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The barbecue fire

 

Tips and tricks for a successful fire

Before wanting to become a pro at grilling and cooking over wood fire, you'll need to master the art of making a fire perfectly. Most people think that all you need is a bit of paper, a match, and some wood or charcoal, then 15 minutes later you throw the sausages on the fire. Well, bad news, it's a bit more complicated...

Constant heat

The most important thing for a successful fire is that the temperature be as constant as possible in all areas of the barbecue. The classic mistake is to gather the embers towards the center of the barbecue, which creates intense heat in the center of the grill and almost none on the sides. It's crucial to have plenty of embers, enough to be distributed evenly. The smaller the temperature variation from one place to another on the grill, the better it will be.

Two-level fire

Once you've mastered the first step perfectly, you can move on to the next step: the two-level fire. Chefs appreciate being able to control the cooking temperature, and for this, it's necessary to have two heat zones. A hot zone and a cooler zone where the cooking time will be longer. In barbecuing, this is called a two-level fire. It's as if at home you lit two different gas burners, one high and the other low. The advantage of this type of fire is having a zone for simmering food and another for cooking food. With a barbecue, you separate the embers into two parts, on the left you place a layer of embers, then on the right you place 3 or 4 layers of charcoal. This way, you'll have one part of the barbecue that will be very hot and the second just enough to keep food warm. This method is ideal for cooking different types of food that require different cooking times.

indirect fire

The other type of fire for barbecuing that you should know about is indirect fire. It's the simplest to produce. Once you have good embers, you place all the embers on one side of the barbecue and cook the meat on the other side. With a gas barbecue, you just need to turn one of the two burners on high. You can also do what's called a "fire ring", which involves placing the embers all around the barbecue and leaving the center without embers, so that the heat is on the sides of the grill and the cooler, indirect cooking zone is in the center.

Smoky notes

What's most enjoyable about barbecue cooking is the smoky touch that the meat takes on during cooking. One of the final steps to mastering barbecue fire perfectly is adding wood to create smoke. This isn't done at just any time. The principle is, once you've obtained good embers, you place the embers on the sides of the barbecue and put wood chips in the center which will smolder slowly. This way, you create smoke that will smoke the meat and not burn it. It's imperative not to place the wood chips on the embers so they don't catch fire.

Flavoring barbecue smoke

It's possible to slightly change the smell of the smoke to flavor these foods differently.

  • Thyme: add a bit of freshly cut (green) thyme, it must not be dry at all, place it on the fire once the embers are ready just before you start cooking your meat.
  • Rosemary: Just like with thyme, you'll give your meat southern notes by using fresh rosemary on the fire so that the smoke flavors the meat.
  • Oak: this is a wood that develops a particular flavor on meat, highly appreciated for barbecuing
  • Fruit tree wood: apple or cherry wood is frequently used to give meat a different flavor

 

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