a burger to you. You are not patient enough to have the food put on the grill, to hell with the gray ash!
Reality Check: When you begin your cooking before your coals are ready, you only end up with poorly-flamed heat, unpredictable cook times and off-flavors.
Fix It: Be patient! It’s not for no reason that it is written on the bag that you should wait for the coals to be covered in gray ash before you begin your cooking. A fire that seems fairly hot with the coals still looking black will quickly become a small inferno as long as the coals remain ignited. Your first priority when it comes to grilling should be temperature control and the best way to get the most desired cooking results is to wait for the coals to stabilize.
MISTAKE #3: FORGETTING TO PREHEAT THE GRILL
The Thought: I think the fire is hell hot. Let’s get cooking.
Reality Check: It’s possible that there is a lot of radiant heat (the infrared heat that is felt on the hand when it is held above the grill), but it’s very likely that the grill grates are relatively still cool and this simply implies that your food will be starved of the much needed conductive heat that it requires—which is the heat that is transmitted straight from the grill grates. This way, your food might easily stick to the grill gates instead of just having those dark good looking grill marks and having your meat sticking to metal is a real chemical bond that is almost impossible to smoothly detach. Your food begins to tear and shred rather than appear neatly done.
Fix it: Once you have lit your fire, make sure the grill is well covered and preheat it for at least 5 to 10 minutes so that the heat from the fire can be transferred to the grill grates. Pre-heated grill grates mean that your food has a lesser chance of sticking to the metal since its proteins change their shape before there is even direct contact with the metal.
It even easier to clean hot grills and this leads us to…….
MISTAKE #4: DON’T FORGET TO CLEAN THE GRATES!
The Thought: Fire destroys everything. Food that is burnt adds flavor. No one will notice. And a bunch of others…
Reality Check: You take your chicken off the grill and it comes off with bits of last night’s carbonized pork chops stuck all over it, or even worse, the chicken you grill tonight ends up sticking to the pork you grilled last night, leaving behind some of its outer layers on the grill. Likewise, part of tomorrow night’s asparagus will also stick to today’s chicken and this endless loop of burnt-on layer food continues to grow more and more like a Katamari until one day, the whole prime ribs and turkeys will get stuck to the grill.
Fix it: Ensure you clean the grill grates. Make use of only a grill brush and very little amount of elbow grease.
Extra tip: If you use your grill regularly to cook, you don't have to bother cleaning it immediately after since you might really be focused on feeding your hungry guests and catching up with the conversation. Don’t also try to clean it at the end of the evening when the grill has already cooled off and the sticky stuff has become hardened. Rather, you should clean off the heated grease and food left over the next time you want to use it, just after preheating. It will be easier to scrape off all the old remains.
MISTAKE #5: DON’T USE TOO MUCH DIRECT HEAT
The Thought: I like meat and I like fire. I really like big meat with big fire. The bigger the fire, the tastier the meat.
Reality Check: You will only end up burning your steak on the outside before it even gets to the center. You’re busy looking for where to move your steak with your excellent BBQ tools but every part of your grill is hotter than you’d want it to be.
Fix it: Build for yourself fire zone that is two-phased. On a coal grill, meaning that the coals under the half of the grill are equally spread while the other half is left either covered with an extremely thin layer of coals or is left empty. In a gas grill, what this implies is that you have to light the burners only on one side, while the other side is left on very low heat. Having two zones gives you a lot more control over what you’re cooking. Move the meat and vegetables to the side that is hot for fast searing, or you can move it to the much cooler side if you want to cook it gently. Have your meat covered on the side of the grill that is cool, you can then create a setting inside that is oven-like and use for grill-roasting the bigger portions of meat like the leg of lamb or a prime rib.
MISTAKE #6: YOU’RE CONSTANTLY FUTZING WITH THAT LID
The Thought: Is it ready yet? No, It’s not.... Is it ready yet? No, it's not… Is it ready yet? You know I’m sure you get what I’m talking about. It’s like you can’t resist the urge to keep checking on your big ol' pork chop.
