BBQ Grilling Versus Smoking – The Great Debate by Chris McCarthy

We all have heard about barbecuing, but we are unaware of the real tricks in it. Barbecuing is also a form of art. To a person who is new to this art may get confused, because cooking meat in an open fire is a really tricky method.

In order to get a really good and delicious bbq dish, one must have a lot of patience. Barbecuing can be done in two methods: through grilling and smoking. Grilling is the quickest method of cooking meat over a direct source of dry heat, whereas, smoking is a slow process, where the food is kept at a particular distance from the fire. Now let us take the two separately, to know the real processing.

BBQ Grilling

Grilling is of two types: direct and indirect. But before going into the details, let me tell you that there are three varieties of grills: charcoal grill, gas grill and electric grill. Charcoal grills are relatively inexpensive when compared to the other two. Now we’ll go back to the types of cooking. Direct method is a high heat method and is used for cooking relatively small pieces of food. Steaks, chops, chicken breasts, etc are some of the typical foods that can be grilled directly. In indirect method, as the name suggests, the food is kept to the side of the heat source. It is somewhat like baking a cake or such type of foods. Now we will move on to smoking.

BBQ Smoking

Smoking is the finest way to cook food, even though it takes time. If grilling is best for cooking smaller pieces, smoking is best for cooking larger pieces. Roasts, ham, ribs, brisket, etc are some of the foods that can be smoked. One must maintain a steady temperature, to come up with a deliciously smoked food. The normal, suited temperature for smoking is between 200-225 degrees. If you cook the meat until it’s 165 degrees in the middle, it would make the meat more tastier, as the smoke flavour gets deep into it. For basic bbq smoking, you can use the regular grill. The only thing that one must be aware while smoking is, the selection of right type of wood. Because, each wood is different in its own way. So we have to experiment with all sorts of wood to find out which one is the best. Smokers may vary in shapes and sizes.T here are smokers running in gas and charcoal. But the heat coming from any type of smoker is a cooler one, which is why it takes a lot of time to smoke.

Now to end with it, barbecuing has to undergo one more process, that’s topping it with sauce. In fact it is the topmost ingredient, which one can’t omit while barbecuing. Types of sauce varies according to the region. If vinegar-base sauce is typical in Southern United States, tomato-base sauce is typical in Western United States. The best time to apply sauce is during the last stage of cooking. i.e., when you are sure that the meat is well cooked, because, sugar is one of the main ingredients in barbecue sauces and it tends to burn easily. So you must cook the meat before you burn the sugar.

About the Author

Chris McCarthy, the owner of the InsaneChicken website, and a bbq enthusiast. He had started this website, because of his intense love for bbq sauce. So checkout for more varieties of bbq sauces at Insanechicken.com

Do you have a great camp site recipe to share?  Post it in the comments.