How To Barbeque - Your Online Source for Barbeque Tips
A Great Head Start On How To Barbeque
Planning ahead is one of the best tools for those learning how to barbeque. Gas, charcoal, or pit, the proper temperature for each grilling item lies in the color and consistency of your flame. Flare-ups and vast cool-downs can cause a complete loss of control over the end result of your efforts. Though experts have whittled their techniques down to a careful science, the layman who just wants to produce a great meal for his peers needs just enough information to get through his first successful cookout in order to be inspired for greater things.
When learning how to barbeque, your first step is to learn the rates at which each meat or vegetable cooks. Most people are fearful of undercooked poultry and pork, for instance, and the end result is a stiff, charred, tasteless brick of jerky where a center cut pork chop once lived. With the exception of ground meats, most harmful bacteria have been introduced after slaughter during processing and packaging, and have only contaminated the surface of the meat. So the rule of thumb is to bring the center of any meat you cook to 160 degrees. No bacteria, ground in or surface, can live past this temperature. The center of a medium steak or a beautiful marinated chicken breast is usually between 165 and 175 degrees. Any harmful bacteria is gone, but the flavor and natural juices are still intact.
When investigating how to barbeque vegetables, your key concern should be their ability to uphold shape during the grilling process. Tomatoes, for instance, are a gorgeous fruit to grill, as the color and the natural sweetness is punched up by the flames. Those same tomatoes, when left for too long over an insufficient flame, become an ugly, drippy mess. The natural bleaching process of the heat has robbed the skin of its vibrant color, and the grill lines have burned into the tender flesh of the fruit, breaking it down and turning the acids bitter.
In summary, most grilling blunders can be avoided if one uses the searing qualities of open flame to their advantage. The flame should create a strong seal to the outside of your grilled food, and natural chemistry will do the hard stuff.
Whether you choose to barbeque via gas or charcoal, flame control is the ultimate key. When using charcoal, you will want to create a mound, and allow it to burn for at least 15 minutes, or until the surface coals are a consistent white color. If you blow on them and they glow red, they are ready. The mound technique has a few distinct advantages, as it keeps a steady heat source toward the middle of the grate, yet allows a cooler area around the edges for temporary warming and flare up control. Keep at your ready a spay bottle of water for controlling rogue flames.