BBQ BASICS: Barbecue "Don'ts"

Dudes standing over a grill burning meat: a paragon image of 20th-21st century Americana. Maybe we can change that a little bit.

There are a lot of common mistakes in barbecuing (including knowing what "barbecue" is), and possibly even more in standard grilling, due to the respective higher heat. Avoid these errors to improve your outside cooking skills:

1. DON'T slather meat in barbecue sauce before grilling or barbecuing. It will all burn off while your ribs or chicken slowly cooks.
**DO apply a dry rub before cooking, and DO apply a sauce during the last 10-15 minutes of cooking, or simply serve sauce on the side.

2. DON'T carve all the fat away from your meat. This might work fine for fast grilling, but for barbecuing, the slow cooking process allows rendered fat to baste the meat to prevent it from drying out.
**DO score the fatty pieces with a knife and cook "fat side up." Later in the cooking process, when you're almost done, you can cook fat side down to allow the remaining fat to melt away onto the coals.

3. DON'T just use one pair of tongs, unless you go inside and thoroughly wash them before your final use with them. It's unsanitary to touch tongs with raw meat and then use them to handle the finished product.
**DO keep raw meat tongs and cooked meat tongs. Additionally, in a restaurant setting, you'll want different tongs for different types of meat, but at home this is not such a big deal.

4. DON'T keep the grill open for large cuts of meat. Everything will dry out.
**DO close the grill for meat that takes more than 10 or 15 minutes to cook. When grilling sausages or brats or steaks at a high heat, you can leave the grill open if you prefer.

5. DON'T pour your coals into your coal pan before they're well lit enough, especially if you lit them with the aid of lighter fluid.  For one thing, they won't be hot enough, and for another thing, they'll be toxic.
**DO allow the coals in your charcoal chimney to light all the way to the top, until the flame dies down and the coals are all white, THEN pour them into your coal pan.

6. DON'T be stingy with the amount of coals you use just because you're doing low temperature cooking.  You'll be surprised how fast the coals will go out.
**DO use plenty of coals in order to keep the heat going for a long time, but keep a distance between the coals and the meat to allow lower temperature barbecuing.  If you don't have the capability to keep a distance between the coals and the meat, pour the coals to one side of the charcoal pan and keep the meat on the opposite side of the heat source when placing onto the grill grates.

THINK YOU CAN IMPART SOME WISDOM?  SEND US YOUR IDEAS!  EXPECT A LOT MORE BARBECUE DON'TS SOON! 

Chinese-Style Barbecue Sauce

Just as we promised... the delicious way to finish off your spare ribs.

INGREDIENTS:
2 tbsp Soy sauce
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
2 tbsp Honey
3 tbsp Rice wine vinegar
1 tsp White pepper
2 small cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Ketchup
1 tsp Peanut oil

STEPS:
1. Crush garlic and simmer in a saucepan with peanut oil, on medium heat, until lightly browned.

2. Add soy sauce, vinegar, hoisin sauce, and ketchup, then add honey and white pepper. Let simmer on low for about five minutes.

3. Apply to spare ribs, or other meat, during the last 10-15 minutes of cooking. Serve any extra sauce on the side for dipping.

Remember, applying sauce at the end of barbecuing keeps the flavor rich and prevents the sauce from burning off during cooking.

Chinese-Style Dry Rub

Chinese spare ribs.  Classic.  Smoked Chinese spare ribs.  Classic Plus.


It's great to keep various jars of dry rubs on hand for making barbecue, especially when you make barbecue unexpectedly.  I know I do it.  Here's an awesome spice rub showcasing some of the great the flavors of Asian cuisine. (Yields about 6 tablespoons of dry rub)

What to mix:
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp White pepper
0.5 tsp Black pepper
1 tbsp Garlic powder
0.5 tbsp Onion powder
2 tsp Asian-style red pepper (available online, or use paprika)
1 tsp Ginger powder
1 tsp Mustard powder
2 tsp white sugar

How to use it:
1. Mix all ingredients together in a jar.
2. Brush ribs, or other meat, lightly with rice wine vinegar.
3. Sprinkle generously with Asian-style rub, and get yo' grill on.

NEED A SAUCE TO COMPLIMENT THIS DRY RUB? Try Sizzle Grove's Chinese-Style Barbecue Sauce!

