Celebrate National BBQ Week: BBQ Like a Pro

Hey there again my fellow BBQ friends. From one BBQ lover to another I just want to wish you a delicious, mouthwatering, and hearty national BBQ week! This is a very exciting and joyous time for those diehard BBQ lovers to celebrate their passion and patience for carefully smoked and flavored meats together! It is a week dedicated to those who meticulously spend their time, energy, and patience to host those memorable BBQ events for neighbors, friends, and family to cherish forever. We dedicate this week to those who spend hours, researching the best grills, thermometer probes, and smokers and constantly keep an eye out for the best cut meats to smoke. This week is dedicated to those who spend their hours in the hot, glazing sun with the smoke running, patiently awaiting the perfect moment to turn those cut meats into a slice of BBQ heaven that guests will remember till the end of time. In dedication to this week and the people it celebrates, I am kick starting this article, by showing some love and much needed attention to the reason behind the existence of national BBQ week. In addition, I will also be sharing some important BBQ tips for those BBQ lovers who wish to expand upon their skills, as well as some BBQ lingo to keep your guests impressed on your knowledge of all things pertaining to smoked meat. Here we go!

Why Do We Have a National BBQ Week?

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To be honest, the reason for having a national BBQ week is quite simple and not complex by any means. I mean many Americans love good smoked meat on hot summer days that are dripping with flavor and pizzazz. I mean why not have a week to celebrate an extremely common leisure activity amongst Americans? It would be kind of weird not to. National BBQ week exists merely to celebrate and enjoy what BBQ has to offer, and that includes great tasting food, fun in the sun, and a chance to socialize with friends and family. BBQ is a yummy tradition that keeps guests happy and the conversations rolling. A leisure activity that promotes bonding over wholesome grilled food and forgetting about the worries that life can sometimes bring. We use this week as a homage to America’s favorite food and fun. Majority of America is blessed with great, sunny weather all year round for the most part (when in comparison to many other countries), so we are very lucky to have the opportunities to do spontaneous outdoor events like this, that feed bellies and make people happy. I mean BBQ seems to captivate the hearts of many Americans so why not make a week to celebrate what makes us Americans happy? This is the best reason as to why we celebrate national BBQ week and why you should join in on the fun, if you haven’t already. Check out some of these tips and BBQ lingo, to keep you in the know on how to host the best BBQ parties your family and friends have ever seen!

BBQ Tips For Becoming a Pro

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Go Charcoal!

In the world of BBQ, it is quite the debacle when it comes to understanding whether charcoal or gas work best for the overall grilling and taste of your meats, and while we can hurl many arguments back and forth, it seems to be a general consensus by many BBQ lovers that going charcoal may be the better option. It seems that charcoal tends to win only by the evidence that charcoal grilled meat has a lot smokier and better flavor when compared to meat that is grilled by gas. In addition, charcoal grills are also hotter, portable, and cheaper to purchase. When hosting BBQs, lots of people tend to stray towards smokier, tasting meat as it provides a more grilled and enhanced BBQ flavor that many people look for when smoking and grilling. In conclusion, you want your meat to taste like it’s been grilled and barbequed and not cooked in an oven? Go for charcoal.

Preheat Your Grill

Don’t be that person who starts to get all grill happy and instantly begins relaying their meat onto their grill five minutes after you have turned it on, as doing so will yield not so good tasting meat for your family and friends to enjoy, along with a much longer cooking time. Plan ahead and realize that a grill needs at least a good fifteen to twenty minutes to preheat and become ready to go. Understand what temperatures are high, medium, and low. High temperatures tend to fall around 400-450 degrees Fahrenheit. Medium temperatures yield a temperature between 350-400 degrees Fahrenheit, while low temperatures are considered to be anywhere from 250-300 degrees Fahrenheit. Having your grill properly heated before you set your meat down is imperative as it helps keep the insides moist and juicy and also prevents sticking. In addition, a well preheated grill will immediately sear the meat upon impact and this searing actually helps produce a very delicious, tangy, and caramelized flavor to the meat.

Invest in Good BBQ Tools

Investing in some good BBQ tools are very essential to becoming a pro on all things BBQ. It happens way too often, where people accidentally lose their precious meat to the doomed gaps between the grill and do not have the proper tools to safely extract the meat back onto the grill properly. This causes a good piece of meat to go wasted and if done way too many times, pretty much puts a damper on the festive vibes of a BBQ. I mean what is a good BBQ, if all the meat is burnt down in the flames? Invest in a nice good long pair of tongs to help get a good grip on meats and salvage them when they make their plummet between the grill. They also help to add more control when turning over the meat so that way meat falling between the grills is not a frequent issue that needs to be dealt with.

Marinade it Up!

