Grill Warning: Use These Tips To Stop Grease Fires

Grease fires are unfortunately an all too common danger in the cooking, and especially the barbecue, and live fire outdoor kitchen environment. Meats marbled with fat, and poultry dripping oil directly on to an open flame can cause real problems for the apathetic pit master. When you set out to grill use extra caution with high fat content meats like ground beef, sausages and skin on meats like chicken and pork.

Of course you should never leave any open flame unattended. It takes mere moments for flare ups to run out of control. By the time you walk inside the house to get a beverage in the refrigerator you could have a blaze on the kettle grill.

First, if you expect dripping oil or any pooling grease at all consider using a drip pan and an indirect heat source (off set flame or coals) before you cook.

Place a sturdy aluminum pan filled with water (juice or beer may be nice) under the grate beneath the meat or drips. This will avoid major flare ups and protect succulent meats from over cooking. Indirect heat like this is usually desired for cuts thicker than the palm of your hand.

Second, make sure you start with a clean grill. A dirty grill can mean pooling oil and grease that can ultimately flare up.

Third, have a dry chemical fire extinguisher handy whenever grilling. It's O.K. to use the one temporarily from the kitchen (you DO have one in your kitchen right)? Baking soda can also be used to stop a small grease fire. You may need a lot (and baking flour!)

Fourth, NEVER spray water on a grease fire. It will most likely flare up and spread.

Fifth, In the kitchen you can often cover a grease fire with a pan lid. to cut off oxygen. This is very difficult on a grill grate. A heavy wool or flame retardant blanket can sometimes smother a flame.

And finally do not try to move the flaming material. Turn off the burners and if all else fails get away and call 911.

Flare ups can be a real danger with live fire cooking. Keep charcoal grills off wood decks and all grills clear of vinyl siding. In fact its good practice to remove any and all flammable material at least ten feet away from active and hot grills and barbecues. This includes the ground (dry grass can catch fire in an instant in the dry summer months). Use some advance planning and keep it safe. Visit Barbecue Tricks for more tricks and tips to make your cook out fun, delicious, and danger free.

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Charcoal Vs Propane The Great Grilling Debate

If you're a griller of any level, you have a preference for the type of fuel you burn to cook your meals. There are two camps that are common in the world of grilling and barbecuing. You're either a Gas Guy or a Charcoal Guy. What's the difference? Let's take a look at some of the pros and cons for each.

Propane/Natural Gas Grills

Pros:

Ready for cooking almost instantly No cleanup of ashes No charcoal to purchase or light Clean burning, no smoke or odor Doesn't impart a flavor to your food

Cons:

Doesn't impart flavor to your food. While this can be a pro, many BBQ and grilling enthusiasts enjoy the smoky goodness that hardwood charcoal can add to their meats Propane tanks are unreliable. You may have enough fuel to finish cooking, you may not. A gauge will help alleviate some of this problem Propane can be dangerous. If you're not keeping a close eye on the condition of your tanks, you could be in for a disaster You have to lug around a 25lb canister anytime you want to move your grill to a different location Not well suited for low temperature cooking

This is not an exhaustive list by any standard, just some of the more common pros and cons involved with using Propane as your primary fuel source. Many a fine meal has been created with the assistance of propane and natural gas.

Charcoal/Hardwood

Pros:

Imparts a flavor to all foods cooked with it. You can supplement your charcoal with hardwoods to further enhance flavor High temps are a snap with charcoal Maintaining a lower, longer cook time is possible with charcoal by simply positioning your food away from the heat source You get the "authentic" experience of cooking over hot coals

Cons:

Takes longer to get coals up to temperature for cooking Ash cleanup and disposal You can't easily regulate your temps by simply dialing down the flame You have to keep charcoal on hand at all times for impromptu grilling sessions

While I mentioned charcoal is more "authentic" that's really subjective. Gas grills have been around long enough now that it's more a matter of preference than it is anything else. You can create delicious meals with either method, and in the end it all comes down to what you are more comfortable with using in your endeavors.