Coffee Rub

You've seen it in several previous posts: Sizzle Grove's favorite dry rub ingredient for large chunks of meat, particularly brisket or other large beef roasts.  We're coffee addicts. Here's a convenient recipe for coffee spice rub:

1.5 tsp Ground coffee
4 tbsp Brown sugar
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Black pepper
0.5 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Onion powder
1 tsp Garlic powder
Pinch Cayenne or hot pure chili powder
1 tsp Smoked paprika

In case you need some inspiration... try this rub on a smoked roast beef!  Just apply rub on a beef roast, cook for about 45 minutes a pound at 225 Fahrenheit (for medium-rare), turning at even intervals, and baste every hour with a mix of 75% balsamic vinegar to 25% olive oil, plus crushed garlic and a dash of coffee.

Raw + dry rub:
Pictured on left
                            Fully cooked:
                            Pictured on right

BBQ LEFTOVERS: Pulled Pork Enchiladas

Sometimes your friends won't show up to your barbecue. What the hell is wrong with them? Morons. Oh well, so you've got some leftover pulled pork from the 8 pound shoulder you barbecued yesterday. So you're out of cole slaw. So you're out of rolls. You can still make an awesome meal.


Enchiladas are one of the BEST things to make with leftover barbecue, particularly pulled pork or smokey brisket. 

Here's what you need:

*Leftover pulled pork
*Shredded cheddar cheese
*Grated pecorino romano, or other salty hard cheese
*Soft corn tortillas
*A shallow baking pan
*Plenty of Peppery Tomato Barbecue Sauce

Here's what you do:

1. As many enchiladas as you wish to make, take that number of tortillas and put them on a microwaveable dish. Put a dab of water around the dish and microwave for about 30 seconds. This will soften the tortillas.

2. Spread a very thin layer of Peppery Tomato Barbecue Sauce around the bottom of your baking dish.

3. Take a small amount of pulled pork and a small amount of pecorino romano cheese and fill each tortilla... the amount varies based on the size of your tortillas, but make it just enough that you can roll up each tortilla around the filling.

4. After filling each tortilla, place in baking dish lined with small amount of sauce.

5. Pour a generous amount of sauce over all the enchiladas, enough that they're not drenched, but are thoroughly sauced. Sprinkle generously with cheddar, to your liking.

6. Bake at 400 degrees for only about 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned and bubbling. Serve with crispy onion rings or Mexican beans and rice.

Peppery Tomato Barbecue Sauce

Some barbecue sauces are thick, dark, and sweet, some are thin, orange, and spicy, and there's really a whole wealth of flavors, colors, and consistencies in between. Here's a peppery, red sauce barbecue sauce that's not too thick or too thin. Using some tomato sauce instead of all ketchup also makes it somewhat more healthy, or at least less unhealthy.

INGREDIENTS:
1. One 14-16 ounce can tomato sauce (the plain, thin kind - not pasta sauce!)
2. 1/2 cup ketchup
3. 2 tablespoons brown mustard, such as Kosciusko's
4. 1/4 cup white vinegar
5. 1/4 cup cider vinegar
6. 2 tbsp brown sugar
7. 2 tablespoons honey
8. 1 tablespoon pepper
9. 1 teaspoon onion powder
10. 1 teaspoon garlic powder
11. 1/2 teaspoon cumin
12. 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or 1/2 teaspoon for daring folks)

STEPS:
1. In a medium saucepan on medium heat, start simmering wet ingredients (tomato sauce, ketchup, vinegars) except honey.
2. Begin adding in spices and honey, stirring frequently.
3. Simmer until bubbling, then turn heat off.
4. Let cool a bit, then store in a jar or squeeze container.

This makes a delicious enchilada sauce for pulled pork enchiladas!

BBQ BASICS: Tips to Prevent Barbecue From Drying

The long cooking time required for barbecue leaves us with a bit of a risk of having our glorious, labor intensive dinner from drying out... especially if you're attempting to tackle a big old brisket. Fortunately, there are some effective ways to keep this from happening.

Just follow one or more of The Three B's: BASTE, BRINE, AND BACON.

Basting, as you've read in previous posts, makes use of a thin, generally acidic "mop sauce" applied to the meat while cooking. Most bastes in barbecue use a lot of vinegar. This accomplishes two feats: one, adding a tangy flavor, and two, helping keep the meat moist. The acidic environment opens pores in the meat, allowing moisture to seep in.

