The keys to a successful barbecue are preparation and some level of organisation. Whether you’re attempting a major gastronomic event or just grilling a few steaks, there are a few things you need to remember.
Before you start thinking about whether you’re doing T-bones, brisket, satay or squid, the first and most important thing to keep in mind is the golden rule: make sure you have enough fuel!
Other important rules when barbecuing are:
• never leave your post
• never hand the tongs to someone you can’t trust
• when smoking, always remember: if you’re looking, you’re not cooking
• also when smoking, what you need is a thin stream of smoke, not a great big cloud!
There are two basic methods of cooking on a barbecue:
DIRECT GRILLING involves exposing food directly to the heat source, using a skewer, grill or griddle. It’s generally a fast way of cooking, and some people in the barbecue world consider it heresy!
INDIRECT COOKING uses heat transfer via convection. Generally, the heat source is set away from the food, so it’s a slower way to cook. Hot, smoky air passes through an enclosed container, whether using the hood of a gas barbecue, the lid of a kettle barbecue or, as in the US where this style of barbecuing is most common, an entire trailer converted into an oven that can hold a whole pig! Some barbecue experts consider the flavour and tenderness of meat cooked this way to be far superior to directly grilled meat.
Note that I’ve included icons in the recipes to indicate which process is required. Orange indicates high heat and yellow, lower heat.
Fuel
The most popular barbecues on the market are the hooded gas and charcoal-fuelled kettle models, which can be used to cook either indirectly or directly. The main difference between gas and charcoal fuel is the fact that gas ‘burns colder’ than charcoal. This means it provides a lower cooking temperature than briquettes, charcoal or wood, which with the addition of oxygen (i.e. a fan) can burn hot enough to melt metals! Purists will say that the flavour gained from the use of charcoal is far superior, both in terms of smokiness and the high heat that’s achieved to sear the meat. Gas, on the other hand, is cleaner and far more time efficient. Now that a range of woodchips for flavouring barbecues is available, the argument for coal over gas has no clear winner, the choice being merely one of tradition or modernity.
So, you have your hardware – now what else do you need? You’ll probably have most of the following in your kitchen, but remember that preparation is everything and can make or break your barbecue.
• Enough fuel (gas, charcoal or briquettes)
• Lightweight long-handled tongs
• A roasting fork for turning large joints of meat and lifting delicate fish fillets
• A long-handled spatula with a cutting edge
• Leather or thick gloves for handling hot metal
• Oven or barbecue mitts
• Plenty of paper towels
• A selection of sharp knives: a 23 cm chef’s knife for chopping, a long-bladed boning knife for boning and filleting fish and meat, and a paring knife for fruit and vegetables. And a diamond steel to keep them sharp!
• A basting needle or brush (needles are good because they don’t singe)
• Long metal skewers for kebabs and trussing poultry and fish
• Wooden skewers (these need to be soaked in water for an hour before using, so they don’t burn on the grill)
• A fish basket for grilling whole fish
• Foil or Qbags (an aluminium foil bag)
• Foil drip trays
• A roasting stand for large joints and birds
• A large, heavy cast-iron roasting tray
• A wire rack or cake rack to place over the roasting tray
• Selected woodchips (oak, mesquite, hickory, apple or your personal favourite), pre-soaked in water for an hour
• A bottle of water with a spray nozzle to help control woodchips when smoking
• A smoke box for giving your food that little extra touch of flavour when you’re cooking with gas
• Absorbent material like fine gravel or kitty litter for the drip tray
• A fire extinguisher that’s appropriate for the fire you’re extinguishing – CO2 is probably best
• A long-handled wire brush for cleaning
• Charcoal lighting chimney
Building your fire
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had it tough. They had to carry fire with them while they travelled from one area to the next. What they would have given for a packet of firelighters and a box of Redheads!
The great convenience of gas is that you turn the bottle on, press the button and off you go. Gas barbecues need to heat up for 20–30 minutes, to help burn off any excess fat and dirt from the burners. Once clean, adjust the heat down a little and heat for a further 10 minutes for medium– hot; for medium–cool, reduce the heat a little more and heat for another 15 minutes. For simple grilling using gas, it’s great to have high heat on one side graduating down to low on the other.