Reality Check: Constantly raising the lid with a gas grill makes it lose some of its heat. This makes your food to cook a lot more slowly. Constantly raising the lid with a coal grill does exactly the opposite, you make room for oxygen to come in and this makes the coals to flame hotter than you'd want them to, causing your meat to get burnt.
Fix it: Exercise some little patience! Not that it's a crime to want to always check on your food as they cook, but you should also note that each time you open and close the lid, you're constantly altering your cooking temperature. Don’t forget this basic rule: Opening the lid while cooking on a gas grill makes it cooler, but on a charcoal grill, opening the lid makes it hotter.
MISTAKE #7: YOU MISTAKE GOOD LOOKING FLAMES FOR GREAT TASTING MEAT
The Thought: The major difference between indoor and outdoor cooking is the use of live fire right? Hence, you probably think it’s a good thing that you should let your burgers and steaks get swallowed up in flames.
Reality Check: Leaving your meat to be engulfed by flames leaves it with a sooty, wrong-tasting deposits right on the food’s surface. Little flames and a bit of fire flares now and then are just ok, I’m sure you don’t want the fire getting a good taste of our steak before you do.
Fix it: You need three things to create fire: fuel, energy, and oxygen. Those flare-ups are usually caused by the oily fat that is dripping from your meat, adding a little bit of fuel and igniting the coals or the grill bars underneath. Skimming off some of the excess fat before grilling can help reduce these flare- ups, but the fact still remains that most people would prefer to have the fat on their well-marbled steak or their juicy looking burger from the very beginning. If you are not trying to cook so many things at once, the easiest way to manage these flare-ups is to simply move the meat from the hot side to the cool side of the grill until the flare-ups die off before you then return it carefully.
However, if your grill is so full that you can’t really move things around, then you are left with only two options: turn down the supply of heat in the system or cut off the supply of oxygen. Using a spray bottle to sprinkling water at the little flare-ups will actually help to reduce the energy because some of the energy will be diverted to evaporating this water.
The second option which seems like the better one is to just close the lid and cut off the supply of oxygen. With the lid and vents closed down a few moments, the flames should easily choke off.
MISTAKE #8: DON’T ASSUME THAT THE VENTS ARE THERE FOR DECORATION
The Thought: I’m sure these little looking things can’t possibly have any effect on my large-sized flame.
Reality Check: The best way to control oxygen and the flow of heat right within your charcoal grill is by adjusting the position of the vents.
Fix it: The amount of oxygen which your coal receives can have a huge impact on how well it burns. If the oxygen is much, this can turn out to become soot-inducing flames. If it’s too little, then they just choke themselves out. You can use both the upper and lower vents on your charcoal grill to adjust the amount of oxygen that comes in, thereby directly affecting the amount of heat your grill generates. While cooking chicken, brisket or ribs gently and slowly over indirect heat, you should ensure that the vents are closed. Nicely searing the outer part of a burger or a big fat steak, then you should leave the vents open to encourage more heat (remember not to let the flames lick up the meat!).
How you place the top and bottom vents can make all the difference! I prefer to have my lower vents directly opposite the food with the lid vents placed right above it so as to encourage the flow of convection currents in and out than hovering above and around the food.
MISTAKE #9: DON’T ADD THE BARBECUE SAUCE TOO EARLY!
The Thought: Painting your food with several layers of barbecue sauce will give it more flavor.
Reality Check: Your sauce begins to burn and becomes acrid long before your meat is ready. You’ll notice your guests stylishly scraping off the blackened soot layer from the chicken before pouring some extra sauce just to reduce some of the bitterness, but it still doesn’t work, the bitterness lingers on, throughout the night.
Fix it: Doesn’t matter how early you apply the barbecue sauce, it won’t really penetrate the chicken. The best you get is surface treatment, meaning that even if you add it when the cooking is almost done, you’ll still get as much flavor as you would out of it, so why risk burning it. For those using the sweet barbecue sauce, paint the sauce on your meat using a brush when it’s like 5 to 10 minutes to cook.
