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Health & Fitness

Twelve grilling tips to ensure a successful cookout!

Make your cookout a success by following these tips.

Grilling season is well underway!  In this first post, I want to share some tips for grilling that are often overlooked. These suggestions are the shortened versions; later this year, I’ll go into more detail and tips on each one.

Let me know what you think, or if you have other ideas!

Get your act together ahead of time – have a plan

  • Make sure you have everything you need organized, prepped, and ready to go before you light the grill. Make sure you have enough fuel in your gas tank, if using propane, or you have enough charcoal before starting. Proper planning prevents poor results, or something like that.

Use the right temperature for the item you are cooking

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  • Leaner items like steaks, chicken breasts, burgers and grilled vegetables can all take high heat. Chops, bone-in chicken parts, fattier meats like pork steaks or sausages like brats are going to be best on medium heat. Larger pieces of meat such as ribs and pork butt roasts are going to need low heat. There’s nothing worse than meats that are burned on the outside and raw in the middle because the heat wasn’t appropriate for the task at hand.

Season and marinate appropriately

  • Acid-based (think lemon and vinegar) marinades shouldn’t be used for much more than a few hours. The acid, while tenderizing the meat, can actually dry it out and make if chalky tasting if left on overnight. Too much salt ahead of time can also dry out your meat. Salt to your taste, but not more than an hour before you grill.

Preheat the grill ahead of time

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  • Putting the meat on a cold grill and then starting your gas grill is just asking for trouble. The meat will burn and stick – you aren’t saving time, you are just messing up your dinner! Preheat for 15 minutes before cooking, please.

Make sure the grill is clean

  • No one likes to eat dirt, and that’s what the burned-on leftover sauce and carbon represent. It doesn’t add “flavor,” it just adds unappetizing charred, old, crusty bits. Keep your grill grids clean by brushing them before and after each cooking session.

Lubricate the grates just before cooking

  • This will prevent your grilled items from sticking. Be careful with spray-on grill lubricants, they can cause a flare-up. You can take some paper towels, wad them up and hold them in your grill tongs.  Dip them in vegetable oil and rub the heated grill grates just before cooking. A piece of steak fat held in your tongs can accomplish the same thing.

Watch your turns

  • Turn just once, if you can, for steaks, burgers, chops. Other items, such as bone-in chicken and vegetables, may require more attention. Turning just once lets you develop some nice grill marks. Also, don’t immediately start flipping the meat; let it cook for a few minutes to develop a seared exterior. Starting right away to flip raw meat a bunch of times just invites sticking.

Don’t pierce the meat

  • Enough said. Use tongs. Sticking the meat with a fork just invites losing all those delicious juices.

Be careful with bastes and sauces

  • As a general rule (some recipes differ slightly) don’t start basting with anything until after you’ve got the outside crust formed. Be careful with sugary and tomato-based barbecue sauces because they burn, cause things to stick, make a mess, and generally should be limited to the last 10-15 minutes of cooking over lowered heat. Remember with barbecue sauces you are usually just intending to glaze the meat. Applying it too soon hinders the cooking process.

Use your lid

  • Let the grill do the work. Closing the lid while cooking allows your grill to function as an oven by evening out the heat and shortening cooking time. It also helps create that flavorful, smoky goodness, the essence of grilling and barbecuing, to stay closer to the meat longer.

Focus on the task at hand

  • Don’t leave while actively grilling. An unforeseen flare-up can ruin your meal in just a moment. Stay alert and focused on the job at hand.

Let the meat rest when done

  • Remove the meat to a clean platter (not the same one you used to carry the raw food to the grill–cross contamination!). Tent it loosely with foil, and let it rest for five minutes before serving. Doing so will result in juicier and more tender steaks, chicken and chops as the proteins in the meat will have a chance to relax and the juices can redistribute themselves throughout the meat.

Enjoy your grilling this week!

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