Just a final word on either method of cooking. No matter which fuel source you prefer, the key to creating great BBQ and grilled foods is technique. Take your time and study the methods you are using. Look to the friends and family who are skilled in the art of BBQ'ing for advice on how to improve your process. As with anything you undertake, grilling and BBQ'ing expertise is earned through trial and error. Learn from your mistakes, and you'll find yourself at the top of the grilling world before you know it.

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Original Understanding the Benefits of a Wood Fired Pizza Oven

There are probably as many different types of ways of cooking something as there are cultures in the world. Every country, state and region in the world boasts of its own special way of cooking food. One of the ways that have taken the world by storm is to cook in a pizza oven that is fueled by wood. The conventional wood fired pizza oven is gradually increasing in popularity in the world. The reason for this rise to fame is the benefits that such ovens provide. Consider the following.

Wood Fired Ovens Can Attain Higher Temperatures

It is a well known fact that seasoned Italian chefs prefer ovens. The reason why this is so is that wood ovens can attain higher temperatures. This property changes the dynamics of cooking for the better. For instance, in the case of pizzas, these high temperatures allow for the pizza dough to show a rapid rise.

This is desirable because it allows for the pizza to have certain special properties such as being crispy on the outside while tender on the inside. Moreover, the dough also acquires better texture if cooked in a wood fired oven.

They Provide Even Heat Distribution

Another reason why chefs and seasoned cooks like ovens is that their use allows the food to be cooked evenly. This happens because heat inside a wood oven tends to be uniform and not inconsistent anywhere. This, in fact, is a major problem with modern ovens made from metals. The uniform temperatures inside the wood fired oven allow the food to have the kind of consistency that cannot be achieved with modern ovens.

The Food Gets a Smoky Flavor and Aroma

Using wood as the fuel inside an oven adds its own specific charm. For example, food made in a wood fired oven almost always has a smoky flavor. This smoky flavor is further accentuated by a unique aroma that can only be achieved if the food is used with wood as the fuel. It is worth mentioning that this flavor and aroma add to the experience of eating the food, whether it is vegetarian or non vegetarian.

They Are Much More Economical Than Modern Ovens

The majority of high end or authentic Italian restaurants in the world use wood fired ovens. While the primary reason for this is that wood ovens add a certain quality to the food being cooked, there is a secondary reason as well. This is the fact that ovens are significantly more economical than modern ovens.

A wood fired oven, once started, can last for the whole day with minimal use of wood as fuel. Wood fired ovens have this capability because they tend to retain and channel heat very efficiently. In contrast, a modern oven, if used the whole day, can really be expensive. Moreover, wood also tends to be cheaper than electricity on a standalone basis.

They Add Fun to Cooking

Wood fired ovens have also started making appearances in the back yards of many residential properties. In addition to all the qualities mentioned above, such trends are showing up because ovens are ideal for outdoor parties because their use is fun to watch. In effect, these ovens often end up being the star attraction of a party.

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Charcoal Vs Propane The Great Grilling Debate

If you're a griller of any level, you have a preference for the type of fuel you burn to cook your meals. There are two camps that are common in the world of grilling and barbecuing. You're either a Gas Guy or a Charcoal Guy. What's the difference? Let's take a look at some of the pros and cons for each.

Propane/Natural Gas Grills

Pros:

Ready for cooking almost instantly No cleanup of ashes No charcoal to purchase or light Clean burning, no smoke or odor Doesn't impart a flavor to your food

Cons:

Doesn't impart flavor to your food. While this can be a pro, many BBQ and grilling enthusiasts enjoy the smoky goodness that hardwood charcoal can add to their meats Propane tanks are unreliable. You may have enough fuel to finish cooking, you may not. A gauge will help alleviate some of this problem Propane can be dangerous. If you're not keeping a close eye on the condition of your tanks, you could be in for a disaster You have to lug around a 25lb canister anytime you want to move your grill to a different location Not well suited for low temperature cooking

This is not an exhaustive list by any standard, just some of the more common pros and cons involved with using Propane as your primary fuel source. Many a fine meal has been created with the assistance of propane and natural gas.

