Now that summer is unofficially underway, it’s the time of year for backyard barbecues and grilling. But how do you make great ribs? What about succulent beef brisket? Even something as simple as grilling the perfect burger?
“There’s a lot to know about backyard, patio cooking,” said Andrew Darneille, owner and pitmaster at Smokecraft Modern Barbecue. “If you’re grilling or if you’re cooking low and slow, which is really what barbecue is — I think barbecue and grilling get put together very often. When you’re grilling steaks, burgers, hot dogs, chicken, that’s very different than cooking low and slow when you’re doing a pork butt or some ribs or brisket.”
More and more backyard grillers are trying their hand these days at low and slow cooking with smokers, such as the Big Green Egg and the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.
“We talk a lot about clean smoke, we don’t want to see out of the smokestack or out of the chimney … big puffy smoke, signal-style smoke,” Darneille said. “If you see something really dark, really puffy, that means that you’ve got a fire that’s not burning clean, and you’re gonna get a lot of ash flavor and … too much smoke flavor.”
Unlike grills that use small charcoal briquettes, the smokers call for lump coal.
“I recommend Jealous Devil lump charcoal. … Don’t get any lighter fluid, get one of the natural fire starters,” Darneille said. “Lighter fluid, which a lot of people use, you’re gonna taste that in your meat and in your food.”
When grilling, Darneille said he prefers charcoal grills, which impart more flavor to the food than gas grills do. But he says you can supplement your gas grill by adding wood chips.
“You just want to put some wood chips, soak them in water, put them in a foil pack, poke a couple holes with a fork in it and then put that off to the side,” Darneille said. “It will begin to let a little smoke out, add a little more smoke into the grill and gets more flavor on your food.”
Use a meat thermometer for backyard cooking and, when grilling, start the meat over the hottest part of the fire.
“It’s good to get good grill marks and using tools like grill grates and things like that to help flame ups from occurring and gain some good marks on there. But again, the perfect internal temperature is more important than the marks on the food, rotating your food properly, rotating it quickly,” he said. “You can start hot, you know over the coals you’ll get your marks, flip it and then move it to the cooler side until it gets to that temperature you want.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
