Whether you are using a charcoal grill or a gas grill, there are certain tips you need to know that will make your experience more enjoyable and put you on the path to being a grill master. I don’t recommend that you start out using these additional techniques, but once you’ve gained a little confidence and think you can handle some “controlled experimentation”, you may enjoy them.
The addition of wood chips and chunks to your coals can add awesome smoked flavor to your food. You should soak mesquite, alder, hickory, or pecan chips for one hour before scattering over the hot coals. Soak wooden skewers in water, also, for an hour before use. They are best used for foods that can be cooked quickly, like vegetables and fruits. Use flat metal skewers when cooking kebabs. It’s harder to turn food on round skewers.
I hate overcooked vegetables, because they get mushy. Tomatoes in particular, so I make my meat skewers and vegetable skewers separately. Beef goes over direct heat and gets flipped once, like steak. Lamb and cubed chicken over indirect heat get flipped twice. Vegetables on skewers, over indirect heat, flipped once. Not as pretty on the skewers…but it sure tastes better!
Roasts, turkey, leg of lamb and anything else you may rotisserie, requires more time and therefore, some additional, sometimes tricky, temperature control.
- To lower the cooking temperature, you can raise the cooking grate (or lower the coals), spread the coals farther apart, or adjust the vents to half-way closed.
- If you need to raise the temperature, you can lower the cooking grate (or raise the coals), tap ash from the coals, move the coals closer together, or adjust the vents so that they are opened further. You can also add more charcoal to the outer edges of the hot coals.
- When the weather is cold or damp, you will need to use more briquettes to achieve an ideal cooking temperature. Grilling will also take longer.
- Wind will tend to make the fire hotter.
- On a humid day, the coals will burn slower.
- The colder and thicker the food, the longer it will take to cook.
- Fires using hardwood will burn hotter than charcoal briquettes.
Until you are confident and have enough experience, use a meat thermometer to check if your meat's internal temperature. That applies especially to roasts, chicken, turkey, lamb and pork. It may be a little embarrassing when your guests ask for “a little more fire”, but you’ll overcome that a lot easier than if everyone calls the next day to see who else got sick!
As a rule, I like my chicken bone-in, skin-on, dark meat. Thighs are my favorite. I do those over indirect heat, flipping the cut bone-meat side after ten minutes and the skin side after eight, for an hour. Comes out perfect every time, and people say they’ve never tasted chicken like it…tender, juicy, rich and flavorful, with a hint of smoke. But, that’s just me…and everyone I know!
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, for you health fanatics out there, don’t have anywhere near the flavor or character, regardless of how much you try to marinate and spice them up. Why’s that? Because the skin is fat, and fat translates to flavor. But, if that’s what you do, cook it indirect, flipping every five minutes, for twenty minutes and everyone will pretend to enjoy it as long as you don't dry it out!
How do you like your steak? If you said something beyond medium rare, then you really don’t like steak, you just don’t like the idea that your meat isn’t dry and gray, which represents cooked through to you. I recommend that you never order Filet Mignon! I love Rib-Eye, but a New York will do in a pinch. I like them an inch and a half thick, with nice marbling, for that full, rich flavor and lip-smacking crispy fat edge. Some people like to sear in the flavor (one minute, flip, one minute, flip, then normal cooking time), but mine come out tender and juicy on direct heat, seven to nine minutes a side, depending on conditions.
Standard rookie mistake…? Cutting into the steak to test the doneness! If you must test, do it under the guise of “chef’s taster prerogative”, and cut a piece off of the end for yourself, or whichever drooling dinner guest is sitting closest.
If you don’t want to cut an end off, or don’t think that’s appropriately manly, you can stick your eyeballs down close to the grill surface and lift a corner of the steak to take a peak. If the grill has left a nice, black char mark, it’s probably good to turn. After a while, you can tell what’s going on, on the bottom, by what’s happening on top. I look for the juices forming on the top of the steak, if I forgot to check exactly what time I put the meat on or I have been enjoying the witty banter and a few adult beverages.
I know you all have different cuts of beef, depending on where you live, so these are general rules that should apply to most every steak. I’m not going to engage in a discussion on aged beef, other than to say…it’s worth the money! But don’t try it until you’ve achieved Master status.
The problem with Porterhouse and T-Bones…which, I know, are many people’s favorite cuts of meat, is that they are almost impossible to get right. Ever notice, when you cook one, or order one at your favorite steakhouse, that the meat one side of the bone tastes completely different than the meat on the other? That’s because they are two entirely different cuts of meat that taste different and react to cooking differently. If you get the New York side of it medium rare, the filet side is too rare. If you get the filet side medium rare, the other side is medium…as in tough and tasteless. My wife loves Porterhouse, and so I’ve figured out how to do the happy medium-rare for her, but it takes a lot of attention and careful placement, and I still don’t know if she’s just being polite!
Boneless beef ribs and boneless pork ribs (country style), are some of mine and my guests’ favorites. Do the beef on direct, flip once after ten to twelve minutes. Tastes like steak! Boneless pork, do indirect, flip every eight to ten minutes, depending on thickness, thirty to forty minutes.
Here’s something you ought to try to do…! Nope, I told you I wasn’t doing recipes. Whenever meat is served at a large barbecue gathering, your guests are stuck using nasty little plastic knives to cut it. That takes a lot of enjoyment out of the experience. Do your guests a favor and invest in a good, sharp, serrated, barbecue knife. Your grill surface makes a fine cutting board if you let the knife pass between the bars. Put on your gloves, grab the ribs with your tongs and slice them into manageable little pieces, small enough to put on a plastic fork and eat whole (guys) or take a bite off (gals). The appreciation level will go through the roof! Don’t dare do it for steak, though! Have enough steak knives on hand, for that.
Doing a Tri-Tip? Cook it on direct, forty to fifty minutes, total time. Flip every ten minutes, but monitor the fat side to make sure your not burning it too bad. It can always be cut off, if you do as mentioned with the boneless ribs, but if you keep it moist by applying some marinade to it every time you turn it, it’ll come out perfect!
What kind of sausage do you like? Most sausage you get today is pre-cooked and comes in a great variety of flavors: Cajun, pineapple, sun-dried tomato, pepper and cheese-stuffed, etc. Poke some holes in the skin or run a knife across the top a few times, so that the skin doesn’t explode or blister as the juices in the sausage heat up and create steam that needs to escape. Use indirect heat, or the top rack if you have one, turn every five minutes, for ten to fifteen, total. Italian sausage or chorizo, or anything else that isn’t pre-cooked, same as above, twenty to twenty-five, total.
How much meat can you cook...? Well, my grill is about 32" wide and 20" deep, and with one funnel of coals, I can do twelve chicken thighs (indirect), boneless beef ribs (direct), a tri-tip (direct), boneless pork ribs (indirect) and sausage (top rack), all arriving at the table at the same time, enough to feed twenty-five people and still have some left-overs! True, I can't get the sides on the grill, but I may have already done some appetizers! Besides, with that many people, someone else can deal with pot-luck sides, or I can pick up salads in bulk!
That ought to be enough to get your mouth watering and give you plenty of things to practice on. When I think you’re ready, we’ll talk about doing Baby Back Ribs, the Thanksgiving turkey and using the rotisserie for prime rib, leg of lamb and roasts. But, speaking of appetizers...check out How To Barbeque - Appetizers for some cool ideas!
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