2012 June 17 « HughHarris

11 Grilling Mistakes Every Guy Makes

By David Joachim, Posted Date: May 4, 2012

When the average guy throws down the first steak of the summer, he expects everything to go just right. But while we might imagine ourselves as Bobby Flays of the backyard, the reality is that most of us routinely make dozens of minor mistakes that can detract from ever reaching grilling perfection. Here are 11 of the most common errors, courtesy of David Joachim, author of Mastering the Grill.
1. Never cleaning your grill. Ever lift a friend’s grill lid to find a mess of spider webs and burnt-on burger bits? Not a pretty sight. And it makes it grilling anything decent next to impossible. Think of your grill grate like an open sauté pan. It should be clean before you cook on it. Brush the grate immediately after you take off the food. A hot grate cleans easier than a cold one.
2. Not oiling her up first. Just like a sauté pan, a grill grate needs a little oil to help transfer heat and keep food from sticking. Keep a jar of cheap cooking oil near the grill. Wad up a paper towel, dip it in the oil, and rub it over the hot grill grate just before adding food. Like magic, fish doesn’t stick! Grilled pizza crust browns beautifully! Steaks get deep grill marks!
3. Not getting her smoking hot. A red-hot grill helps prevent sticking, gives you professional grill marks, and cooks food faster. Preheat your grill grate, preferably with the lid down, for at least 15 minutes before adding food. The metal should be hot enough to sear on contact.
4. Grilling cold food. Ever wonder why your steaks take so long to cook? Maybe they’re ice cold! If you take a nice thick ribeye from fridge to fire, it burns on the outside before the inside reaches doneness. Let your steaks, chops, roasts, and even vegetables rest out of the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes to take the chill off. That’s as long as you should preheat the grill anyway.
5. Grilling wet food. It’s a great idea to rinse chicken breasts clean. (Dirty birds!) But pat the meat dry before you toss it on the grill. Food doesn’t start to brown until the surface gets to about 250 degrees—but water can only get to 212 degrees before it evaporates. If the food is wet, it’ll steam before it grills. Bottom line: dry food = better browning = better flavor. Oiling the food also helps because the fat speeds heat transference.
6. Marinating in sweet barbecue sauce. Marinating is good. But not in barbecue sauce. It’s loaded with sugar and burns faster than a marshmallow in hell. No wonder your barbecued chicken always comes out black! Try marinating in a vinegar- or oil-based marinade. Save the sweet barbecue sauce for slathering on during the last 5 minutes.
7. Walking away from the grill. Step away from the fire and the chicken ignites. The pork chops turn to hockey pucks. The burgers incinerate. Here’s a solution: screw a cupholder onto your grill so you have an incentive to stand there. Or just drag your beer cooler to the grill so everyone will hang out with you. Once you get reeeally comfortable with cooking on your grill, experiment with walking away for brief periods.
8. Pressing on burgers. “My burgers always come out dry, not juicy.” Well, pressing all the juices out into the fire aint gonna help. After you toss burgers on the grill, let them sit there without touching them until they’re deeply grill marked. Then, and only then, flip them. Once. You’ll also get a juicier burger by adding 2 tablespoons ice water per pound of burger mixture. And it helps to use hamburger meat with at least 15 percent fat.
9. Guessing doneness. Don’t mess with bacteria. They can kill you. That’s doubly important with hamburgers because grinding meat spreads surface bacteria throughout the meat. Don’t just guess how done your burgers, steaks, and chicken breasts are. Stick an instant-read thermometer in them and find out for sure.
10. Not resting. The steak is cooked to perfection, and the beer-can can chicken has browned up beautifully. Now, get them off the grill and have a beer! The food needs time to rest. Ideally, you want to let food cool to an internal temperature of about 120 degrees before cutting into it. (That’s anywhere from 5 minutes for a thin pork chop to 20 minutes for a whole chicken.) During that time, the meat proteins firm up and they become better able to hold onto the meat’s juices. Every slice of rested meat tastes juicier.
11. Being a boring grill man. Everyone grills burgers and steaks. Think outside the beef. You can grill pizza, fruit, French toast…you name it. If you love burgers, try a bison burger. Want grilled dessert? Toss on some pineapple or pound cake.