Charcoal/Hardwood

Pros:

Imparts a flavor to all foods cooked with it. You can supplement your charcoal with hardwoods to further enhance flavor High temps are a snap with charcoal Maintaining a lower, longer cook time is possible with charcoal by simply positioning your food away from the heat source You get the "authentic" experience of cooking over hot coals

Cons:

Takes longer to get coals up to temperature for cooking Ash cleanup and disposal You can't easily regulate your temps by simply dialing down the flame You have to keep charcoal on hand at all times for impromptu grilling sessions

While I mentioned charcoal is more "authentic" that's really subjective. Gas grills have been around long enough now that it's more a matter of preference than it is anything else. You can create delicious meals with either method, and in the end it all comes down to what you are more comfortable with using in your endeavors.

Just a final word on either method of cooking. No matter which fuel source you prefer, the key to creating great BBQ and grilled foods is technique. Take your time and study the methods you are using. Look to the friends and family who are skilled in the art of BBQ'ing for advice on how to improve your process. As with anything you undertake, grilling and BBQ'ing expertise is earned through trial and error. Learn from your mistakes, and you'll find yourself at the top of the grilling world before you know it.

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What's The Best Fuel for Your Charcoal Grill?

Every barbecue enthusiast has an opinion about the best fuel to use on a charcoal grill. If you've not thought much about your fuel options, you should, because the fuel you use can make a big difference to the quality of your barbecued meals.

The three fuel options are charcoal, briquettes and wood.

In this article we'll look at each of these in turn and then make some suggestions about the best ways to use each of them on your charcoal grill.

Charcoal

Mankind has been making charcoal for thousands of years, and probably been using it for cooking for almost as long.

Charcoal is made by burning wood in an atmosphere starved of oxygen, and while it's burning, water and other volatile components in the wood are vaporized. The charcoal produced is used as a fuel instead of wood. It's good for cooking food over because it burns more consistently than wood and it doesn't impart any particular flavors (good or bad) to the food cooked. Flavors can be produced by adding wood chips to the burning charcoal (we'll discuss this later).

Generally speaking, the best woods for burning on an open fire are also the best ones for producing charcoal. But very often when you buy lump charcoal for a BBQ grill you're not told what type of wood was used to make it, but if you do get a choice choose charcoal made from hardwoods such as oak, hickory or mesquite.

Avoid the inferior charcoal produced from timber off-cuts.

Charcoal Briquettes

Charcoal briquettes appeared on the marketplace after Henry Ford spotted an opportunity to use the wood waste produced from car manufacturing to make charcoal briquettes. He did this by making use of a previously patented technique for producing "fuel briquettes". This technique involved a special process for combining and compressing granulated charcoal (produced form his waste wood) with a mixture of borax (used to aid the manufacturing process) and petroleum products (used to bind the wood-chips together and help ignition).

Henry Ford was definitely onto a good thing. He made lots of money selling his briquettes for the nations charcoal grills. Today there are lots of different varieties and brands of briquettes on the marketplace, some of which don't contain the unpleasant-smelling petroleum products. However, even if you can avoid buying briquettes containing petroleum products, it's still best to let them burn for a while on your charcoal grill before you start grilling food to make sure that you get rid of any other substances that might affect the taste and smell of your food.

Lots of people use a Charcoal Grill Chimney Starter to prepare the briquettes for their grills. This method avoids putting burning coals onto your grill until the unpleasant substances in them have burned off. Using a chimney starter you can also replenish your grill with fresh batches of hot briquettes when you are barbecuing for long periods of time.

Wood

Many barbecue veterans prefer to use wood for their barbecue grills. The reason isn't hard to understand. Burning wood gives off natural substances which can impart the most wonderful tastes to food. These substances are lost if the same wood is converted to charcoal.

The really interesting fact about these flavoring substances is that they differ from one type of wood to another. So if you barbecue the same food with hardwoods such as oak, beech and hickory the chances are that you'll notice a very different taste with each variety of wood.

