Indirect Cooking with Smoke-The True Barbecue
How do you do this indirect-smoking thing? Well, if you're a real barbecue fanatic, you buy an actual barbecue pit, designed to do specifically this, and nothing but this. However, if you're a real barbecue fanatic, you certainly don't need any advice or explanation from me.
Chances are, however, that you don't want to invest in a special piece of equipment for the sole purpose of barbecuing. Panic not; you can do this indirect-smoking thing on your regular grill, be it a charcoal grill or a gas grill, provided that it has a hood. That's really the only feature that is essential: a hood to hold in the heat and smoke. Other than that, you can improvise to fit the equipment at hand.
As I said, "barbecue" specifically refers to food that is not cooked over a fire, but rather is cooked oh-so-slowly by smoke and indirect heat. How slowly? While writing this book I cooked more than one dinner that took nine hours of smoking, and it's not at all uncommon for ribs to take six hours. Barbecue is not a meal for people who need to be out and about all day! It is, however, just fine for a summer Saturday when you plan to be puttering around the house and yard; you can get other things done while tending to your 'cue every half hour to forty-five minutes. (On busier days, you can grill things instead-it's much quicker!)
You can perform this incredibly slow-motion cooking process either on a charcoal grill or on a gas grill. It's a toss-up as to which is preferable: charcoal is far more traditional and yields modestly tastier results; gas takes considerably less work and trouble and gives steadier heat. Personally, having done this for a few months, I've settled on gas as my barbecuing fuel of choice, but then no one ever accused me of being a purist. Here's a rundown on how to slow smoke over charcoal or gas.
Chips and Chunks
Whether you're using charcoal or gas, you'll need wood chips or chunks for creating the smoke that flavors the food. You can buy chips and chunks of various kinds anywhere grills are sold, and a fair number of other places, too-I got most of mine at Kmart! There is actually quite a variety of different chips and chunks for sale-most folks have heard of mesquite grilling, but you can also buy apple wood, cherry wood, and all sorts of other chips. One of my favorites is oak chips made from old Jack Daniels barrels-they carry a strong aroma of the bourbon they once held. Experiment to see what you like; I haven't used a wood chip I was really unhappy with yet.
For that matter, if you're getting trees trimmed in your yard, and you have an oak or hickory or apple tree or the like, there's no reason not to chip it up and use it for barbecuing, although chances are you'll need only a tiny fraction of the chips this will create.
Before you even build your fire or turn on your grill, you'll want to start soaking your wood chips or chunks in water-just throw them in any handy container and cover them with water. They'll need to soak a minimum of a half hour before you use them, and longer won't hurt a bit. I just keep a big plastic bowl full of water and chips by my grill most of the time.
Charcoal
First of all, it is imperative that you have a charcoal grill with a hood or lid-an open brazier or hibachi will not do for true barbecue. If your charcoal grill has a thermometer set into the hood, so much the better! Furthermore, for slow smoking you will need a secondary grill for starting new coals in, and fire tongs for transferring them. This secondary grill does not need to have a hood or much of anything else except a fireproof grate where you can start coals burning.
Build a good-sized charcoal fire in your grill, but do not build it in the center of the grill. Build it to one side. Your food will go over on the other side of your grill, see? (Actually, there are numerous opinions on how to do this. Some barbecue geniuses-also called pit masters-want you to build two smaller fires, one on either side of the grill, and put the food in between them. Still others want you to build the fire in the middle, then use tongs to move the hot coals into a ring around the outside of the grill. Others like the build-it-to-one-side method but want you to transfer about a dozen coals to the other side of the grill. Who am I to argue? I just build the fire on one side, put the food on the other side, and I've been getting good results. It's not only easier to build, it's also easier to put the soaked wood chips in one place than in a bunch of places.)
Okay, you've built your charcoal fire, and your meat is seasoned and ready to smoke. Wait for the coals to ash over, at least 15 to 20 minutes. Oil your grill, or spray it with nonstick cooking spray. Caution: If you're using nonstick cooking spray, take the grill off of the fire before spraying, and do not spray in the direction of the fire! The stuff is flammable, and you could get badly burned.
Put a big handful of your soaked wood chips, or two or three soaked wood chunks, on your fire. Put the grill over the fire, and put your meat on the side of the grill where the fire isn't. Close the hood to keep in the smoke!
After your meat has been smoking for about 20 minutes to a half hour, place roughly 15 charcoal briquettes in your secondary grill, and start them burning. When these new coals turn white and ashy all over, transfer them into the main grill with fireproof tongs. Add a new handful of soaked wood chips or another couple of soaked wood chunks, mop your meat (if you're using a mopping sauce), and re-cover the grill. Repeat this process roughly every 45 minutes for however many hours it takes for your 'cue to be done to perfection.
