Barbecue Basics: Essential Guide for First-Timers

Ready to dive into the world of barbecue but feeling overwhelmed by all the options and techniques? We've got you covered. This episode strips away the complexity and focuses on the absolute essentials every barbecue beginner needs to know.

Starting with equipment, we make a strong case for why a kettle barbecue with a lid and thermometer should be your first purchase. This versatile setup allows you to try everything from direct grilling to low-and-slow smoking without breaking the bank. We explain how to check if your thermometer is accurate (hint: it involves boiling water) and why understanding your barbecue's temperature is fundamental to success.

Mastering temperature control is the next hurdle for beginners, so we break down the science of vent management in straightforward terms. Think of your bottom vent as an accelerator and the top vent as the system that pulls air through—simple adjustments between these two create the perfect cooking environment for any dish.

When it comes to fuel, we're passionate advocates for quality charcoal over gas for that authentic barbecue experience. Our detailed explanation of the differences between lumpwood and briquettes will help you choose the right fuel for different cooking scenarios. Plus, we share why a chimney starter and natural firelighters are game-changers that make lighting your barbecue faster, easier, and free from chemical flavors.

The most valuable advice in this episode might be our passionate endorsement of meat thermometers. "Cook to temperature, not to time" becomes your new mantra as we explain how thermometers eliminate guesswork and ensure perfectly cooked, safe food every time. We even share specific temperature targets for different meats to get you started.

Whether you're buying your first barbecue or looking to get back to basics, this episode provides a clear roadmap to success without unnecessary complications. Listen, learn, and you'll be grilling with confidence before you know it.

Have you already started your barbecue journey? Connect with us on social media and share your essential tips for beginners!

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AOS Kitchens are a leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists based in Hampshire

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Transcript

Introduction to Barbecue Beginners

Owen 0:00

Today's episode is brought to you by AOS Kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists. Welcome to another episode of the Meat and Greet Barbecue Podcast. Today, it's me and Dan again, and we're going to be talking about beginners. What's the things that you need to do to get set up if you've never barbecued before? What should you be thinking about? Just our opinions and, of course, everyone's going to have their own opinions. But yeah, this is kind of you know how we got set up and let's get.

Dan 0:43

Let's get straight into it, dan yeah, it's also, I think, good for people who are thinking about going back to basics. It's very easy to over complicate things, particularly if you've done it for years and years, and we get asked a lot or at least I do in work by people who maybe haven't barbecued before. They're thinking about getting their first setup together. So it's a topic that we've been asked about so much we thought we'd come to life. So one of the first things that I've been asked when these things come up is what barbecue should I get if I've never barbecued before? Where should I even start? So, yeah, I want to know what your thoughts on that are. Owen, where would you start if you'd never barbecued before?

Owen 1:27

uh, with a kettle, with a webber. It doesn't have to be a webber, but a, a premium kettle, one that you have to invest a little bit of money in, and what I mean by that is not necessarily a 20, 30 quid one that you pick up at your local diy store and you leave that rusts, you know, after, after a season, um, something again, in my opinion, like a weber kettle, because it's a great all-round barbecue. You know, majority of them have got the thermometers built in, uh, which helps um understand how the you know how the barbecue holds heat and temper cooking temperatures, um. So yeah, for me that is an absolute given a good kettle, great all-round barbecue, because you can do your smoking, you can do your hot and fast, your two zones snake methods, all of these things that you'll get into um.

Dan 2:23

So that that's, that's, that's where I'd start I definitely agree, and for me, the most important thing that I would mention there is get a kettle. Weber's are a great make. People know them for a reason, um. But when we first started doing this podcast, I had a kettle that I'd got from Amazon. It was around 150 160 pound, so it wasn't kind of the same sort of level as Weber.

Dan 2:51

But the key thing is lid and thermometer and making sure that you can understand what's happening inside that and if you've got something that can accurately tell you what the temperature is on the inside, there is so much you can do and, as Owen said, the great thing about kettle as well as it allows you to two zone, it allows you to do lots of different techniques and allows you to cook anything in any way.

Dan 3:19

But if you've never barbecued before and you're worried about investing too much, I personally would say that a weber kettle is a great second barbecue if you're not sure how often you're going to barbecue or even you want to first trial and learn. But I suppose it's all about how much you're willing to spend in the first place. But if you can afford to go in a weber kettle, that's going to be your best option for a first go. Um, on the point of understanding the temperature that's going on inside the barbecue, something that I don't hear talked about enough is it's really important to check that actually the thermometer that's on your barbecue kettle is giving you an accurate reading, because if you're misunderstanding that, it's going to have a huge impact on what you're cooking, right?