What's the Best Fuel for a Charcoal Grill?

There are advantages and disadvantages for each of the three types of barbecue grill fuel.

Briquettes are extremely popular and widely available. We've pointed out some of their limitations, but one of the big advantages of briquettes is that they're easy to handle and transport, and when they burn they maintain a consistent high temperature (600 degrees F and higher) for long periods. Some types of hardwood Charcoal lumpswill also provide high temperatures, but natural charcoal will frequently not maintain a particular temperature for longer periods.

Wood can reach even higher temperatures than either briquettes or natural charcoal but it's not easy to maintain these temperatures. If it's important to maintain a consistent high temperature with wood you'll probably need to replenish your grill with fresh wood during the cooking period.

One very important point to make is that if you are using wood on your charcoal grill, remember to keep the grill open. If you don't do this your food will end up tasting far too smoky - perhaps even inedible.

Getting the Best Results on Your Charcoal Grill

Wood will give you superb results on a charcoal grill providing you bear in mind the tips and guidance we've provided above. But if you don't want to be involved with the extra effort and skill that's involved if you barbecue with wood you can compensate for the lost flavors by burning wood chips with your briquettes or charcoal lumps.

If you want to use wood chips soak them thoroughly in water first and then scatter them on the glowing coals before and (if necessary) during cooking. They will smolder and eventually burn up, but whilst they are doing this they will introduce the magic flavors into your cooking which you won't get by burning charcoal or briquettes on their own.

The big benefit of adopting this approach to barbecuing is that you can experiment with a wide variety of different types of wood chip to produce varied and interesting flavors into your barbecue food.

Here's a list of the different types of wood chip and the foods they are reckoned to go well with:

· Oak chips are good for all types of barbecue food, especially beef and lamb

· Pecan & Hickory produce a rich, dense smoke which is reckoned to be good for pork

· Mesquite is excellent for beef

· Maple produces a much milder smoke which is good for poultry, seafood and pork

· Alder produces a light flavor particularly suited to salmon, turkey and chicken

· Apple produces a very tangy smoke. It's good for chicken pork and game

· Cherry produces a sweet and tangy smoke and is good for salmon and duck.

There are lots more different types of wood chips. If you want to experiment with a few types purchase several small size bags of chips from your local BBQ Shop or from a good online store like Amazon.

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Why Using a Barbecue Meat Thermometer Can Help Make Your Cooking Safer and Better

Sometimes it's very difficult to work out whether the meat on a barbecue grill is correctly cooked, especially if it's a large joint of meat or a large bird such as a chicken or turkey. Over-cooked meat will disappoint your barbecue guests, and undercooked meat can be a health risk.

Stories of illnesses after BBQ's are not unusual and sometimes undercooked BBQ food can require emergency medical treatment in hospital.

A barbecue meat thermometer is a good solution to these problems. It can be used to measure the internal temperature of large roasts, steaks and other cooked foods. It does this by means of a probe which is inserted into the meat during or after cooking. The degree to which the meat has been cooked is indicated by its internal temperature.

Should You Always Use a Meat Thermometer?

If you are barbecuing fresh steaks it's not uncommon to cook them rare. Many people prefer them that way. But when you are cooking processed meats (e.g. burgers or English sausages) and large meat joints, chickens, turkeys and ducks they must be cooked until their interior temperatures are high enough to kill harmful bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli (two of the commonest causes of barbecue meal illnesses).

Many people that barbecue regularly will tell you that you don't need a barbecue meat thermometer if you mostly cook steaks, sausages, hot dogs and burgers, because there are simple manual techniques for testing whether they're cooked or not, and, in the case of steaks whether they're rare, medium or well done.

But if you're cooking large numbers steaks, burgers, hot dogs and sausages you'll find it much easier and safer to manage your cooking if you use a meat thermometer.

How to Use a Barbecue Grill Meat Thermometer

There are lots of different types of barbecue grill meat thermometer, but all of them comprise the same basic components - a long probe and a gauge. The probe is long enough to be inserted into the thickest part of the meat and the gauge attached to it (either directly or by a wire) can either be analogue or digital.