No, really. This is what it takes to keep a charcoal fire going for the extended periods needed to cook true barbecue. The actual logistics of the charcoal transfer will depend on the design of your main grill.
Weber Kettles-the most popular brand of charcoal grill-are designed so that you can slip new coals down onto the fire grate without moving the cooking grill; you just put them through near the handles. This means, of course, that you must situate your grill so that the handle, and the hole, are over your pile of burning charcoal. You can also slip new wood chips through the same way.
However, my charcoal grill does not have this sort of easy access. To add fresh coals and wood chips, I have to take the food off the grill and lift the grill off. This is certainly possible, with a good pair of barbecue gloves and a pot holder, but it's tedious. Indeed, after doing this for nine hours, making Carolina pulled pork, I bought a gas grill!
Warning! Do not do the whole charcoal transferring bit while barefoot. The voice of painful experience here-I dropped one coal, and while I picked it up quickly, I then stepped on a small, glowing chunk that had broken off. Ouch.
Gas
The advantages of gas grills for the sort of long, drawn-out cooking times needed for true barbecue are apparent once you've read the section above. So long as you have propane in your tank, you can maintain a steady temperature. Indeed, the only problem is that you don't get quite the same full-bodied smoky barbecue flavor from a gas grill as you do with charcoal, even with wood chips or chunks. However, you can get quite a good flavor, and to my way of thinking, the greater ease of maintaining the barbecue makes it a worthwhile trade-off. (Serious pit masters, please save your letters of outrage! I happen to know that plenty of competitive barbecue mavens use gas-fired barbecue pits.)
Keep in mind, if you choose gas, that all of your good, smoky barbecue flavor is going to come from the wood chips or chunks you add to the grill. You'll want to check your grill frequently to make sure that whichever you're using is still smoking, and replace your chips or chunks every half hour to 45 minutes.
Other than regularly adding chips or chunks, gas-grill barbecuing is quite simple. Assuming you have a two-burner grill, you light one burner and set it on medium-low heat, add your chips or chunks, and put your meat over the unlit burner. Add more chips or chunks regularly, basting your meat at the same time, and that's it.
Placing the chips or chunks works a little differently on various modelsvof gas grill, the big difference being whether you have the sort of grill that uses lava rock or another sort of heat diffuser, or whether you have one of the new models that don't use any sort of diffuser. Go by the instruction manual that came with your grill for precise instructions, but in general, if you have rock or another diffuser, you can simply put a handful of chips or a couple of wood chunks directly on the rocks. If you, like me, have a no-diffuser grill, you wrap a generous handful of soaked wood chips in foil, and poke a bunch of holesvin the packet with a fork or knife. Then you flip over the metal "tent"over the burner that will actually be lit, and place the packet of chips in the cup formed. Make up several packets at a time (this is very easy) and have them sitting by to drop in every time your grill stops smoking. (This involves lifting the grill, I'm afraid.) Other than mopping your
barbecue, assuming you're using a mopping sauce, that's all the maintenance you'll have to do.
The Drip Pan
Whichever you're using, charcoal or gas, it's a good idea to place a drip pan under your barbecue, or you'll end up with a big ol' mess. An inexpensive disposable aluminum foil baking pan is perfect, and you can just toss it when it gets too scuzzy. Put this under the grill on the side where you'll be putting your meat.
What about Temperature?
I've found that for my purposes, keeping my grill right around 225°F (110°C) for slow, indirect smoking is just about perfect. I confess, there have been times I've run a grill as low as 180°F (85°C), due to trouble getting a decent fire going (that's how I ended up cooking my pulled pork for nine hours), and there have been times I've checked and found my grill had gotten up to 300°F (150°C). But overall, I aim for a temperature of 225°F. As noted, it's far easier to keep a steady temperature with gas than with charcoal, but practice will help you learn how big a fire you need.
You will want a thermometer to help you keep tabs on grill temperature. As mentioned in the section on tools, if your grill doesn't have a built-in thermometer, a simple oven thermometer, available cheaply in the housewares aisle of every grocery store, Kmart, and Wal-Mart on the planet, will do nicely.
Keep in mind that the weather will make a difference in your grill temperature. Not surprisingly, you'll need a bigger, hotter fire on cold and/or rainy days than on hot sunny ones. Practice makes perfect. And, face it, even when it's not perfect, most barbecue is darned good.
Chef2Chef News Desk