Marinating your meat is of grave and utter importance to all things flavor. If meat is not marinated enough then all that hard work you have put into making the best marinade will go down the drain due to the smoke tarnishing the flavor. Make and marinate your meat overnight or at least 30 minutes before you begin grilling. It’s important to allow ample time for your marinade to soak into the meat and for the meat to truly absorb the flavor. For thicker cuts of meat, marinate the night before. For smaller cuts of meat, marinate for at least 30 minutes to an hour before grilling. Marinating before you begin grilling is extremely crucial to flavor, but it isn’t the only thing that is extremely imperative. Since smoking and grilling meat can tend to knock the flavor of the marinade away, it is important that you keep that flavor in the meat while it is still cooking. You can do this by occasionally brushing your meat with more marinade about every 15 minutes. This will not only help you retain the flavor of your meat, in addition to the smoky flavor, but it will also help in providing moisture to the meat and keeping it nice and caramelized.

The BBQ Glossary

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Now that you have been brushed up with some important tips, it is time to take your BBQ knowledge to the next level, by brushing up on some very important BBQ lingo that you will hear often in your history of hosting BBQ events (especially in places where BBQs are held to high esteem such as the south)!

Shiner

The shiner is in reference to ribs that have bones that are very visible to see. It is called the shiner because it happens when the butcher cuts off too much of the meat to the point that the bones shine through perfectly! Avoid shiners! They will make your ribs sad and devoid of fat and will provide absolutely little to no flavor.

Injection

When you hear the words injection or inject the meat, this is in reference to adding more flavor to the meat. Often BBQ enthusiasts will carry syringes filled with liquid marinade that they inject into the meat to give the insides more flavor when they see fit.

The Bend Test

This popular BBQ lingo, specifically refers to the process of cooking meat. The bend test is utilized to check and see if the ribs are done cooking. Simply pick up a rib with some tongs and if the meat tends to bend and almost seem to break away, then that is a sure fire sign that your ribs are ready to be devoured!

Flat

Flat is a slang used to refer to meat that you generally should look for in the supermarket. The lingo is used to talk about the leaner side of a brisket that tends to carry more meat and less fat.

Smoke Ring

The smoke ring is one you should definitely watch out for when grilling your own meat. It refers to the pink layer that lies below the surface of the meat. This ordeal is the product of a chemical reaction from wood smoke.

Sugar Cookie

This yummy lingo refers to when your meat carries a bit of crunch to it! It describes a crunchy small bit of fat that is found within the meat, and contains many delicious spices within it.

Texas Crutch

Can you guess that this lingo is used quite a lot in Texas? And for some really good reasons! The Texas crutch is a popular BBQ slang that refers to a BBQ process in which meat is wrapped in an aluminum foil and filled with a bit of water, juice, and sometimes beer to prevent the meat from drying out and becoming chewy. It is also known to accelerate the cooking process of the meat. It speeds up your cooking time and prevents meat from drying out.

Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Now that we have brushed up on quite a bit of lingo and tips for all things BBQ, it is time to put your skills to the test! Before displaying your super awesome BBQ pro skills to your friends and family, check out these very yummy BBQ recipes! It’s no doubt that the South loves a good BBQ. They are quite the pros in comparison to other regions of America and the art of BBQ is something that many Southerners know well. They love the sweet, tangy taste of barbequed meat and it is of typical tradition to pair this sweet and tangy flavor with some refreshing sweet iced tea to beat the heat!

Try out this super simple recipe and you will understand why sweet tea and BBQ just go so good together!

Southern Sweet Tea

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Ingredients

3 cups water
2 family tea sized bags
½ to 1 cup sugar
7 cups of cold water

Directions

1.Boil 3 cups of water in a saucepan. Add the teabags.
2.Boil water with teabags for a full minute. Remove from heat and let the tea steep for a good ten minutes.
3.Discard tea bags and add desired amount of sugar while stirring. Make sure the sugar dissolves properly.
4.Pour into a pitcher or container of about 1 gallon. Add 7cups of cold water and serve with ice. Enjoy!

A good BBQ party includes some delicious appetizers to keep the guests satisfied until the real main course is ready to eat. Check out this super delicious and incredibly easy recipe for cheesy BBQ potato chips!

Cheesy BBQ Potato Chips

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Ingredients

1 eight ounce package of Kraft Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 cup finely crushed barbeque potato chips

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2.Combine ingredients in a small bowl.
3.Spoon a tablespoon of mixture onto a parchment covered baking tray. Flatten each tablespoon of mixture with a spoon.
4.Put in oven to bake for about 5-8 minutes or until you see they are golden brown. Let them cool completely and enjoy! Pair it up with some good ranch or french onion sauce.

About the author: American BBQ Company Editor