To explain what I mean, I think you can level up a cooking style. For example, pasta. At level 1, you’re boiling dried pasta and adding sauce out of a jar. At level 1, you add your own spices. Level 3, switch to fresh pasta. Level 4, make your own sauce. And finally at level 5, make the pasta from scratch.
So with BBQ, I guess level 1 would be cooking the meat so it’s neither burnt nor underdone. Maybe level 2 is mixing different meats/cuts that have different heat/time requirements and cooking well. Further levels = ?
Level 1: Can put something edible on the table, but lacks experience or does not practice enough. People may or may not want to eat it.
Example: Cooks ribs at high heat with a cheap jarred sauce.
Level 2: Capable of putting edible food on the table consistently, but still not a lot of experience.
Example: Has learned that reducing the heat on the ribs makes them come out slightly better, but still not smoking them and still using a cheap jarred sauce.
Level 3. First level of competency. Cooks often enough to have the experience to put decent food on the table, still uses some jarred sauces, higher quality ones, and the like, but starting to make their own too.
Example: Cooks ribs low and slow, but may not quite yet know what the 3,2,1 method is, but realizes that some wood chips along with temperature control makes for a better product.
Level 4: Competent cook. Cooks many times a week has a broad experience with a variety of cooking techniques. Mostly makes their own; spice mixes, sauces, gravies and the like.
Example: Not only is capable of using the 3,2,1 method for ribs, but knows that is not the only method. Is quite capable of making either fall off the bone ribs or competition worthy ribs with a delightful chew. Able to control not only temperature, but the amount of smoke on the meat.
Level 5: Professional cook, maybe even a chef. Quite capable of putting food on a table that people would pay a lot of money for.
Example: Quite capable of producing competition winning ribs using their own spice mix, sauce, and cooking method.
I believe it’s mostly about heat management (of the food and the grill) here’s my list:
1: internal heat not relevant, just an exterior sear like precooked hotdogs
2: managing internal temperature and getting a nice sear on multiple pieces the same size, like salmon fillets or steaks or chicken breasts or chicken legs
3: multiple unevenly sized pieces, like a parted chicken. Wings cook fast, breast has a thick part that needs attention, legs need to be cooked to a higher temp, etc
4: adding smoking into the mix, managing the heat and the wood constantly. Especially hard on charcoal
5: brisket or competition style chicken
I think this is a good scale.
Managing the relationship between interior temperature and outside sear (without burning) is a skill worth mastering first. Like you say, burgers, steaks, and other flat cuts are easier than irregular shapes.
Another skill to improve on is smoke management. Controlling both the temperature and the quality of smoke with fuel, heat, airflow is a balance: choking off burning wood to keep the temperature from rising too high tends to produce bad-tasting smoke, and giving enough oxygen for that thin blue smoke you want can sometimes cause the vessel to get a bit too hot.
Then, being able to control all of those things (internal temp, external temp, smoke quality) over a long enough period of time to cook tougher cuts is an increase in skill/difficulty. Smoking chicken might take an hour, while smoking ribs might take 3 hours, and smoking brisket might take 12+ hours. Some cooler cooks, like cold smoked salmon, can be challenging, too. Getting a feel for adding fuel to a cook and how to do that while maintaining the same steady stream of high quality smoke of the right temperature requires some experience.
Which also isn’t to say that there isn’t some room for a high level of skill on short cooks. Working with embers and wood and flame to make short cooks over high heat can be challenging, too. Smoked or wood fired vegetables are especially interesting, as some introduce moisture control as an element, over time frames short enough to precise timing starts to matter, too.
Not a BBQ expert, but regarding point 2/3 I always cut my chicken breasts in half essentially regardless of how I cook them.
This is the way. I taught my gf this when she was wondering why her chicken wasn’t to temp after 30 minutes in the grill and mine was always done near the 20 minute mark.
It allows for a more even and quicker cooking.
I forget people grill with electricity or gas.
I think my family only allows starting at level 4. Should there be an alt scale or?..
I personally couldn’t figure out smoking until I had the first levels down but by all means go big, just be prepared to microwave your food after or eat it overcooked
If any South African lets you cook at their braai (BBQ) then you have achieved legendary cooking status.
L1 : Veggies L2: Animal meat L3: Human meat L4: Flesh of unknown abominations.
L4: Flesh of unknown abominations.
