[Sloper]

Buy goat, buy jerk seasoning, buy beer.

[DaveC]

There are a few barbecues lying around where I work....





None of your wimpy little charcoal-burning toys either, you can cook banquets on some of these things.

[Eddies]

I've had a few good barbies over the past few weeks...


And no nasty beige meat in sight

[GCW]

Did a big lump of T bone on the coals of the wood oven last night.  Best steak I've ever eaten 

[lagerstarfish]

Mr and Mrs Daywalker got me one of these for my birthday

used it last night to help cook a pork joint in the barbecue

fucking ace

isn't science great?

*edit*
this is all working towards barbecueing a 3 rib of beef lump at Christmas - I am both excited and £hitting myself

[fatdoc]

Futuristic... Well keen to hear how you get o..

[lagerstarfish]

this Sunday's effort was barbecued brisket

I knew it was a tricky lump to get right, but thought I'd ignore any particular recipe and do my own thing

this worked well, then didn't and then turned out great

cheap pile of brisket from Aldi - unrolled it into 2 slabs and rubbed with salt, paprika, brown sugar, crushed garlic and probably some other stuff

got some (not many) coals burning on one side of the Weber

seared the meat over the coals then wrapped it in foil and put it at the far end of the beast and put the lid on for a couple of hours until internal temp of the meat was 85ish C

unwrapped the meat, poured the juices into a pan, added some tasty shit like ketchup and Hendersons and then reduced it to gloop

painted the gloop onto the meat and cooked some more over the coals

sliced across the grain - W O W ! everyone guzzled as much as they could as I sliced

then put some of the sliced stuff on the table - after a couple of mins it was tough and had a weird texture like old haribo eggs and didn't taste right

the other lump was still hot so we ate that as I sliced to order

the stuff that went cold was soooo disappointing

I sliced it all as thin as I could (difficult with brisket) and mixed it with the remaining sauce and left in the fridge overnight

this morning it tasted great - I took a load to work for my lunch - it was still great

this evening it was still great

a roller-coaster ride with brisket

I only have some very shit pics from my shit phone in low light


painted in gloop while I get some huge fat sausages done





it looked so much better in real life

[Jim]

excellent stuff. keep meaning to try and do some brisket

[lagerstarfish]

my Argentinian brother-in-law has been having some success with beef shirt this year

I intend to order some form the flesh dealer and try it out

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

my Argentinian brother-in-law has been having some success with beef shirt this year

[lagerstarfish]

that was meant to be a k

skirt

[tomtom]

that was meant to be a k

skirt

As long as it wasnt meant to be internal soft fabric coverings for windows...

[Nibile]

lagers,
I've been taught to never, never, never put salt on the meat before cooking it, whichever the kind of cooking may be.
The salt pulls out all the water in the meat, and it dries it out. It also spoils completely the cooking, especially in a pan. If you try this, you'll see that, after a few minutes, a thin layer of water and foam forms in the pan, and the meat gets kind of boiled by that water/foam. It gets horrible and grey.
I'd avoid spices as well, unless you plan to cook the meat very very raw.
When BBQing, I normally put the meat on the grill, then simply brush it with a small twig of rosemary that I dip into a mixture of olive oil and pepper. That's it.
So I make sure to cook each side of the meat very briefly on a strong fire, and the sides also, if it's a big chunk, basically to create a thin crust that forms an envelope that keeps all the nutrients and juice inside. Then I lower the fire or move the meat to the side of the grill to cook the inside without burning the outside.
And finally, another key is to resist the temptation to slice the meat to control the cooking. All the tasty juices will pour out and it will again get dry and less tasty. You have to trust the look, and after all, it can never be too raw!
Hope this helps.

[tomtom]

[SA Chris]

That's not barbequeing, doesn't count unless there's direct heat to the meat! Looks like some ungodly hybrid.

[Paul B]

I've been taught to never, never, never put salt on the meat before cooking it, whichever the kind of cooking may be.

I'm not sure on this Nibs. If you watch Diners Drive ins and Dives (who wouldn't), salt (a lot of it) and spices seem to make up the dry rub for brisket every time. That said, I can't remember if they usually brine the brisket for a number of days beforehand.