MISTAKE #10: DON’T COOK TOO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS AT ONCE
The Thought: Some people would like to have chicken, some would prefer sausages, and others would love burgers, so why not have them all cooked at once?
Reality Check: You end up with your burgers overcooked, your chicken undercooked, all your food items cross-contaminated, and none of it really tastes as good as it should.
Fix it: When grilling, it’s best to stick with one type of food one at a time and stay focused on making the most of it. The amount of heat (high) which you will need for nicely done burgers or steaks is different from the heat (low) used for sausages or chicken. Whenever I’m organizing a cookout, I always try to ensure that I’m cooking my meat types one at a time. I just need to make available some snacks and side dishes for those who probably don’t like what I'm cooking at the moment. You end up having good food for all your guests leaving them happy in the end.
MISTAKE #11: YOU'RE POKING YOUR MEAT TO FIGURE OUT IF IT'S DONE
The Thought: I've often seen people on TV who use their fingers to poke their steak to tell if it's done, seems like the professional way to do it. I’m sure you know how they do it. You just need to poke the ball of your thumb using your other hand by holding the forefinger to your thumb. Hold your middle finger and then it’s not so good yet. Hold your third finger and it’s perfectly done.
Reality check: You’re most likely not a professional, and so you haven't grilled the hundreds or thousands of steaks that are required before you are able to perfect your poke-test finger. Whether done or raw, your steak still ends up well.
The Fix: Ignore the entire poke test. You need to understand that firstly, everyone’s fingers and hands are not the same. Also, all steaks don’t feel the same. You need to have lots and lots of experience before you are able to reliably figure out if your steak is done just by poking it. Your surest bet is for you to get a thermometer. Go buy yourself one of either an Instant Read Thermometer With a Backlight or its less expensive version; the Original Thermometer and forget about ever having an over- or undercooked meat again.
MISTAKE #12: DON’T BE IN A HURRY TO SERVE THE FOOD
The Thought: The meat is done, it’s smoking hot and we are all hungry, so what are we waiting for?
Reality Check: Cutting through a hot steak only ends up burning you and your guests’ mouth, worse still it also makes the meat to release some of its juices spilling it all over the cutting board or the plate.
Fix it: Give your meat some few minute off the grill before serving. This way, those juices will properly circulate and become thickened, thereby resulting in less spillage while you’re cutting through it. I’m sure you want the outside of your meat looking and tasting right by the time you serve it. Or on the other hand, you can toss the sides of the already cooled off grilled food over the highest heat possible on your grill for at about 30 seconds per side right before serving the food to your guests. This way, you still get to maintain the juicy and nicely crisp, sizzling taste of the meat.
Hope you loved this comprehensive guide!
Talk soon,
Joe mArcus
]]>The first tip is to use rubs to add flavor to your barbecue. Rubs are a blend of dry spices that are applied depending on the size of the cuts being barbecued. You should seal the meat when cooking longer to keep it moist. Moreover, rubs are of different varieties, though you can still make one that suits your taste and economic basis. However, you should take the skin of the chicken off before applying the rub.
Cooking your barbecue in presence of smoke and over indirect heat gives it a great flavor. This is because barbecuing is different from grilling that requires the food to be cooked over direct heat. Most outstanding barbecuers use wood fires to get this flavor. However, a backyard fan can use a bag of barbecue wood chips, a tin foil or still use wood fire. These wood chips are mainly found in most stores where charcoal is purchased. Moreover, the wood chips are available in different flavors such as mesquite, hickory and cherry apple. Most barbecuers prefer hickory for barbecue cuts.