You already said veggies
Perhaps I meant cooking my own flesh…
You should practice more kindness to yourself. Realize that there are people out there who know you and who c̷͔͉̟̲̙̟̭̒̀̔̾̈͝ͅa̸͈̠̗̠̲̣̬͆̕ͅr̵̼̭̗͍͂̅ͅe̷͈̹̬̬͖̥͖̊ ̷̤̥̥͉̥̳̝͘a̴̡̨̪̳͎̭̠̞͆͒͝͝b̴̥̆̈́̊̑͋̄̉͠ọ̷͖͎̭̩̀̅͊̏͗̕̚ử̶͔̖̭͇͆͜t̵̰̣͙̔̇́̀̽̐̓͘ ̴̩͓̖̱̿͂͜y̵̢̪͉̙͕͍̌͋͊̍͆͘͜͝o̴͙͕̫̟̗͛̏u̴̬͒̿̆͌̀.
This is the water this is the well.
So L5 is smoking The Thing?
Lol
Level 1: just doing it on a regular grill like a Weber kettle grill or similar.
Level 2: a pellet or electric smoker where you’re not really in control
Level 3: a small dedicated smoker where you tend the fire
Level 4: A second, complementary dedicated smoker (e.g., if you have a horizontal one for brisket and the like, maybe you buy a vertical one for hanging ribs and doing stuff like that.) It’s a new level because you’re now an obsessive who buys things you don’t strictly need but now it’s your hobby and you can tell the difference.
Level 5: A professional grade, expensive smoker, possibly welded to a trailer for tailgates or family gatherings. Alternatively, building a brick smoker in your backyard or something like that.
Level 5 (special recognition): The guy who made the filing cabinet smoker
Oof I don’t even want to know what kind of forever chemicals are leaching into the food in that pic…
I generally agree with this order, but my journey took me in a different order. After having propane forever I moved to a Weber and the snake method, but then I went with an offset with a real fire box.
After getting really good results but not always having enough time to stoke the fire for 12+ hours I bought a very high end pellet smoker that I converted to also use charcoal and wood.
My stick burner gets used maybe once a year now. I’ll go pellet at least once a week, and charcoal or wood in the converted pellet at least once a month. I also can build a makeshift konro inside my pellet smoker, and I use that all the time.
Oh right, I also have an offset vertical smoker, and hunt a lot of my own protein, so yeah, it’s a deep hole I’ve dug into.
I’ve been thinking about buying a pellet smoker because my grocery sells the pellets now but I have two smokers and my friend is a big dude — a former offensive lineman — and he loves nothing more than drinking beer and tending to a fire. He loves monitoring the temperature and soaking the wood in water to get it just right. He probably should/could smoke meat for a living and be happy forever.
I like to keep it simple and am into technology so I have wireless thermometers and love my barrel smoker where, once you learn the quirks, it’s basically set it and forget it and get perfect ribs. But I feel like I’d be taking something from a friend if I didn’t also have the 12 hours of beer and monitoring to the temp/fire part. That’s his form of meditation.
I hear you, it’s definitely a zen state.
I live walking distance from the ocean, so it’s nice to set a pellet up and monitor it from the beach. Run back when it’s time to wrap/spray/etc, and then hang on the sand until the internal temps remind me it’s time to head home and rest everything in a cooler.
All of my sausage, fish, and jerky goes in the vertical smoker. I have to manually tend the fire on that, but the temp swings and fuel consumption are much more stable, so it’s generally quite a bit easier than minding my normal offset.
Chilling in the yard to tend fire and empty a 30 rack with the neighbor is fun for sure, and my stick burner develops better bark than the pellet, even if I use wood in it. So when I want to go all in on a competition, or I’m doing like 8 briskets at a time for a huge event I’ll run the stick burner. Otherwise it’s something in the pellet smoker.
Yeah I think the ability/know how to use the wood burning smoker is more important than actually using it. I can do it but after starting a family I don’t have the time for tending those longer sessions. But putting it on the pellet smoker and being able to forget it until the thermometer chirps is bliss
How is level 2 adding your own spices? That should be level 0 for anything
Can’t say where it fits, but making your own sauce from scratch is master level. Might love the meat, but that sauce is where it’s at.
Eating at a downtown BBQ in Tulsa and the owner overheard my friend say it was awesome, but the sauce wasn’t as good as his place back home in Georgia. LOL my god, set the man on a mission! He kept running back and forth to the kitchen, plying my friend with new mixes.
Black folk do not play when it comes to sauce.
(The “back home” sauce was better. About got into a fist fight with my guy when I guzzled the last bit. Seriously. He was swole. “Back home” guy died, kids kept the shack open, weren’t interested in shipping a case to Oklahoma. Damn.)
Why do Americans seem to think making a sauce is some magic requiring rocket building skills?
