4 Ways to Out-Grill Your Neighbour – Master BBQ Like a Pro

Here are four ways to prepare your barbecued food. The tips are simple, but should be considered essential to properly grilling food. Once mastered, they will improve your ability to cook barbecued meat beyond mere mortals.

1. Salt your food properly

It is given top-spot in this list for a reason, and probably the most important tip for any form of cooking. Meat needs a lot of salt, probably a lot more than you normally use. Probably a whole lot more. Be generous and experiment. It makes an enormous difference to barbecued meat, and enhances seasonings and the charred flavor enjoyed by any grill lover.

2. Use freshly ground pepper

Like any spice, preground pepper loses it’s flavor, and particularly it’s aromatic properties, very quickly. I would recommend you try preground pepper and freshly cracked pepper side by side, the difference is huge. Be generous with pepper as well, you don’t need to be subtle when you barbecue.

3. Spice Rubs

Spice rubs add lots of flavor, you can really let out your creative beast. Same deal here, use whole spices and grind them as late as possible. Food should be spiced strongly and with much gusto to balance the grilled taste.

4. Glazes and Sauces

Glazes and sauces are great, and the sweetness does a lot for the charred meat. Just make sure not to make the Cardinal Sin of Glazes and Sauces – putting it on too early. Because of the sugar content it is very easy to burn the glaze and you end up with a sticky burnt mess. Glazes and sauces should only be put on the meat at the end of cooking, such as the last few minutes, or when the meat is taken off.

David B. May 30th, 2011

Posted In: BBQ Maintenance