Team HaloodieFoodie grill and BBQ all year round. Sadly, most Brits only grill when the weather is settled between April & October. This post is designed to improve your BBQ game. With these tips and tricks, you soon will become a grill master.
Course: Kebab, Lunch, Main Course
Cuisine: American, BBQ, British
Keyword: BBQ, Grilling, How too BBQ
Equipment
Lidded Charcoal BBQ you can use a gas BBQ.
Charcoal briquettes or lumpwood
Chimney starter
Pair of tongs
Digital instant-read thermometer
Smoking wood any fruit hardwood such as apple, plum, cherry
Instructions
How to light a charcoal BBQ?
I use a Weber charcoal chimney starter.
How to use a charcoal chimney starter: Part 1
How to use a charcoal chimney starter: Part 2
How to use a charcoal chimney starter: Part 3
How to use a charcoal chimney starter: Part 4
Hold the chimney starter by the handles and slowly place the lit coal into your charcoal BBQ.
A question of marination?
Only salt (Sodium Chloride, NaCl) is small enough to pass through the cell membrane.
Dry brine with ½ tsp salt per kg of meat.
What about other spices? Please do add other spices. But this is a surface-only marinade and the spices won't penetrate into the meat, ONLY SALT can penetrate deep into the muscle.
Allow the chicken to dry brine for as long as possible.
Indirect grilling:
Place the charcoal on one side of the BBQ with a piece of fruit hardwood on top of the grill grates.
Place the chicken on the opposite side of the grill, close the lid of the BBQ and allow the chicken to slowly cook with the indirect heat.
After 25 minutes the chicken has darkened with the action of the smoke.
Check the internal temperature of the chicken by using an instant-read thermometer.Target temperature:75°C for chicken legs and thighs (dark meat)65°C for chicken breast (white meat)I will discuss chicken pasterisation temperatures later in this post.
Close the lid and continue to cook until we reach the desired temperature.
The chicken breast has reached the temperature of 65°C.
Sear the chicken breast over the hot coals.
The chicken breast remains super juicy.
Cook the chicken thighs/leg until the temperature reaches 75°C. Finish with a final sear to crisp up the chicken skin.
'The chicken looks RAW!'. The pink colour is caused by the interaction of smoke with the meat. The final temperature is above 75°C and thus fully cooked.
Coal matters!
Charcoal Briquettes: Part 1
Charcoal Briquettes: Part 2
Restaurant-style Briquettes:
Lumpwood Charcoal: Part 1
Lumpwood Charcoal: Part 2
Questions
I've always been told to cook chicken to 75°C but you are advocating cooking the chicken breast to 65°C? Please explain why?
What's the difference between charcoal and gas BBQ's?
How do you keep the temperature low enough to smoke?