Summer is just around the corner and that means so is grill season, the time when you relax outdoors with friends and family, all gathered around to watch—and sample—your magnificent grill feats. But are your grill chops up to snuff? With a foodie sweep taking the nation, BBQ starring in several TV shows and even high-end chefs getting into the BBQ craze, expectations are running pretty high. Not to worry, we’ll show you how to BBQ like a Pitmaster Pro.
Know Your Grill
Every master needs to know his or her instrument, whether that be a surgeon and a scalpel, a mechanic with a torque wrench, or a master Flamenco guitarist. For Pitmasters that means knowing your grill: knowing the hot spots, the cold spots, how much temperature is lost through to grill cover or hood—which can make a dramatic impact on foods that require a long time to cook, like pork tenderloins, turkeys or the smoking of briskets and ribs. So many grilling instructions for meats and other recipes use time as a standard of measurement; time is certainly important, but as temperature is really what cooks the food, and everyone’s temperatures vary from grill to grill you have to know how to calibrate your grill timing. Know your grill. If it helps, give your grill a name; BB King named his Gibson Lucille and just look what happened!
Know Your Meat (and other Ingredients)
The meat and fruits or vegetables that you cook on the grill are other part of the instrument: if the grill is the guitar, the food is learning how to play the instrument. Of course, like any other instrument, grilling takes practice; and for maybe a couple extra charred burgers and a tough brisket in the beginning, most people will be more amenable to you practice the grill than the trombone. Knowing your food means learning to gauge doneness, knowing when to flip or rotate, learning how and when to trim fat, reading the marbling on a piece of meat, etc. Thickness plays a large in part in grilling duration and every time someone cuts into a steak to check if it’s ready instead of just learning to tell from touch a Pitmaster loses his chicken wings. There are many different tricks out there to tell meat doneness; this finger test is my preferred method http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/the_finger_test_to_check_the_doneness_of_meat/.
Experiment
Part of learning your grill and meat is all about experimenting with flavors, recipes, cuts and combinations. Becoming a great Pitmaster is all about being comfortable and creative with your grilling decisions. Experimenting with a bunch of different meals you might not normally have prepared gives you more confidence and therein comfort. Try grilling pizzas, fruit, desserts, or trickier meats like spatch-cocked chickens or caveman steaks cooked directly on the coals!
Divide and Conquer
Not everything in your grill needs to cook at the same temperature, and if you’re trying to keep some foods warm while others are done, continued 400-degree blasting won’t work. Divvy up the space in your grill, keeping some areas for your primary grilling and others as a warming station, the way many professional kitchens do (and it sure beats a heat lamp). This can either mean having one flame or coil going while the other side is shut off or on low; many grills even have upper shelving designed to keep foods warm (which is tremendously helpful when cooking vegetables like tomatoes or asparagus). You can also use this divided system to cook foods that need lower temperatures as well, like toasting buns for burgers or hotdogs.
Grill Marks
Good grill marks—either lateral hatching or, as many Pitmasters prefer, crosshatching—are the signs of a true Pitmaster. You’ve likely seen cross hatched steaks and chickens in ads for your favorite steakhouses. Aside from an aesthetic element, crosshatching is an effective rotation method that will allow you to keep you meat evenly cooked, with controlled searing and fewer flips. Every time you flip a piece of meat, it loses juice; the job of a good grillmaster is to sear in those juices and keep the meat as moist and tender as possible. Crosshatching, done by turning the meat in a 90-degree rotation against the grill, is designed to do just that; give the meat a quarter turn about halfway through each side and you should be left with a beautiful and tasty checkered piece of meat.
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The road to becoming a BBQ Pitmaster is a long but tasty one. Remember, the trick isn’t in secret sauces or fancy appliances but in knowing your instrument and practicing, practicing, practicing—which is something your friends and family will likely support.