A simple baste could be as minimal as one part water to about two parts vinegar. Try using a couple different kinds of vinegars for unique flavor, or try mixing in coffee, mustard, or hot sauce. For lower fat meats, mix some extra virgin olive oil into your baste, or butter if you want to make a REALLY savory beef roast.

We at Sizzle Grove believe in always basting back ribs, but not necessarily doing so for spare ribs.

Brining is something you're familiar with if you've read our article on cooking pork shoulder. What's great about brining is that it introduces flavor and moisture into very large cuts of meat, when spice rubs and bastes might not be able to penetrate through to the center. The acids help break the meat down, allowing fat and collagen to literally baste the meat internally. In addition to pork shoulder, whole turkey is a particularly great candidate for brining.

Brines aren't as complicated as people seem to think. They're essentially glorified marinades, with copious levels of salt. Just simmer a few cups of water (enough to cover the meat in a container), three parts salt to one part sugar, and maybe some vinegar or another acidic liquid. The exact amount of salt might sound a bit copious, generally about a cup of salt to a gallon of water. Keep in mind, some of this salt penetrates the meat, but most of it remains in the brine which is drained before cooking.

Again, we think coffee is a great adjunct for a brine. Even a strong black tea could introduce a unique flavor. Brine your meat for 24-48 hours.

Mmmmm, bacon. We love bacon. One of the great things about smokey barbecue is, quite frankly, the bacony flavor that hickory and other hard wood smoke infuses into meats. Bacon can also be used to prevent barbecue from drying.

Simply draping a few strips of bacon over a piece of meat while it's on your smoker may help keep it from drying out. This may be particularly effective when cooking flat cut brisket, which still requires a bit of time but has a significantly lower fat content than large, commercial brisket roasts. Fat is necessary for long cooking in order to promote moisture, and bacon adds both fat and flavor. Sweet, sweet, bacony flavor.

Next time you fire up your 'cue to make some pulled pork or smokey brisket, try one of these methods to keep everything juicy and awesome. Don't forget to tell us how it came out.

POLL RESULTS ARE IN...

Our poll has closed, and 66% of Sizzle Grove's readers said that they would like to see more spice rub, marinade, and sauce recipes. Expect plenty more and tell all of your friends to check out our site!

Thanks for playing!

BBQ BASICS: Barbecue Lingo

Some of you folks browsing through barbecue blogs might have questions like "what the hell do they mean by bark and Boston butt?" Like all hobbies, there is a lot of lingo in the barbecue world. Here's a convenient run-down:

Babyback ribs / Back ribs: The smaller ribs taken from "high on the hog" - a.k.a. between the chest and spine, rather than around the belly.

Barbecue sauce: A type of sauce, often tomato-based, applied to barbecue which varies greatly by region. Ranges from thin, vinegary, and spicy to thick, dark, and sweet. Some regions prefer mustard-based barbecue sauces.

Barbecuing: Cooking over flames, indirectly and at a low temperature, with the addition of smoke from hard woods.

Bark: A crust, often heavily spiced, that forms on the outside of barbecued meat.

Baste: A liquid, often made with acids such as vinegar and sometimes made with fats such as olive oil, applied to meat during the cooking process in order to prevent drying and infuse extra flavor.

Boston butt / Pork shoulder / Pork butt: A type of large cut of pork which is well-marbled and high in fat, used often for barbecued pulled pork or chopped pork. Often contains shoulder blade bone.

Brine: A type of marinade with a high acid level and often a fairly high sugar content. Helps break down meat before cooking, and may be used for curing outside of the barbecue realm.

Brisket: A beef cut with a high fat and collagen content, from right below the neck of a cow (below the chuck cut). Requires long cooking time in order to prevent from being too tough. Never, ever, ever served rare, but still delicious.

Carolina barbecue: A type of barbecue generally hailing from South Carolina, often showcasing whole hog barbecue, pork shoulder, and spare ribs. Sauces are often thin, vinegary, spicy, and/or mustard-based, rather than thick and sweet.

Charcoal: Made from charred hard wood. Either sold as square shaped briquettes or as natural lump coals, this serves as the heat source for most barbecue.