The ones with a gauge directly attached to the probe are called instant-read meat thermometers. They used to be the most common type used for BBQ's, but now electronic remote-read meat thermometers have become very popular. As the name suggests these consist of a probe and a remote digital gauge which is either attached to the probe by wires or linked wirelessly to the probe through a transmitter station.

Whatever type of meat thermometer you use the tip of the probe must be inserted into the thickest part of the meat, but it must not touch any bone in the meat because if it does it'll give an overestimate of the meat temperature. The sensing areas of the probe are always clearly indicated and can be from ½ inch to 2 inches long. Take the length of this sensing area into account when inserting the probe into the meat (i.e. make sure it's at the center of the meat).

If you are cooking chickens, turkeys and ducks, insert the probe into the thigh area near the breast. For red meats, roasts, steaks, burgers or chops insert the probe into the center of the thickest part (i.e. in the case of a steak push the probe into the side, and for an English sausage insert it from the end).

Many BBQ grill recipes provide information on cooking temperatures, but here's a guide on the temperatures to aim for with different types of meats:

Beef and Lamb: Rare 125 degrees F, Medium 160 degrees F, Well-done 170 - 195 degrees F

Pork: Medium 160 degrees F, Well-done 170 - 190 degrees F

Chicken: Well-done 170 - 190 degrees F (chicken should always be well-done)

Duck: Rare 125 degrees F Medium 160 degrees F, Well-done 170 degrees F

Steak: Rare 135 degrees F Medium 140 degrees F, Medium 155 degrees F, Well-done 165 degrees F

What to Look for When Choosing a Barbecue Meat Thermometer

The probe of the meat thermometer should always have a sharp point so that it can be easily pushed into the meat. As indicated above this probe may be attached directly to an analogue dial or to a digital display. In some thermometers the dial or display will show temperature only, but there are others which helpfully indicate the right temperatures for different sorts of meat.

Instant-Read Thermometers

Probe thermometers which provide a direct reading of the internal temperature of meat have been around since Victorian times. Instant-read meat thermometers are the descendants of these Victorian ancestors. They either have analogue or digital displays. Analogue types can often be inserted into the meat to be cooked and left there throughout the cooking period. Digital instant-read thermometers can only be used toward the end of the cooking time. They're not designed to remain in the food as it cooks.

If you decide to buy an instant-read thermometer, make sure it has a nice clear analogue or digital display and that it has a good response time. Some thermometers can take up to 30 seconds to give a reading. This is a long time if you want to carry out your temperature checks quickly.

Make sure you buy your barbecue meat thermometer from a good barbecue accessory shop that has a good range of thermometers to choose from, or if you shop on-line check the customer reviews before purchasing.

Remote-Read Thermometers

There are a lot of different types of remote-read thermometers to choose from. Their cost has tumbled in recent years and they're now very affordable. The probe of a remote-read thermometer is either directly connected by wire to a digital gauge or to a transmitter which sends a wireless signal to a gauge. The advantage of the wireless meat thermometer is that it can be carried around whilst the food is cooking on your barbecue, providing an instant check on temperature wherever you are inside or outside the home. These devices can be very advanced, with special programs to help you keep an eye on and manage your barbecue cooking.

Some people have difficulties getting the transmitter and receiver of their wireless thermometer to communicate, but this is usually more of an operator problem than a malfunction. If you buy one of these thermometers, make sure you read the manual in detail. A more annoying problem is breaking the wires connecting the probe and the gauge or transmitter by accidentally dropping the BBQ lid on them.

However, don't be put off by these potential difficulties. There are thousands of remote-read meat thermometers in use on all types of BBQ grill. They are a fantastic way of making barbecue cooking easier, especially when they used for recipes requiring long cooking times.

To sum up; if you haven't used a barbecue meat thermometer before we recommend that you start with something simple like the basic Weber meat thermometer, and then move onto one of the more advanced remote-reading meat thermometers once you have become proficient at using a meat thermometer in your barbecue cooking.

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