- Always use a chimney starter for charcoal grilling. Putting some vegetable oil on the newspaper helps insure you'll get a good fire going, as Alton Brown pointed out on Good Eats.
- Charcoal (vs. gas) is best for red meat, less important for chicken and vegetables, and not really necessary for fish as it cooks so quickly.
- Lump (or hardwood) charcoal is best for grilling--it burns hot and fast--while charcoal briquettes work better for barbecuing, i.e. slow cooking (indirect grilling) with smoke.
- Outdoor temperature significantly affects grilling time. If it's 85+ degrees out (like today), decrease times by 10-20%. If it's in the 50s, increase by the same percentage.
- Wood chips should be soaked for barbecuing and dry for grilling.
- Mesquite chips are best for beef, hickory works well for pork and chicken, and cherry & apple are good for fish and seafood. While chicken and fish work with most any wood, you should definitely not use mesquite for pork or hickory for beef. If you don't the right kind of wood chip in this case, skip the smoking.
- For charcoal, just throw the chips on the coals. For gas, use homemade foil smoker pouches (filled with soaked wood chips, holes poked in the foil).
- Don't make beer can chicken if you're on a strict time schedule. Due to my poor planning one Sunday, we ended up getting Wendy's before the chicken was cooked.
I'd welcome any additions, modifications or suggestions if anyone has any. Slow smoking is a whole other topic that I really don't know much about, e.g. The Cage Free Tomato's hot smoked fish and Spicehound's homemade bacon.
For more on the lump charcoal vs. briquettes debate, see this post from Serious Eats. Wood chunks is yet another option.
3 comments:
I always use lump charcoal, even for barbecueing and smoking. I never soak wood chips and I never put them directly on the fire. Dry chips in an old cast iron pan placed on the fire smolder slowly and evenly. I don't own a smoker (maybe someday), I do everything on a regular grill and have had some great results.
P.S. If you want to read way too much about lump charcoal try http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm
P.P.S. If your interested in all grain brewing, I will be doing a demo at the Coit Road Farmers Market on Aug. 9th.
Here's the best I can do for a fish recipe for a standard home smoker: http://thecagefreetomato.blogspot.com/2007/09/north-by-midwest.html
It was a preachy post, but the basics are there.
Spicehound: Thanks! I'll try the cast iron wood chip suggestion. The best wood flavor I've gotten has actually been using a smoker pouch on charcoal. While throwing them on the fire is easier, they almost always seem to burn a bit faster than I'd like them to, soaked or not.
I've put the date for the demo on my calendar. I can definitely be there if you have samples of that wheat beer you were brewing...
CFT: Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the post, and didn't find it preachy (no more so than my post, anyway). I looked up the smoker you had pictured and was surprised that it was only $35 at Home Depot. For some reason I thought smokers were super-expensive. Then again, my yard and garage are already pretty crowded with grills and bikes.
Post a Comment