Outdoor Cooking Tips

Here are a couple handy tips I've learned from various sources, including the gang on CompuServe's Wine Forum and several books.

Indirect Grilling

I’m not one of the various fanatics who grill every meal, but I really enjoy firing up the BBQ for foods from turkey to burgers and even grilled pizza. When I first started grilling, I’d often run into trouble over-cooking foods like chicken or larger hunks of meat. If I left them over the coals for the food to get entirely cooked, I’d often run into charred, dry meat that wasn’t much different from the charcoal underneath.

Somewhere or another, I read about a great trick to cook many meats: indirect grilling. You build up a fairly hot fire to one side of the grill, sear the meat directly over the heat, then move the food over to the other half of the grill and plop the cover on. The food cooks with a gentle, but firm heat and doesn’t dry out anywhere near as badly as over direct heat. Things work even better if you put a drip pan underneath the meat and fill the pan with beer, apple juice or someother flavorful liquid.

If you’re cooking with a sauce, slather or basting liquid, brush the sauce on the meat and move the meat directly over the coals. Sear the sauce on the meat, rotating and slathering more on all sides, then return the meat to the other side of the grill, re-cover the grill and continue.

Indirect grilling sure isn’t my invention, but I’m really happy I stumbled across it!

Was my description not clear? Check out an illustration of indrect grilling.

Use lava rocks in your charcoal grill

Lava rocks aren’t just for gas grills! Have you seen or used the bread stones for your oven? They help to evenly distribute heat throughout the oven, eliminating hot and cool spots. Lava rocks work just the same in your grill! If I’m using the indirect grilling method, I’ll pile the lava rocks around my pile of coals. If I’m grilling over direct heat, I’ll layer the lava rocks on the bottom of the grill, then shovel the hot coals over the top. I’ve been playing with this method for a month or two now and have been really pleased!

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