Nothing gives a better idea for summer than a hot firing grill. Smoky sizzling backyard grills with pool splash parties are the best things of this season. There can be a whole family reunion or a party with friends—grills just make it all complete. Barbecue parties in sunny conditions are always exciting. A bit of sport, photographs, hot summer smoothies, and old school jokes will fill your memories. Here are some easy hacks to get your grill ready to perform for your event.
1. Check for Gas Leakage
The first and foremost item to check before grilling is gas leakage. How do you perform a leak test? Use soapy water to coat the valve, regulators, and hoses of the grill.
After coating, turn on the gas tank. It will pressurize the system. If you find bubbles, that indicates gas leakage from that point. Tighten the connection with the hose and retry to find leaks. If it is still not working, replace the hose or the tank.
Some grills do not have spider guards. So, you can use a bottle brush to clean all dirt. Without grates in your grill, fire up the burners and find out whether it is evenly firing or not. If everything is fine, then turn off the burner and let it cool back to the normal temperature. Finally, use paperclips to clean any blockages inside the burner.
2. Check Gas Levels in Propane Tank
Check the propane level of your tank before you start grilling to make sure you have enough fuel. Not all grills have a built-in gauge. In order to check yourself, you can use a bathroom scale or a grill gauge.
Every propane tank has a tare weight. So, weigh your tank and subtract its tare weight to gauge the propane inside. One pound of propane can fuel up to 21,600 Btu per hour. Now, note your grill’s highest Btu output and divide that with . This clearly shows how many hours of cooking is possible with this propane level.
3. Bring Your Smoky Mountain
Many times people try barbecue but complain they are not getting the smoky flavor they want from it. Indeed, the smoke has a lot to do with tuning barbecue taste. A Smoky Mountain is a closed, multi-level smokehouse. This ensures a homogenous smoke spreading all around your barbecued items, which adds extra flavor and makes the meat juicier. To know more about the Smoky Mountains, click here.
4. Try Wood From Fruit Trees For Added Flavor
This is new magic to the BBQ formula. You can add wood chips from different fruit trees to your charcoal. Because of high sap contents and little impurities, fruitwoods add mild changes to the overall flavor. To try some new flavor, you can use the woods of apple, cherry, or avocado trees.
Other than picking woods from directly fruit trees, you can soak wood chips in water overnight. Then, drain the water and use aluminum foil to wrap the wood chips like burritos. Now, you can use them in your grill to generate more smoke and flavor while cooking.
5. Good Marinade For Better BBQ
The only way to intensify the BBQ taste is marination. You have to follow the recipe and marinate the meat for at least a couple of hours for quality BBQ. Proper marination not only boosts the taste but also inbibes more flavor.
Another key fact of good marination is searing and crosshatching. This locks in more moisture to the meat, and spices can easily dive deep to improve both taste and flavor. A good cross-hatching is also a prerequisite for perfect marination. Without good marination, you will find burned crusts of spice and the meat will be less juicy, which makes it difficult to chew and completely awful in taste.
6. Clean it Up
Cleaning is always a big hassle in every kind of cooking. However, you can make your own cleaning solution to find effective results. Take a spray bottle and mix water and white vinegar in it. A ratio of 7:3 is more useful in this case. Now, spray your cleaning solution to the grill interior and let it soak for an hour. After an hour, give it a simple brush to wipe all dirt.
You can also try a natural approach like using half of a sliced onion or potato. Insert a fork one end to use as a handle and rub the onion or potato over warm grates. This will loosen up the grit, and it becomes easier to clean.
To avoid extra cleaning, you can put aluminum sheets over the grates in your grill before cooking. This will help to clean dry ashes of coals and woods without any hassle.
7. Check Flame Colors
You will find two different types of flame on a gas grill: blue and yellow. We generally want a blue flame with yellow on top. A yellow flame is not as effective as the blue flame. The absence of a blue flame also means it is not getting enough pressure from the gas tank.
To bring back the blue flame, turn off the control valve and disconnect it from your grill. Now, reconnect the gas tank and try once again. If it does not work, then there could be defects in the burner ports. Replace the burner ports for the best results.
8. Brush Oils on BBQ Meat
Some people just simply marinade their BBQ meat and put it on the grill. This will burn out the moisture in the meat, and it will feel dry when you chew it. A thumb rule of good BBQ is brushing oil on the meat. This traps the moisture, and you will get juicy and tasty barbecue flavor in the dish.
You can use extra virgin olive oil, butter, BBQ sauce, pepper, or some sugar to caramelize the meat. To understand the level of cooking, make a small incision in your meat. If you find pink juice oozing out of the meat, then it is not cooked yet. Clear juice is an indication of proper cooking. Make sure you brush oil on all sides of the meat.
Final verdict
Who does not want to enjoy a lovely get-together at a hot summer BBQ party? Follow some simple tactics above to make your party memorable. Any mess in preparing for the BBQ can surely ruin your good time. Let’s follow some basics and make it count.