Preparing great barbecue cuts such as shoulder, brisket or ribs require you to cook them enough and for long. This prevents your barbecue from being too tough. Beef and pork are deemed ready at 140 degrees Fahrenheit though for them to be completely tender, a temperature of about 160 degrees Fahrenheit is required. Pork shoulders and brisket take about 12 to 14 hours to be ready while ribs take only four hours to cook. You should, therefore, consider having a meat thermometer because it is an important barbecue device.
Maintaining the moisture of your cuts while cooking can be achieved in two ways. This is by applying a solution that helps to keep meats moist while cooking. This solution is known as a mop. Secondly, this can also be done by wrapping your barbecue cuts with a tin foil.
These are some of the skills and techniques that can really make a big difference in your backyard barbecue cooking.
]]>When Kevin invited the boys over to his house last year, the expectations were high. Guys had got word about the great grills their friend could make, they had been assured the beers would flow and great music too. But nobody told them that their friend had a challenge with regular cleaning.
Kevin failed to clean the grates after a previous because God knows what, leaving residues to accumulate and settle into the insides of the grill grates. On the day, the boys had arrived and were having a chat over bottles as they waited for their host to be done. They waited in vain and had to eat out at a local restaurant eventually. The left food materials from the previous grills caused Kevin a wild, mocking laugh, when his grill became stuck to the residues, tearing off the beautiful crust that he had worked so hard at getting set. You see, if Kevin had cleaned up right after preheating the grill and run it on high for, say some 10 to 15 minutes with the lid closed, using a brass bristle brush to scrub off the ashy debris, he probably wouldn't have needed to now so badly ask for a second shot. It is that easy! He hopes to appease the group still and win some pride. Turns out this was some big deal.
"I think he planned to kill us all"
These were the words of Sandy, a top executive in a leading city advertising agency after she had regained consciousness in the hospital. She was one of the few colleagues of Josh, the company's Head of Marketing, who had the rare regrettable privilege of being guests to a barbeque.
All the fun that could possibly had come from the event originally meant to celebrate a promotion was ruined because Josh's hosts ended up consuming spoiled food. This was a new one, maybe; a leading marketing guy who had an "F" in hygiene. Maybe I am expecting too much, but, clean lifestyle choices is the least expectation from a college graduate, isn't it? At least, there is that CDC report that one in six Americans becomes ill from food poisoning each year, so, one would think Josh would know better than flunk the basics - Wash your hands thoroughly after touching raw meat; Make sure any plates, platters, or utensils that have handled raw meat don’t come into contact with other foods, like veggies or buns; If you need to reuse utensils after they’ve touched raw meat, scrub them with hot, soapy water to avoid contamination; Never leave raw meat sitting out for more than two hours.
Josh knew so little about hygiene. Or knew so little about how it is no joke, especially when the lives of other people are concerned, because, he broke a handful.
That funny thought from Sandy has now been put to bed because, even though all three guests had required the attention of a health personnel, Josh had his fair share of aftermaths, too being treated for food poisoning. But nobody remembers what that grill tasted like anymore; the faints and waking up in a strange place are clearer in every head. Josh must have learned to take hygiene seriously after that episode.
Someone once wrecked her grill using the wrong marinade and messin up her BBQ, using a combination of high-citrus and sugar-heavy marinades, which burned quickly on the grill. The whole thing turned out funny - a space between nearly raw and grossly overcooked.
Marinating her meat for several hours or overnight with a low-acid fruit puree, like mango, or a simple Worcester sauce would have sufficed. But no; my friend had to go for an overkill. Be like sis and brush on your high-sugar sauces, like barbecue sauce, during the last few minutes of grilling. Better still, skip the marinade entirely and just use a dry rub, such as a simple mixture of salt, pepper, paprika and brown sugar, which you should apply right before you cook.
Truth is, it can be tempting to just grab the cheapest cut from the meat section in your nearest chain supermarket and start smoking. But if you want to produce delicious pulled pork, ribs or brisket , you just have to start with the best quality you can afford.
