Rick Browne - The Ultimate Guide to Grilling

The fountain of youth, next weeks lottery numbers, and the cure for pattern baldness? Nope! Just the best way to grill just about everything from beer-butt to burgers.

Everyone knows how to grill a hamburger, hot dog or steak. You take the meat, throw it on the hot barbecue grill, turn it once or twice so it doesnt burn (too much anyway), and then slap it on a plate, burger bun or hot dog roll and chow down.

WRONG!

Grilling is actually much more a refined culinary art than that. Sure, you put what youre cooking on a hot grill, but the above method usually guarantees dry, tasteless meat, that almost always has a charred surface hidden somewhere. How many times have you hidden a charred burger or chicken breast with oodles of barbecue sauce, mustard or ketchup?

A better way to grill is to use a combination of direct grilling, as above, and then indirect grilling, cooking the food away from the heat source, slowly, thereby keeping it juicy, tender and loaded with taste.

For those who cook with charcoal briquette, mesquite chunk, or hickory logs:

When putting the coals, briquettes or a log into the barbecue, place the combustible materials on ONE SIDE ONLY of the bottom of the barbecue. Leave the other half of the bottom empty (for now) and start your fire as you normally would. Hopefully with an electric firestarter or kindling, NOT flammable chemicals which can then flavor (actually dis-flavor) the food you want to cook.

When the fuel is up to temperature (you know, covered with a thin film of white ash, etc.) take an old metal pan, or a new foil pan, thats about 9 x 12 and using barbecue mitts place the pan on the empty side of the bottom. Using a large pitcher, fill the pan with 1-2 inches of water.

Now place your grill rack into the barbecue over the coals. At this time you should probably clean and oil it, if you havent done so already.

Some hints here: If you have an expensive copper grill brush for heavens sakes use it to scrape off the remains of your last BBQ immolation. But if you dont have such fancy gear take a piece of aluminum foil, say a 12 x 12 piece, wad it up loosely into a ball, and, using long tongs, use it to scrape off the grill after its been over the fire for 2-3 minutes. The foil works wonders on getting the majority of the burned on food off the grill rack, and you just discard it after using. Hot fire will take care of the rest of the remains during the heating period.

Now sit back, close the lid on the barbecue, grab a brew, pull up a lounge chair, and relax until the fire is at the correct temperature for what youre cooking.

At this point you should oil the grill. A good way to do this is to take a sheet of paper towel and fold it into a 2 x 2 (or similar) square. Again using long tongs, dip the towel into a small bowl of olive, vegetable, or other favorite cooking oil. Then rub it across the grill surface, covering the entire grill rack. You may have to re-dip several times.

You could also keep one barbecue basting brush handy just for this purpose, dipping the brush into the oil, and brushing across the rack. If the bristles are plastic youll only do this one time however, ending up with a melted mass at the end of the handle. Natural bristles last much longer.

Either the oiled towel, or the brushed-on oil method works fine.

However, some adventurous folks like to use a nonstick spray which they try to spray across the heated grill surface. NOPE! Not a good thing to do unless you really want a wall of flames shooting toward you! The aerosol spray can easily catch fire and, with a dramatic whoosh youve succeeded in barbecuingyour face!

Now that the grill is on the barbecue, and is well oiled, you can add the food you wish to Que.

I often start out with the meat, poultry, fish, or veggies placed on the hot side of the grill. Remember the coals, briquettes, etc. are only on one side of the barbecue. This way I can sear the food with a high heat, keeping the natural juices inside. Depending on the food, its thickness, and the fire temperature below, Ill cook the food for a short time on each side over the higher heat, 2-3 minutes is an average time.

Then, again depending on the recipe, Ill move the food to the cool side of the grill. (Cool is a relative term here: the hot side of the grill may be at 600 to 700 degrees, while the cool side maybe as high as 400 to 500 degrees, or thereabouts.)

The cool side of the grill, you remember, is also over the pan of water, which keeps flames from shooting up and engulfing the food, something that often happens when you just direct grill. Fat drips onto the hot coals, flames up, and youve got fire charring everything on the barbecue.

The water also evaporates during the cooking process and the steam helps keep the food above it moist, juicy and tasty. Note: some folks like to throw herbs, citrus slices, onion peels, etc. into the water to flavor the steam. I personally dont think this does anything other than give you a colorful pan of water, but if you wish, give it a try.

Presto, chango! now youre INDIRECT COOKING on charcoal (or whatever).

In a later chapter Ill discuss how to make this set-up into a grill-smoker too, adding fragrant wood smoke to your indirectly grilled vittles.

If you have a gas grill the process is much the same, only different.

Most gas barbecues have at least 2 burners, some have 3, and a few have 4 or more burners. Dont matter, as long as there are 2.

Turn the flame on only one burner. Place your water pan over the unlit burner and Ta-da! youve got your gas grill set up. Because of the height of some burners you may have to put bricks on both sides of the unlit burner to balance the water pan. Easily done.

Clean and oil the rack the same way, and in the same sequence, as the charcoal barbecue and you can cook your heart away. Well, not really, that would hurt a mite. First placing the food on the hot side to sear, and then on the cool side to cook for the rest of the time. Voila! youre INDIRECT COOKING on gas.

If youve got more burners you can be a bit more creative. With a three burner set-up you can turn on both outside burners (to the same temperature please, otherwise youll cook one side of your grub quicker). Then place the water pan over the middle burner, therefore having even heat on both sides of what youre cookin. Again, sear on the hot side, cook for the duration on the cool side.

Using this method you can virtually cook anything on a barbecue that you can cook in your kitchen oven. Remember that a barbecue is just a sort of an outdoor oven. It has a heat source (gas, briquettes or coals) like an oven (remember Grannys woodstove Bub?), its an enclosed box like an oven, and you can, somewhat anyway, control the heat like an oven.

Using INDIRECT COOKING Ive make souffls, baked bread, custards, cakes, and pies, and perfectly cooked what otherwise might have been incinerated over direct heat. And the slower, lower temperature cooking, after the meat has been seared to keep the juices inside, gives just about the best results possible to those expensive cuts of meat that you splurge on for those special occasion barbecues.

As a novice barbecuer I sinned like many of you, making up all the excuses youve uttered yourselves. That black, crispiness? Oh thats just a new blackened BBQ sauce technique Im trying, honey. Or, No, Chris those arent hockey pucks, theyre Daddys burgers, theyll taste fine, trust me. And of course, This grill just doesnt work right, everything burns, here I turn my back for just the last quarter of the game, you know the Niners won, and the steaks look, gulp, burned.