How to BBQ? What to buy?

Question

I have never done a BBQ and currently don't have a grill. I was planning to throw a backyard party. I needed to know which grills are best, charcoal or gas? What are the pros and cons and any recommendations on brands? My friends and I mainly just eat chicken, my parents are vegetarian so we never cook meat at home so I have no clue on how to prepare meat. What do I need to do to prepare to BBQ it and which type should I buy? Do they sell pre-marinated chicken? Thank you for any assistance.

Answer 1

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/home-garden/cooking-cleaning/grills/grills_sub/how-to-choose/index.htm

It's really your preference with gas/charcoal. We have both...depending on what we make or what time of year it is. I have never been disappointed with Weber products.

A lot of grocery stores sell pre-marinated chicken. If not near you, you just need a bottle of marinate and a large plastic bag.

Best of luck. :)

Answer 2

i used to adore charcoal grills the best. However, over the years I have converted to gas grills because I can bbq on a weeknight in 20 minutes flat. My absolute favorite brand of all time, going back 20 years is Weber. They do great charcoal and gas grills. Currently have a gas silver A grill and love it to death. It is only me so it is on the smallish side. But does a bang up job cooking for me and 3 - 4 guests.

The only thing I would say to keep away from are stainless steel grates. My folks bought some fancy-shamncy new grill that cost more than my condo mortgage and to this day, my mom wishes they had just bought a new weber. Their new grill is big, and hot, with all the bells, but just not the same.

My grocery store does sell pre-marinated stuff for grilling, but I have so many recipes that they are not necessary. If you want to grill veggies, invest in some metal kebab skewers and maybe a grilling basket. If you buy any book, try some of the weber books. they have great sections for how to grill veggies.

Answer 3

I have always been a charcoal girl but I got tired of dragging the huge bags of charcoal home and waiting forever for the coals to be ready. I could never grill during the week because being a working single mom, I couldn't serve my kids dinner at 9:00 at night! So, I bought a small gas grill. I LOVE IT! I can grill any night of the week and the flavor is still very good! Anyway, if you are not used to barbecuing, start simple. Not sure where you live but McCormick make some delicious marinade mixes. They come in envelopes and you mix them with oil, vinegar and water and it only takes a few minutes for the meat to be ready to grill. My favorite is the mesquite but they are all good. Also, try grilling tomatoes, asparagus, and even fruit. Just drizzle with a little olive oil. Have fun!

Answer 4

i personaly like charcoal it has a better taste but if you are going to entertain then id consider a gas grill.Weber is the best. I'd use to build and sell them charcoal brand is a good brand for a cheap grill because webers are pushing 400 dollars and way up. Chicken depends on how you want it. Season it with salt peper and paprika. Grill it until it starts to tan then start to add the barbeque sauce with a brush. do this for about 2o mins sauceing it periodically. if you buy a charcoal grill make sure you pam the grates so the chicken does not stick to it. Have fun.

Answer 5

Well first question is are you grilling or doing actual BBQ?
BBQ is low and slow, and uses only wood or natural chacoal.
Grilling is doing burgers, dogs, and chicken over direct heat.
If you want the best of both worlds, I would go with wood/charcoal. I was a gas grill person for long time, but could never get the taste or the temp out of a gas grill I needed for steaks. (Steak need 50,000 BTU or better to get them pefect the way I like them, and hard to find that in gas) Brinkman makes a smoker/grill combo that has lasted me foever. It has a side coal box for when you want to smoke you food( using your favorite wood, hickory, oak, alder, ect. ) And in most store now, they sell the wood in managable chunks and are just as easy to light as charcoal. You can also you the Brinkman as a grll for doing the hamburgers, hot dogs, steak, or chicken if you want to grill. Smoked chicken finished off on the grill yuou can't beat. Gas is easier, and more expensive initially, but wood/charcoal gives better taste, and more options in my opinion.

Answer 6

BBQ aficionados will swear by charcoal for that special flavor it gives meat. you need to know that a real BBQ takes HOURS. baby back ribs are a favorite. of course, chicken is good too on the grill. make sure you have a thermometer to watch your temp. wash the meat, season both sides, place on the grill with the coals to one side with the meat NOT DIRECTLY OVER THEM but to the side, keep your temps low about 275, cook until the meat is pulling off the bone.

Answer 7

If your parents are vegetarians, it seems a waste of money to buy a grill. If you go to a sporting goods store, they have a sort of foil pack that you can get grill-flavored meat (mesquite,etc) in your oven.
Or they have one-time use grills at WalMart, which are small so if you are having a lot of people you may want to buy 2 (I bought mine for around 5 bucks).
They do sell plenty of pre-marinated meat in the store. One of the most successful (and simple) recipes I have ever used is to put chicken in a gallon ziploc bag with a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch mix and some olive oil, plus a dash of vinegar.
(I wouldn't combine that with the mesquite though!)
Good luck and have fun with your friends!