You get to certain grills and wonder if your host hopes to make puffs or grills: so many people never ever get to buy enough meat. This is dumb because, simple logic says that meat is about 75 percent water. So, there's no point quizzing if the burger looks a lot smaller after it’s done cooking than it does on the cutting board in your kitchen. That's why the experts would advise, "About 6 ounces of good quality beef is the right amount for one burger; but if you like yours on the jumbo side, opt for 8 ounces." But it is as though there are people who never agree. Somehow, they expect the opposite to happen. Using miserly meat will probably get friends calling in busy for your BBQ every now and then, owing largely to how they expect these grills to always pan out - miserly - like what you serve the pet that you really do not want anymore but have not yet found a buyer for, or the strength of murder.
How difficult can it be to light up your grill? Piece of cake, right? Well, maybe not! As strange as someone might think this is, messing up barbeque lighting is not just a possibility but an easy, how do we say, task?
A report said to be from the National Fire Protection Agency claims that grills are responsible for 8,600 home fires annually. You can do the math on how many great Americans make this infamous lot. Malik runs a grill once in a while but sees his turnout of guests diminish with each hosting. The reason is not far-fetched; he's got a penchant for starting fires. Each time, everytime. But here is a tip we can frerly give; if you use a gas grill, check for dents in the propane tank, which may signify a potential leak, and keep the lid open while lighting up. If your grill doesn’t immediately start, wait five minutes for gas fumes to clear before trying again. And never add lighter fluid to a lit charcoal grill; it can cause flare-ups that stretch several feet. Simply put, do be all you wanna, but not bro Malik. Roger that!
One wonders what this rush is for. I mean, more often than not, you are home, or, home away from it. So, jumping right on to cutting the steak immediately it's done is unnecessary.
You don't need to dig in when the food is piping hot off the grill. Best to wait for the meat to cool for a few minutes (and a little longer for larger portions) because all the juices start moving around the meat, and they tend to pool a little bit more in the center as you cook your meat. When you cut into the meat right away, you end up destroying hard work because this juice spills out, which can dry out your tender cut. Allowing meat sit for five to ten minutes allows the juices actually get reabsorbed, giving a tender cut of meat all around.
This, right here, is about the biggest grilling mistake you can make. Failing to preheat the grill before the meat even hits the grill is so dumb, you actually help create unnecessary stress for yourself. Here is the trick: you preheat the grill properly helps you get the meat cook faster, and provides a more moist and tender output. So, you see what you'd be missing leaving out this small detail? And to think that fast-cooked, tender meat is as simple as closing the lid once the ideal temperature is reached (between 350 and 450°F depending on the food) to prevent your meat from losing moisture. The Alpha Grillers thermometer (available at https://alphagrillers.com) can come in handy here. Thank me later.
Free tip here, folks: room temperature cuts cook too quickly. So, it is totally not smart of you when you let those juicy filets in your fridge reach room temperature before you toss on the grill. Having to warm the meat prevents the perfect steak from being achieved. Expert Michael Lomonaco, executive chef and managing partner at Porter House New York, says that cooking with cold steaks allows you to control the temperature more, resulting in a perfectly cooked steak. So, you see that some great minds align here.
His words: “I like to cook my steak cold, right out of the refrigerator. You want your grill to be searing hot and the steak to hit it icy cold.”
If this is not pure dumb, nothing else will: such needless risk!
Most BBQ amateurs make this one dumb mistake often times because of impatience. Many times, they want to start cooking almost immediately.
You know what is bad about dousing your charcoal in lighter fluid? It might give off some really awful odors and funky tastes in your smoked meat. Plus this impatient act goes against the whole point of low and slow cooking which barbequing is about.
]]>CLEANING: Simply rinse the brush in hot water. Do this immediately after use to make cleaning ever quicker.
STORAGE: To give your brush the longest life possible, ensure that you keep it somewhere dry.
SAFETY:
Hope you found this useful!
Joe Marcus - CEO of Alpha Grillers
P.S. We're also having a promotion right now for our Original Grill Brush.
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