[Jim]

It's triple D and yes salt does seem to be the make up of nearly every single dryrub on the show although they normally go in a smoker rather than a bbq

[Nibile]

It could be good to dry out particularly humid meats for a few days before, or for smoking it, but I can assure you that here we never salt the meat before cooking. In a pan it makes a real mess and not much better on a grill.
Where I live we use salt all the time to dry out veggies for the BBQ but that's different.
Oh well. Hungry now.

[SA Chris]

In South Africa you never salt your meatwhile on the braai either. It's almost as criminal as cooking over flames. I think a lot of it has to do with quality of the meat you are using though; I would never salt any quality steaks or cuts while cooking them.

[Sloper]

Hmmm, the salting of meat seems to be a bit of a hot topic.

I will season meat before cooking it with salt, but I generally do so an hour or so before cooking and leave the meat in the open air; in terms of the salt drawing all the moisture from the meat, yes salt will absorb water but if you're putting <1g of salt on a steak weighing 150g then I would suggest that amount of water it will draw out is minimal.

I would also suggest that the effect it could have on cooking is also minimal.

What I would suggest is more important is never, and I mean never, cook meat from the fridge, the thinner the cut the more important it is at room temperature before it is cooked.  I would also strongly recommend not marinading in a fridge, although in high summer if you don't have a cool larder and can't leave it in the oven the fridge will probably have to do.

If meat goes grey it is cooked badly & at too low a heat (see cooked badly).

Any water / juices that comes out is from the meat during cooking is, I would suggest from the meat itself as the amount of water in the salt is virtually nil and this will as surface water probably evaporate before you can notice it.

Lots of meat particularly from dodgy butchers has water added to it and this would be my prime suspect for goo oozing out. I can remember a case where a butcher had 'tumbled' chicken to increase its weight by about 20% and you can still buy meat with added water in the shops, generally marked as 'tender cook' or similar.

In terms of soaking things in brine, this is something I use when cooking along the lines of confit (guinea fowl legs are a real 'win' like this) but I wouldn't use this on anything I wouldn't slow cook (although it's a necessity for proper 'southern' fried chicken) so if it works on belly pork, I am sure it will also work with brisket, ox cheeks and so on.

I think the general 'prohibition' on salting when cooking is more about the lack of control over the application of the salt then anything based on good science as in the application of salt changes the cooking process.

Moving on to something helpful:

Good marinade stuff:

Treacle is a great base for BBQ marinades, think of the colour and the process of manufacture, it's all those complex heavy bits left over from refining cane sugar

Smoked paprika, should be obvious.

Nutmeg, don't over do it, but added to aromatic herbs, e.g. rosemary adds a real extra depth

Fennel seeds, if you're going to BBQ fish, fennel and capers (not those in vinegar) makes a superb dry marinade.

[Paul B]

It's triple D and yes salt does seem to be the make up of nearly every single dryrub on the show although they normally go in a smoker rather than a bbq

The fact both yourself and I watch this amuses me.

[fatdoc]

Very interested in the salt posts.
Yes, like nibs.. I never salt quality meats prior to BBQ / fry etc...

Totally agree on grey meat.. Is a poor chef.

I do salt my slow cook casseroles etc...

In  fact don't add salt directly onto steak etc. but I do season the accompanying sauce... And the steak  is left out of the fridge smothered in pepper for hours before hand. Most often a true bearniase Sauce... Which is why i Limit my self to such once a month ( sauce for 3 greedy people use 250g butter and 3 eggs yolks)

[Sloper]

Proper Bearnaise sauce 

[fatdoc]

It certainly is. From a French cook book I bought ( 200 pages of colour ) for £1.99 in a presto supermarket as a child aged 9 rebelling from the shite my poor mother called food..

Reduced white wine vinegar with shallots and heaps of tarragon then strained, mixed with the egg yolks and butter ( clarified) whisked up into a sauce of pure orgasmic velvet over a Bain Marie.

That's proper food.

[fried]

I hope you warm the egg yolks in your hands, then pierce them with a needle so as not to taint your sauce with the 'skin'.