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Who Wants to be a Grillionaire?
Barbecuing is not the same as Grilling.
Grilling is cooking over direct heat, usually a hot fire for a short time, while barbecuing is cooking by using indirect heat or low-level direct radiant heat at lower temperatures and longer cooking times.
When
you're at cooking your hot dogs and hamburgers, you're really grilling
them. And since they're exposed to high heat for a short period of time,
there are some basic grilling tips you should know.
For instance, if you're grilling chicken, you shouldn't put your barbecue sauce on the chicken while you're cooking it. Why? Well, let's examine the ingredients of a basic barbecue sauce.
Look at the list of ingredients on a bottle of barbecue sauce. The first ingredient listed is High Fructose Corn Syrup. That's the standard food industry term for what you and I would call sugar.
When sugar is exposed to high heat, a number of chemical reactions occur. At 320°F sugar becomes molten. At 338°F sugar undergoes decomposition resulting in a flavor and color change. This is the process called caramelization. At temperatures higher than this1 , sugar burns, becoming very dark brown and bitter tasting. That's probably not the taste sensation you're after. To keep this from happening, apply your barbecue sauce [or, to use the correct term, Finishing Sauce] at the end of your grilling, before it has a chance to burn.
If you want to put something on your food while you're cooking it, I suggest using a marinade, which adds flavor and moistens the meat. A simple marinade made frin 8 ounces each of cider vinegar and lemon juice, two ounces of Tabasco sauce and a few cloves of crushed garlic.
1 A question for the class: 'Does a bed of coals get this hot?' Well, tell me what happens when you throw a piece of paper onto the coals? Correct, class, It burns! And what is the temperature at which paper burns? Anybody? Yes, Ray... Fahrenheit 451 is the correct answer. So you see, class, that a bed of charcoal has sufficient heat to carmelize sugar.