Answer 8

I don't like a Gass Grill , i only use Charcoal or Wood when BBQing . Acadamy has a good grill for around $100.00 . And you can also cook your parents Vegys on the grill , just wrap them all together in foil and grill till done.

Answer 9

yes they sell it and charoal and heres a great site

http://www.tvfoodnetwork.com

just type in what you want to grill and you get it and bbq and grilling are not the same .... its sounds like you are going to be having fun and thats what its all about

Answer 10

There are two basic cuts of ribs from different parts of the pig Baby Back aka Loin Back ribs and Spare ribs. Loin Back aka baby Back ribs are leaner, tender and have a milder flavor comparable to Beef Filet Mignon. Spare Ribs have a more robust flavor comparable to a Beef Ribeye. Spare ribs can be just as lean and tender as Baby Backs when cooked right. The vast majority of our cooking school students prefer Spare ribs in side by side taste offs. The Back ribs are more curved and are cut from the area closer to the spine. The Spare ribs are flatter and come from the stomach area. The only thing that separates back ribs from spare ribs is a cut made by a band saw. Butchers will run a pork shoulder also known as a Boston Butt through a band saw and call them country style ribs. Some competition cooks have great success with Baby Back Ribs which cook faster than Spare Ribs. Both styles of pork ribs win competitions. All our awards have been won with bbq Spare ribs.The instructions that follow show a full "Packer Cut" rack of spare ribs that has been trimmed to St. Louis style. We prefer to buy packer cut ribs and trim them ourselves. That gives us better control of the finished product and rib tips make for some excellent eating. We only buy fresh pork that does not have "solution added". The best prices and selection is normally found at the big warehouse stores or a meat wholesaler. We normally buy Swift or IBP which is owned by Tyson, brand ribs and win contests with them. We find no advantage to using a butcher.

Pork ribs normally come sized over 4 pounds or under. We prefer the smaller size that comes 3 packer cut or 4 St. Louis trimmed racks to a vacuum package. Raw vacuum packed pork freezes just fine and I often buy a case and freeze the ribs I'm not cooking right away. We have won many awards with frozen pork.

If your not competing and you want your ribs to fall of the bone as a pile of meat and bones, remove both membranes and cook the last hour or two wrapped in foil to an internal temp of 200°f~205°f and open the foil over the serving platter so the meat can fall out. First remove the outer membrane, if you remove the second inner membrane the bones will fall out. In this picture the outer membrane has been removed from the right three ribs and the second is in place. Start the first membrane by scrapping the corner (lower right in this picture) with your thumb nail. The membrane is very slippery and a paper towel makes gripping it way easier as you pull it off.This little flap under the knife blade is the skirt aka diaphragm and it needs to be trimmed offSkirt removed and the flap from the narrow end with no bones in it removed.
All these trimmings are seasoned and cooked as "Tasters"This little surplus flap (top left picture) needs to be removed for even thickness and therefore even cookingThe flap from the above picture removed and the rib tips removed. I scribe a line with my fingers where the bones end and the use a sharp Chef's knife to cut along the indent from my finger. You don't need a saw or a clever to cut through the cartilage. You will have some fat sitting on the ribs it will scrape off with a spoon and that is recommended. Don't go nuts with a knife, just what will scrape off with a blunt old spoon.A very thin translucent layer of mustard is applied, the less the better. We prefer a spicy brown deli style of mustard. My wife does not like mustard and can not taste any mustard after I'm done cooking. The mustard does contribute to the final flavor just not a mustard flavor. The Rub is applied like a heavy layer of "salt n' pepper" although only rub is used. If you are making your own rub or buying commercial rub you can experiment with the cut off tasters to try the various rubs. Stick different number of toothpicks in each piece of meat and right down which number of toothpicks corresponds to which rub so when you are down cooking it will still all make sense.Low and Slow in the Klose with lots of "Tasters". Opening the lid as little as possible is better and when you do use a spray bottle with apple juice to baste. Cook between 200°f and 250°f with 225°~235°f being the target. Hotter temps (235°f) with ribs seem to keep them moister than cooler (200°f). Temperature is at the cooking grate not the top of the dome or barrel in an offset where some manufacturers put thermometers. Up high tells you nothing about the temperature where the meat is. Wood smoke should not be visible or a thin blue trail. Ribs are cooked bone down the whole time. I move ribs around in my offset to get cooking every two hours in between leave the lid closed. In a Weber Bullet you do not need to move them around leave the lid closed. To increase capacity I use rib racks. For the Bullet the Weber rack is OK, the best rack for a all pits is made by Dave Klose from stainless steel. In a pit that is not tuned at the factory to run within 3°f top to bottom and left to right like a Klose I rotate the ribs hourly spinning the rack 180° one hour and the ribs end over end the next hour. In a tuned pit or a Weber Bullet I just leave them alone the fat trimmed end up and spray with apple juice hourly.They are done when a toothpick goes between the bones like it's going through butter. Time can vary from 4 hours if your smoker is running hotter than you think to 6 to 7 hours. Time is a tool, not a rule. We have sliced off one rib per half hour towards the end as a learning experience. While the meat was cooked at 4 hours it was far more tender at the 6 to 7 hour mark. This was in a Klose pit with a thermometer mounted at grate level. The thermometer had been in boiling water to check calibration at 212°f (adjust reading lower if you are above sea level). Only add sauce at the end. First layer of sauce is painted on 20 minutes before removal and the 2nd layer 10 minutes before removal. There is so much sugar in sauce it will turned to black carbon if applied early. For clean slicing place on a cutting board and slice bones up so you can see where the middle is between ribs. Some folks start carving at the end some in the middle. A very sharp 12" slicer knife is highly recommended.Now that you know how to cook barbeque spare ribs mastering baby back ribs is a breeze.