I’ve been making my own sauces since I was twelve. Perhaps once I tasted one of those canned “pasta-sauces” as a teenager but they’re disgusting imo.
Unless you’re making your sauce out of fresh tomatoes, it doesn’t even take long. Crushed tomatoes and tomato paste is just fine.
I don’t remember if I be ever really used fresh pasta, tried it maybe once or twice, but I always make the sauce. What do you find so cumbersome in making it?
For me L1 was hamburgers, L2 steaks, L3 veggies, L4 getting all the done ness right, L5 getting the done ness right with mixed meats and veggies. Then it’s time to change the game and start smoking. I smoked my first thing, a turkey, for thanksgiving it was really good. Then I tried smoking ribs and I totally fucked them up.
Boss mode is when your bbq has a trailer hitch hookup.
And if it’s a black man with that rig? Pull the fuck over. He got pride in that BBQ.
I don’t think it’s a linear progression where one ingredient is a “step.” I don’t really use fresh pasta, but I make the food myself instead of buying a canned sauce.
At least one of the levels is practicality: The acts of buying and/or preparing every other food, condiment and implement that will be used for the barbecue, then cleaning everything up afterwards without implicitly relying on anyone else.
The grilling might be the fun bit, but there’s a lot else either side.
You don’t just hand someone a grilled meat patty, however beautifully it’s cooked and seasoned. The required bun has to come from somewhere. So did that plate. Maybe there’s butter on the bun. Maybe there’s salad. Maybe the meat needed marinating, etc.
In most areas of the US that take BBQ seriously, grilling != BBQ.
Grilling means direct heat, BBQ in those areas refers to indirect heat, usually with some smoke component.
Right verb or wrong verb, it doesn’t really invalidate the point I was making. If all you do is stand by the barbecue, put things in it and flip the food occasionally while everything else magically happens around you, you’re only doing the fun bit.
What is the right word for indirect heat cooking anyway? “Smoking” in that context doesn’t necessarily imply making it hot for close-to-immediate consumption, and “cooking” seems far too general.
Likewise, “barbecuing” could mean grilling, so that’s too general as well.
I’m from North Carolina. There was a candidate for NC governor once who lost his race because he was heard saying he was “sick of barbecue.” It’s a THING here.
Likewise, “barbecuing” could mean grilling, so that’s too general as well.
No. No it doesn’t.
Grilling is a short duration, high direct heat process.
Barbecuing is a long duration, low indirect heat process.
Those who use barbecuing as a synonym for grilling are objectively wrong and have measurably damaged you and your ability to communicate about food preparation.
Objectively wrong for your part of the world maybe.
I guess my part of the world probably doesn’t have a word for the distinction because here it can mean either.
Either that or it’s a case of common parlance versus learned parlance, like, for the sake of any example, when people say “theory” but mean “hypothesis” and in learned parlance “theory” has a different meaning.
My part of the world uses the word “barbecue” specifically to mean the kind of cooking we were talking about and avoids that ambiguity you were struggling with, so I think I can confidently say use of the word “barbecue” as a synonym for “grill” when the word “grill” is also in use is uselessly defective.
Yeah, no one cares. We’ve all had grilled hamburgers at backyard BBQs.
I think you’re about to find out just how much people care lol
Many never get past level 0 which is to monitor to the heat and stop. fking. flipping. unless its with intention.
At least for me the progression was like this:
L1 - Sausage on grill
L2 - Meats on grill an getting the heat an timing right
L3 - Rubs and brines and grilled veggies
L4 - Baking bread and pizza
L5 - Serving a complete family dinner with different cuts of meat, fish, veggies and bread from one grill
L0: acting like “grilling” is barbecue.
The issue here is that like nobody uses the term grilling in English so it’s easier to say barbecue.
The grill itself even is usually referred to as the bbq.
“Nobody” is perhaps overstating it, but that’s certainly the case in many places. I was mostly just funnin’, but there are certain circles in parts of the US with prominent barbecue cultures where the distinction is useful and common enough that there’s a reasonable chance of causing confusion if you don’t make it.
I live an ocean away and I can get very pedantic about the difference myself, because I throw a piece of meat in the smoker for double digit hours and people call that grilling here lmao
I absolutely love grilling too, but one activity takes a couple of hours with prep work (ideally with some of the prep work being marination the night before) and the other one requires you to go check the temps every 20-30 minutes from like 6 or 7 AM till the evening lol
No one cares.
Then I have only ever done level 5 :-)
(except fish because I don’t like it)
Having a dedicated smoker is next level. You can smoke on a regular grill and get decent results. But having a purpose-built smoker is better, IMO.
