The Perfect BBQ tips and tricks
Discussion
Everyone pile in here with your own tips and tricks of course. Right, so the British BBQ season has just begun, as promised by the Met office. Warm sunny weather for the week ahead. As shown by my me this afternoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DDBl1Qv3Io
bring it on ! Ok, so I am assuming you have a small BBQ you got from homebase or off ebay with only 3, 5 or 17 legs or one of those disposable ones you got from the petrol station. perhaps family sized. I'm assuming you don't have a Weber and can do this sort of thing
http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/chick.jpg
because that would be cheating to be honest.
So lets start. The First rule of Fight Club, sorry BBQ club, is
1. Heat management
2. Size of food to be cooked taking into account rule 1
3. You will be spending more time doing 1 and 2 over the course of a sunny afternoon whilst wearing that fun apron whilst you could be drinking a beer. And still everyone will still complain....
Right, so given those 3 rules ...
Heat management
They say "you always have to get the charcoals white" .. as it's hottest. Is this a good thing though? Not really if you doing an extra plump chicken thigh. Depending on what you are cooking you might want to start off slow. And then move it about.
Actually I think white briquettes might be the worst thing ever for BBQ's as the UK does them. b
ks
And if after the charcoals get too hot and white then you can douse them down. With more charcoals. They absorb the heat as they get up to temp and so allow you to do your first course perfectly while having enough mass to do your 12th course for the person still up at gone midnight cooking a marshmallow on the end of a tooth pick. Sorted.
Right so far in summary
Dont go to hot too soon, move things around, keep everything the half way house between simmering and spluttering. If nothing else it gives one of your relations with the dickie bladder some time to get out of the toilet.
The FOOD
No matter how you cook it the food matters.
There are some foods you can cook with a bit of leeway on cooking time. Such as
Steaks
Sea food
Lamb
However if you served a slightly undercooked sausage from those Irish blokes or a chicken gizlett or even a pork chump chop then you will be in deep water. So cook Steaks, sea food or Lamb. Or just a burger as everyone expects the odd dickie tummy from those.
Splatter and ash
Let me make this more bold as Splatter and ash are two of the worst things for a BBQ
Splatter and Ash
The bad thing about a BBQ is it dries things out, so you might be tempted to coat your steak or pork chop or seafood kebab in olive oil. Then we get Dante's inferno reaching up from the bottom of the fiery pit which makes your food taste bitter and also ashy. It's probably full of fibre though and good to clean your teeth. Solution? A small baking tray.
That spreads the heat again. You get all the smoky stuff without the burning. And you can use it for breakfast too. When out in the wilds you cannot beat a baking tray for your bacon and eggs over last nights pit.
So there you go.
We need pictures of your cheap BBQ to match the dinner and breakfast threads!
Sadly I am still drying out from the last storm.... maybe next week.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DDBl1Qv3Io
bring it on ! Ok, so I am assuming you have a small BBQ you got from homebase or off ebay with only 3, 5 or 17 legs or one of those disposable ones you got from the petrol station. perhaps family sized. I'm assuming you don't have a Weber and can do this sort of thing
http://www.zen141854.zen.co.uk/chick.jpg
because that would be cheating to be honest.
So lets start. The First rule of Fight Club, sorry BBQ club, is
1. Heat management
2. Size of food to be cooked taking into account rule 1
3. You will be spending more time doing 1 and 2 over the course of a sunny afternoon whilst wearing that fun apron whilst you could be drinking a beer. And still everyone will still complain....
Right, so given those 3 rules ...
Heat management
They say "you always have to get the charcoals white" .. as it's hottest. Is this a good thing though? Not really if you doing an extra plump chicken thigh. Depending on what you are cooking you might want to start off slow. And then move it about.
Actually I think white briquettes might be the worst thing ever for BBQ's as the UK does them. b
ks And if after the charcoals get too hot and white then you can douse them down. With more charcoals. They absorb the heat as they get up to temp and so allow you to do your first course perfectly while having enough mass to do your 12th course for the person still up at gone midnight cooking a marshmallow on the end of a tooth pick. Sorted.
Right so far in summary
Dont go to hot too soon, move things around, keep everything the half way house between simmering and spluttering. If nothing else it gives one of your relations with the dickie bladder some time to get out of the toilet.
The FOOD
No matter how you cook it the food matters.
There are some foods you can cook with a bit of leeway on cooking time. Such as
Steaks
Sea food
Lamb
However if you served a slightly undercooked sausage from those Irish blokes or a chicken gizlett or even a pork chump chop then you will be in deep water. So cook Steaks, sea food or Lamb. Or just a burger as everyone expects the odd dickie tummy from those.
Splatter and ash
Let me make this more bold as Splatter and ash are two of the worst things for a BBQ
Splatter and Ash
The bad thing about a BBQ is it dries things out, so you might be tempted to coat your steak or pork chop or seafood kebab in olive oil. Then we get Dante's inferno reaching up from the bottom of the fiery pit which makes your food taste bitter and also ashy. It's probably full of fibre though and good to clean your teeth. Solution? A small baking tray.
That spreads the heat again. You get all the smoky stuff without the burning. And you can use it for breakfast too. When out in the wilds you cannot beat a baking tray for your bacon and eggs over last nights pit.
So there you go.
We need pictures of your cheap BBQ to match the dinner and breakfast threads!
Sadly I am still drying out from the last storm.... maybe next week.....
Also, heat management is the easy bit. Repeat after me - "you don't need uniform heat across the grill"
Have it hot on one side, not so hot on the other.
One you've got that in your head, what you cook is irrelevant as you've got an area of the grill with appropriate heat for what you're cooking. Steaks go over the fking hot bit, chicken and other thick cuts that you can't serve rare go over the not so fking hot bit.
If you're really st, cook things in the oven first and finish them on the grill.
And yeah, there's a massive thread stickied at the top
Have it hot on one side, not so hot on the other.
One you've got that in your head, what you cook is irrelevant as you've got an area of the grill with appropriate heat for what you're cooking. Steaks go over the f
king hot bit, chicken and other thick cuts that you can't serve rare go over the not so fking hot bit.If you're really s
t, cook things in the oven first and finish them on the grill.And yeah, there's a massive thread stickied at the top
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