Baby back ribs are the filet mignon of pork ribs. The trick is find baby back ribs that have not had the meat on top of the ribs trimmed off by a butcher. The worst ribs I've ever had were at the Pickled Parrot in Minneapolis. The only meat was dry and between the bones, there was not a scrap of meat on top of the ribs. The best place to find good baby backs is at the large warehouse stores and at meat wholesalers. Baby back ribs also know as loin back ribs. The technical difference between baby back ribs and loin back ribs is blurred to the point of redundancy in modern usage. We normally buy Swift or IBP (which is owned by Tyson) brand ribs. Almost our awards have been won with these two brands.

Just as beef filet mignon does not have a lot of flavor, pork back ribs do not a lot of flavor. To get the most out of them a marinade is a really good idea and mopping also helps.

Prep is much simpler than for spare ribs. Remove the outer membrane as detail above and your done. Then you can get on to the marinade, mustard, rubs and mops. One very successful method of cooking baby back ribs is 2-2-1. The times are approximate. Lower weight or higher cooking temperatures will shorten the time required. Two hours at 225ºf to 275ºf with smoke to form a nice crust and get the smoke into the ribs. Two hours in foil to tenderize the ribs. One hour to firm up the crust. Add BBQ sauce at the very end of the final hour. *

BBQ It's about the rub. Great BBQ tastes great without sauce. The sauce is the finishing touch.
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Buy pure meat nothing added. Certain percentage of anything added such as brine or salt water is not desirable.
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Remove the first membrane on the back side of ribs.
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Apply a BBQ spice "Rub" not more than 2 hours before cooking.
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Use wood smoke. Be very careful with oak and mesquite they can easily. overpower pork ribs. You only want thin blue smoke coming from your smoker, not thick white smoke. Cherry is our favorite choice for ribs.
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Cook the meat with indirect heat, not directly over the charcoal or propane burner.
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The meat is done when a toothpick goes throw the meat like it was warm butter. Internal Temperature will be 190°f to 200°f .
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Don't sauce until the ribs are cooked, apply one or two coats of sauce in the last 15 to 30 minutes on the cooker. For a sweeter glaze add some honey to you BBQ sauce.

How to BBQ Ribs so they are falling off the bone tender

The secret of how to barbecue ribs until they are falling of the bone tender is foil. Cook the ribs until they have a nice crust. Wrap in foil with a little apple juice and cook to 200f internal temp. They will be cooked and falling apart tender. If you want to sauce your ribs roll back the foil but leave it under the rack for support, sauce and put back with indirect heat for 15 minutes.Use a dry rub
for no more than 2 hours before cooking Don't use Lighter Fluid
Cook Low & Slow or Indirect Don't use match light charcoal
Use the oven if your grill won't cook
low and slow to finish after
getting a nice crust Don't boil your meat
(you are making stock and the flavor is in the water)
Marinate for flavor Don't put sauce on the meat Before Cooking
Use a light coat of mustard
before applying the rub for a more complex flavor. Don't guess if the meat is done, use a thermometer
Use a charcoal chimney Don't tell people burnt is perfect caramelization
Sauce only for the last 15-30
minutes once the meat is cooked and tender Don't Cook Tofu
Use an internal thermometer
for food safety Don't believe that there is only one way to
cook great BBQ