The ritual is slightly more involved if you have a charcoal barbecue. The fire needs to be built up and then allowed to burn down, requiring a preheating period of 35–45 minutes prior to cooking. A steady stream of fuel needs to be added during the cooking process, but the process of refuelling is not as simple as merely throwing more lumps of charcoal onto the fire. The smoke from coal is unclean when it initially starts to burn and can impart an unpleasant flavour to your barbecue. It’s also hard to regulate the heat at first because in most cases the fire will cool prior to becoming hot again. The best way to maintain a constant heat using charcoal or briquettes is to use a fire box. It allows you to light new coals separately from your barbecue, quickly, evenly and efficiently, so when you add them they are hot enough to maintain your cooking temperature. Most modern coal barbecues have fire boxes.
With or without a fire box, the principle of lighting your coals is the same. Place your firelighters underneath your coals, so that the flames will rise up to light the coals evenly. The coals are ready for cooking when they are an even ashen white, which is when they are at their hottest. It takes up to 45 minutes to build an even coal base that is ashen white and hot enough to grill steaks or items that require fast high-heat cooking. Don’t try to cook until the firelighters have burnt out or you will taint your food with the unpleasant fumes of accelerant. The way you arrange your coals will be determined by the method of cooking you wish to follow.
DIRECT GRILLING requires that you have a single base of evenly lit coals.
INDIRECT COOKING requires that you separate the coals into either a single heat source away from the cooking area (i.e. a heat box outside the kettle or hooded area of the barbecue, as is common in the US) or into two smaller heat sources on either side of the barbecue grill (this method is most commonly used in kettle barbecues), separated by a drip tray. Don’t open the lid too often as the heat will escape. For indirect cooking using gas, turn your outside burners to medium–low and the inner burners off.
Adding water to the drip tray when indirect grilling will help maintain moisture within the meat being cooked. This can also be achieved by using a spray bottle of liquid – for extra flavour you could try adding a spirit such as bourbon, whisky or fruit juice.
Maintaining the heat
Sometimes it pays to build your fire so that it graduates from high intense heat to a lower, more controllable heat. This can be done by pushing more coals to one side and a few to the other. Also, the closer the grill to the heat source, the higher the cooking temperature.
Gas is pretty much the same in principle, although you are waiting for the gas to heat up the grill bars, which is dependent on how close they are to the heat. The great thing about gas is you can control the heat directly by adjusting it up and down.
Cleaning tips
Unfortunately, one thing that most barbecues suffer from is neglect. I gave my Scouser mate Jamie Grainger-Smith a barbecue, and every time I went around I would say to him, ‘Mate, you’ve got to give this thing a clean!’ Did he listen? Then one day, halfway through cooking his famous jerked chicken, the thing exploded into a ball of flames. A grease fire!
Always give your barbecue a good clean after you’ve used it. While the barbecue is still warm, use a long-handled wire-bristle brush and paper towels to remove charred material and fat from the grill plates and bars, then wash the surfaces down with hot soapy water. Next, allow the barbecue to burn for 10–15 minutes, to burn off any grease on the burners and grill tops. Change the absorbent material from the drip tray if it’s excessively dirty.
When you come to use your barbecue again, give the grill bars and griddle plate another clean with a wire brush and paper towel. Importantly, prior to cooking you should allow your barbecue to burn very hot for a period (especially if it’s gas) to burn off any debris or fat that may be left on the burners or hot rocks, as this may affect the flavour of your barbecue. I would also recommend a full strip down and a good deep clean at least once a year to prevent any serious fire accidents.
Kettle barbecues are a little easier to clean and maintain than gas. Most of the charcoal will burn to ash and will be caught in a tray underneath the bottom vents. The grill is easy to clean with a long-handled wire-bristle brush.
One thing both gas and kettle barbecues have in common is that neither of them like a lot of rain, so make sure you cover them when not in use.