Barbecue Blog

When someone mentions barbecue images comes to the mind like cooking at the backyard grill, a social gathering, cooking outdoors and cooking meat slowly over wood and smoke that adds flavor to the food.

Different cooks have different preferences and style in their cooking. Some prefer rubbing the seasoning whether wet or dry prior to cooking and some prefers to soak the meat first in special marinades that could be sops, mops and finishing. The preparation and ingredients for marinating may differ from region to region the preferred wood to be used can also differ. However, no perfect barbecue will taste as good without the perfect barbecue sauce.

Barbecue sauces can generally be categorized by what they are based on. Common examples are tomato, vinegar and mustard based sauces. To give the barbecue its distinctive taste and prevent the meat from burning easily, barbecue sauces are applied to the meat while being cooked with the exemption of tomato based barbecue sauces as tomato based sauces burns easier than the other kinds of sauces.

Barbecue sauce preparation can either be sweet, sour, tangy, spicy, hot, thick or thin. The varieties are almost endless which makes barbecues popular because anyone can make his own special preparation depending on taste and anyone can create his own way of serving the barbecue.

Recipes for barbecues can also be guarded. And good barbecue sauces can be purchased at almost any store. But the only perfect barbecue sauce is the one that you can create for yourself.
Remember whatever works for you and your family can be a great barbecue sauce. So start experimenting that is the only way to start good cooking.

The basics of Barbecue sauces…

Tomato based barbecue sauce is the most widely used. Some say that it is the most popular. Its popularity however may be due to the simplicity of preparation and besides; tomatoes are ingredients that could easily be found. The point to remember in preparing tomato-based barbecue sauces is to cook the tomatoes very well in order for the flavor to blend with the other ingredients.

Tomato based barbecue sauces are acidic. Because of this, it has the property to breakdown all the flavor of other ingredients blending them with its own. But because of its propensity to burn, limit the usage of tomato based barbecue sauce while cooking. To make it even more flavorful, prepare tomato barbecue sauces a day in advance.

Mustard based sauces are preferred in North Carolina. The mustard based barbecue sauce is great for grilling pork.

Vinegar is great meat tenderizer. It is also more acidic than tomatoes. Because of its acidic content, vinegar based sauces has a tendency to penetrate deep into the meat. To make this barbecue sauce more flavorful, experiment mixing it with chili, cider vinegar or red pepper, sugar salt and all the other ingredients that you want it to have.

Barbecue sauces today has different uses departing from its traditional purpose. It now serves as a condiment that is present on almost any table like ketchup, salsa, salt, pepper and Tabasco.
However, if experimenting with food is not your greatest strength, you can always find great sauces in any store. To make great barbecues, one rule to follow is not to place too much weight on the “with smoke flavor” label that many bottled tomato sauces advertise itself. Smoke flavor is what is barbecuing all about. The flavor has to come from the wood not the bottle.

You can have barbecues using charcoal as the heat source, or even using an electric grill. However, the latest invention is using infrared in barbecues. It might sound silly, but the truth is there are many restaurants using infrared for their barbecues already. These infrared barbecue grills are a permanent fixture in restaurants, but they are making their way into the residential market as well. More and more people are buying infrared grillers to replace the old charcoal or electric grillers.

Infrared grillers are going to cost more than the usual griller, depending on the size. An infrared griller can cost up to a few hundred dollars more than a normal griller, so you must be thinking – why would you want to invest in such an expensive gadget? However, an infrared griller is a worthy investment for several reasons. Infrared is no stranger to the world of cooking, and has been around for some time now. It is time to take it to a higher level, and that is to integrate its function into barbecuing.

By using an infrared griller, you save more time in preparing the food. This is because the food will cook faster than the conventional barbecue. Besides, an infrared barbecue is suitable for fine dining, where you don’t have to mess with the burning charcoal and you can keep everything clean and simple. This is why restaurants love to use infrared grillers – and you will love it too, once you get to know it.

Research shows that meat cooked using an infrared griller is juicier and tender. This means the food you grill will have a higher quality after cooking. This is definitely great news, because you get excellent food within the shortest period of time. Some grillers or smokers can ruin your food, especially if you do not know how to control the fire. It means that barbecuing is an art you have to learn, but with the use of an infrared griller, anyone with or without the knowledge of barbecuing can enjoy a nice barbecue without having to risk losing the food.

Perhaps it is the temperature of the infrared griller that gives us the satisfaction of high quality cooked meat. An infrared griller cooks food at 400 – 900 degrees, whereas a normal charcoal grill cooks food at 700 – 750 degrees. After all, heat is the main factor in determining how long it takes to cook the food – and the food’s final quality. This is why if you are using a charcoal grill, you need to have a few trial runs, before you get the right way of preparing the food to its finest.

An infrared BBQ set looks appealing. With stainless steel and more space for grilling, you are bound to love this gadget. It looks like a normal outdoor cooking appliance – but with more style. An infrared griller is definitely for those who want to have a clean and hassle-free BBQ over the weekends or holidays. There is no use for charcoal, so you can save the environment by reducing the release of harmful gases that come from burning it. With the new infrared griller, you can’t go wrong with your BBQ.