The Demo Site

Ever continued to a barbecue party at which the ‘chef' placed as that much food as he can possibly fit onto the barbecue grill, every so often stabbing the food with a fork and juggling it approximately so that it cooks evenly? Ever noticed how, throughout a few minutes, the flames start gently flickering underneath the food, the chef proudly standing returning admiring the char grill effect this he's creating? Ever discover the panic that sets in when the flames The next thing you knew leap up and around the food burning it black on the outside and leaving it raw on the inside?

The difference between great char grilled barbecue food and burnt offerings lies in a few small precautions. The chef that we have recently described came up with a few fatal errors that could easily have been avoided. Before discussing the errors though, lets consider the resources that we are operating about. Although the same can happen with gas as with charcoal, gas grills can be turned lower, or off, when the flames start obtaining out of control. The flames can also be controlled if the barbecue grill has a tight fitting lid, as among a Weber kettle grill. However most people seem to cook on an open top barbecue grill with the lid, if it has one, open. Note that we're speaking about a barbecue grill here, where the food is cooked directly over the hot coals. True barbecue uses indirect heat with the food fully enclosed as though in an oven. So, the barbecue grill that our imaginary chef is utilizing is an open top, charcoal, barbecue grill.

Now lets have a look at our imaginary chef's errors.

First, he filled the grate with charcoal along its entire length, providing a constant heat source, with no sector of lower heat to place food if it started to burn. A simple solution is to use the pivotal of thirds. Imagine the grate of your barbecue being in thirds. Fill two thirds of the grill with charcoal and leave the remaining third empty. Cook your food over the hot coals and when your food is ready, or starts to burn, or creates out of control flames, move it over to the section above the empty grate. The food will be able to stay warm but won't cook any supplementary (or possibly it are able to but much a greater amount of slowly), and wont cause any flare-ups. A further refinement can be had, if you've a significant enough grill, by placing a double sum of coals in one third of the grate, a single level of coals in the middle, and no coals in the final third. You now have three levels of heat!

A further mistake was to overfill the grill. Completely filling it leaves no room to manoeuvre the food. You're not able to turn it for even cooking and you have no space to move the food to a lower heat. Assuming overly you are using the rule of thirds as illustrated above, , when you original start cooking, leave empty the area of the grill above where you have placed no coals. You've then space to move the cooked food into. Secondly, do not pack the cooking part of the grill with food. Leave room to comfortably turn your food.

A second difficulty lead to when in filling the grill is to use foods that require different cooking times. When the coals are first ready to use, they're at the hottest. This is the time to cook small, thin items of food that can be cooked in a short while with a high heat. These include items as if sausages, burgers, kebabs and diminutive pieces of meat off the bone. Don't forget that food, such as burgers and sausages, drip fat and juices onto the charcoal for the duration of cooking and it's right now that spells flare-ups. So you'll need to gradually a look out the items of food and move them to an area of lower heat if sizeable (did I mention the rule of thirds? ). After the heat has died down somewhat, start grilling food that takes a small longer to grill like chops and steaks and meat on the bone. Finally when the heat is even lower, grill food as fruit kebabs that remarkably only need heating through.

Last, but not least, our imaginary chef stabs his food with a barbecue fork to turn it over. During the initially few minutes of grilling, the heat seals the surface of the meat, sealing in the juices. When the meat is stabbed the juices flow out onto the coals, causing the meat to dry out and become tough, and producing a flare up which burns the food. When turning food, always use barbecue tongs.

With a charcoal barbecue controlling the heat is difficult. Instead you need to ensure that you cook your individual items of food at the most appropriate phase and this you hold separate areas of heat. Use the pivotal of thirds to provide separate areas of heat. When cooking your food, first grill quick cook food when the coals are at their hottest. Second, cook food that requires cooking at a mid temperature for a longer time. Thirdly, cook food that needs a low hea