Fire It Up - Grandparents.com

Rick Browne is a barbecue fiend, but his grandchildren focus more on the food than how it's cooked

Rick Browne began his love affair with barbecue and grilling in 1998 when he was a photojournalist on assignment for Travel Holiday magazine and he was taking pictures for a portrait of Kansas City. He and Jack Bettridge, the author of the article and co-author of Browne's first book, attended a barbecue festival and contest in Blue Springs, Missouri, not far from Kansas City, and were stunned by the numbers of people attending the festival and their devotion to the grill. At the time, there were 500 such annual gatherings throughout the U.S. (today there are more than 1,500), and Browne began to investigate this grill-crazy subculture through interviews, photographs, recipe collecting, book writing — and his own cooking. Soon enough, he too became a devotee, and since then, he's published five books on the subject, including the recent The Best Barbecue on Earth (Ten Speed, 2008), a survey of grilling techniques and recipes from 25 countries on six continents.

Courtesy of Rick Browne

Browne, who lives in Vancouver, Wash., doesn’t get to fire up the grill with his three grandchildren as often as he’d like — they live on the East Coast — but when he does, he says they’re less focused on the secrets of perfect barbecue than on the results. Their favorites? Grandpa’s beer-butt chicken, which involves cooking a whole chicken upright atop a beer can, and barbecued ice cream, a baked Alaska done right on the grill.

When it comes to which cooker to use, Browne is partial to the gas grill and his ceramic-lined Green Egg, which he says produces “astoundingly moist” meat and uses far less fuel than other charcoal grills. But don’t forsake that Weber kettle or oil drum. Browne uses those, too. “It makes little difference which grill you use,” he explains. “People cook great meals on a campfire in a campground. It all depends on what you’re used to and the food you have available.”

Ten Tips From Rick for the Perfect BBQ Bash

Don’t peek. Browne says one of the biggest mistakes backyard grillers make is to open the grill top to see how cooking is progressing. The cooker loses heat with every peek and has to get back up to temperature once the lid is closed. The more often you open the grill, the longer it will take for your food to cook.

Learn how to cook to temperature. Browne suggests using an instant-read or digital (remote or wired) meat thermometer to determine when food is cooked to the correct temperature. Buy the best thermometers you can, he advises, and be sure to check its accuracy often. To do so, fill a large glass with finely crushed ice. Add clean water to the top of the ice and stir well. Immerse the thermometer stem a minimum of 2 inches into the mixture. The thermometer should read 32 degrees after 30 seconds.

Clean your grill. Contrary to what many people think, that stuff caked on the grill from last summer’s fiestas does not add flavor to your food. To clean, wait until the grill rack has cooled down after cooking, then wipe off most of the grease and burned-on bits. If it’s not completely clean, take the rack off the barbecue, spray it with an oven-cleaning spray, wrap it in newspapers, and put it back in the warm barbecue for 20 minutes. Then unwrap it, clean with soap and water on a sponge, rinse, dry, and you’re ready to cook again.

The next time you bring the grill to a high heat, do the following: Take a paper towel, wad it up, then (using tongs) dip the paper towel into some vegetable or olive oil. Use the soaked towel and thoroughly oil the entire grill rack.

Try a water pan. A water pan stops grease splatters and fires, and helps keep a steady temperature inside the barbecue, according to Browne. If you’re using a charcoal grill, push the coals to the outside of the basin. Fill an ovenproof pan halfway with water. Place it in the middle of the basin.

For gas grills, turn off the burner where the pan will be placed before you set it down.

If you don’t want to place a pan under the rack, you can rest a small water pan on top of the rack beside the food you're cooking.

You can add the zest of oily fruits (orange, lime, lemon, for instance), or flavored oils (garlic, or hazelnut, or sesame), or vegetables with lots of oil (onions, garlic, shallots), to the water and there will be a small amount of flavor transferred. Do not add spices, herbs, or chunks of fruit to the liquid. The same goes for expensive wine, beer, or liquor, as those flavors will not transfer to the food.

Don’t get saucy too soon — or at all. Do not apply sugar-based sauces until the last five or ten minutes of cooking. Commercially bottled barbecue sauces and home-made condiments usually contain sugar, molasses, maple syrup, or corn syrup, which caramelize and burn at a much lower temperature and much more quickly than meat. “You end up with a burnt crust of sauce and meat that’s still raw,” Browne says. Better to not cook with sauce at all, he adds, but to serve it warm in a pitcher on the table. If you use high-quality meat, marinate, or, brine it and apply good herbs and spices, you shouldn’t need any sauce, which can mask the smoky and flavorful meat.

Flavor your grill. Seconds before putting food on the grill, drizzle flavored oil like hazelnut, sesame, or garlic onto a paper towel. Using a tongs, rub the paper towel over the grill to impart some extra flavor.

Season your fire. Toss a handful of oregano, rosemary, or thyme sprigs on the coals or fire just before you start cooking. This gives a wonderful smoky herbal flavor to foods, especially fish and steaks.

Feed your coals. When cooking a steak, toss the cut-off ends of two or three large Spanish or Bermuda onions directly on the coals or flame (for gas grills). For charcoal grills, do this about 20 minutes before cooking. The resulting onion smoke will add a superb flavor to your cooking. You can also use three to four whole stalks of green onion. If smoking for a long time, put one or two whole large onions right in with the coals, wood, and charcoal.

No thermometer? Use your hand. For rare meat: With your palm facing downward, fingers outstretched, touch the fleshy part of hand at the base of the U created by your thumb and index finger. It is soft and springy when fingers are outstretched. This should be the approximate feel of a rare steak when pressed.

Medium: Make the Okay sign with your fingers. The same fleshy part is firmer, yet still springy. That’s what a medium-cooked steak should feel like.

Well done: Make a fist. The same fleshy part of your hand is firm, with little give, similar to a well-done steak.

Be sure to brine. Just about everything, except fish steaks and fillets, tastes better with brining, says Browne. Use this basic recipe (1 gallon water, 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar) and add your favorite spice or sauce (ground cloves, juniper berries, nutmeg, cinnamon, teriyaki sauce, honey, beer, liquor, fruit or fruit juice, onions, garlic, scallions, etc.). Submerge food completely with the liquid. Cover and refrigerate. For roasts, chops and ribs let stand for one to two hours. For whole chickens and turkeys, let stand overnight.

When brining is done, drain the liquid, rinse off the food, and pat dry. Proceed to grill or smoke normally.