Dry rub: A mixture of salt, pepper, spices, and/or herbs applied to the surface of food.

Grilling: Cooking over flames, with food close to the heat source and at a relatively high temperature, over either coals or with propane.

Hard wood: Wood from trees such as hickory, mesquite, oak, birch, or fruit trees, which may be used in barbecuing for a savory smoke flavor.

Kansas City barbecue: A style of barbecue popular in Missouri and Kansas, showcasing a wide spectrum of meats, particularly pork ribs. Generously applied, thick, sweet sauces made with tomato ketchup and molasses are most common.

Lump charcoal: A type of charcoal which is not processed and formed into briquettes, but rather sold as raw charred wood chunks. Generally cleaner burning than briquettes and with a lower ash level.

Marinade: A mixture of liquid and/or dry spices applied to food for a specific period of time, often hours or longer, in order to promote flavor penetration.

Memphis barbecue: Another pork-centric barbecue hailing from Tennessee, often featuring generously coated dry spices adhered by vinegary mop sauce in place of thick barbecue sauce.

Mop sauce: A baste or thin sauce applied during cooking, traditionally with a small mop.

Pulled pork (or chopped pork): Shredded or finely cut up barbecued pork, either from pork shoulder or whole hog barbecue, often served in sandwich form.

Smoker: A type of wood and/or charcoal grill promoting high levels of smoke which are infused into barbecued food.

Spare ribs: The very large, higher-fat ribs from around the belly or chest of a pig. Generally perceived as a tougher cut of meat, though may be tender and delicious if cooked properly.

Texas barbecue: Often beef-based, particularly focusing on brisket, and generally simply spiced with salt and pepper. May be served with hot sauce as per the consumer's prerogative, though rarely served with any type of sweet barbecue sauce.

As always, we'd love to hear from you if you see something that you think ought to be on this list. Submit to sizzlegrove@hotmail.com.

BBQ BASICS: What To Look For In A Smoker/Grill

Backyard smokers and grills come in a huge variety of designs and sizes. Most use charcoal, some are electric, and some homemade smokers are literally glorified trash cans with a hot plate and some wood chips - beware of doing this yourself, as the wrong type of metal trash can may release toxins into your cuisine.

HERE ARE THE MAIN THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN A BACKYARD SMOKER/GRILL:

1. Distance between grill grate and coals. Two to two and a half feet is optimal for slow barbecuing.

2. Ability to move the grill grate close or far away to the charcoal pan, or vice versa. This allows you to adjust the heat for slow barbecuing or fast charcoal grilling.

3. Ability to add more coals or wood. This, in most cases, will require moving the meat or the grill grate when the heat goes down. However, if you can get a smoker that allows you to add coals without moving stuff around.... sweet dude. Totally sweet.

4. Adjustable vents on the side. Such vents will allow or prevent oxygen flow. Opening these vents wider promotes oxygen flow, resulting in higher heat. Water smokers tend not to have this feature, but the door on the side of them may occasionally be opened for a few minutes if the heat is going down too low.

5. A temperature gauge. Some may indicate the exact temperature, while some brands have a gauge that says "Warm," "Ideal," and "Hot." If your smoker/grill has the latter, you may need to judge for yourself when food is fully done, or use a meat thermometer to obtain a specific temperature.

HERE ARE SOME COMMON TYPES OF SMOKERS AND GRILLS:


1. Barrel smokers appear as cylinder shaped receptacles, sometimes with a side compartment where the hot coals are placed. This design is great for allowing a chef to add more coals during cooking, promoting smoke flow, and slow cooking. Its one drawback is the fact that the heat source is all to one side. The resourceful chef, however, can make use of this by placing a thicker side of a piece of meat closer to the coal compartment.

2. Upright water smokers are perhaps the most common home smokers. They are tall, often with a rounded top, they contain a small grill, and they also include a water pan. This keeps the temperature down for slow smoking and additionally creates a steamy environment to prevent drying of food. Such a design is optimal for cooking turkeys and other large meats, however it may be difficult to keep your heat up and to create a pronounced "bark" on your barbecued meat.

3. Old fashioned, round, Weber-style charcoal grills are not to be overlooked. In our opinion, these are near perfect for barbecuing, and some of the fancier, stranger looking grills and smokers can't do as good of a job as these can. The difficulty is finding one large enough to promote low temperature cooking.