Owen 4:07

yeah, and most, most will be close enough. Um, but you know, and obviously, just it's just to think about the, the thermometer in the lid is measuring the temperature higher up, you know, in, in and around the lid. Obviously it will be slightly hotter, you know, actually at the cooking level, but I think you know, certainly, when I was getting going it was accurate enough that you know. It gave me a good enough indication of where I am and where I need to be. It gave me a good enough indication of where I am and where I need to be. But you're right, having a lid is essential.

Dan 4:51

It is also surprisingly easy to check if your thermometer is actually doing what it wants to do. And if you've bought a kettle for the first time set up like that, quite often the thermometer comes separately that you have to put in so you can get a pan, boil some water. You know that the boiling water is going to be 100 Celsius, you can put it in there. And if for some reason it's not showing at 100, then there's normally either like a little screw that you can turn or a little twisty for want of a better word knob or thing that can make sure that you get the accuracy there. And once you know and you're confident that it's given you the temperature that you want it to do and, as Owen says, nine times out of ten, if not more, it will be in the first place you're good to go. And then you can truly understand that if you want to cook something low and slow, you can understand right.

Understanding Vents and Temperature Control

Dan 5:39

I'm at 110, 105 Celsius, 250, 275 Fahrenheit. Lock yourself in and off you go. So talking about locking in temperatures vents on barbecues. So for anyone who's new and might feel a bit intimidated about the vents on the bottom and top of the barbecue and how they work? How would you introduce people to those systems?

Owen 6:07

uh, so the bottom vents, those are the ones that are essentially. The more you open those up, the hotter it's going to get. And then you use the top vent as the as the way. To long as your is, the more air that goes, the hotter it's going to be. The more you close the vents over, the less oxygen can get in. It's going to restrict then the heat. So you know, if you want to do something hot and fast and you are looking at grilling, searing steaks or cooking sausages or burgers, you want high heat then you will have the vents open, you. You know. If you're wanting to do something more smoking, uh, then it's. It's about closing those vents and it it's not accurate in in, you know, you'll just have to play with them, how, how often. You know how much you open and close them to get the um to. You know, to get the level and the heat that you want. Um. But yeah, fundamentally, the more, the more that the vents are open, the hotter it will be.

Dan 7:12

The more they're closed, uh, the colder it will be I've had it described to me when I first started out as think of it as a car. Yeah, the bottom vent is your brake, right, you've got it closed. Oh, it's accelerator. So if you've got it closed, nothing's going to happen. The more you open it, the more you're drawing the air into the barbecue itself. And then the top vent. The more you've opened that, the more it sucks the air through, and the quicker that the air's being sucked through, the more that you're going to put fire and power through your coals. If you have both of them closed, nothing's going to happen at all. So think of them as different pedals that you have on a car allowing you to do what you want.

Dan 7:59

Um, and it's more about getting a feel and understanding your barbecue, so don't be afraid to play about with them. Different from kettle, but I've got monolith ceramic. So when I'm first firing everything up, I'll have both vents right the way open to help get heat in, soak the ceramic, fire things up, and then I'll actually pretty much close both the vents and then slightly open them almost to a finger width, give it time, understand what the temperature is, and then I tend to open the top vent more and more if I'm wanting to get a bit more heat in there, and then I'll close the vent slightly once I've got the temperature I want. But just experiment and get a feel with the barbecue because at the end of the day it's not going to hurt you unless you put your hand in it. So it's worth having a play and understand, because if you can start mastering that temperature control, it's going to give you so much more confidence and skill when it comes to barbecuing and actually achieving the different results that you'd like.

Fuel Types: Charcoal Basics Explained

Dan 9:02

So now we've got our suggested barbecue, um, and we've talked about kind of temperature control. Let's talk a bit more now about the fuel that you're going to be using. As you can probably tell, we're speaking more around kind of charcoal and things rather than gas. Um, I've got nothing against gas, it's good for certain barbecues. But if I'm a beginner and I want to be getting into barbecue and I want to be enjoying barbecue personally, I want the fun of creating fires, playing with the fire, as it were, and also getting that true barbecue taste, which quite often you don't get the same sort of feeling and flavour from gas. Would you agree on that point, owen?

Owen 9:48

Yeah, definitely, but again, each to their own. So there are some great pellet grills, there are some great wood fire you're using wood only and there are some good gas ones that people want. It's whatever's for you, but fundamentally for us, if we started again, it would always be charcoal. But my biggest bit of advice is to buy a chimney starter. Yes, it's so much easier to get a barbecue lit and to temperature quicker, quicker, uh and more efficient um. Fuel efficient um is is by putting the chimney starter, because obviously it condenses it all into one area. You put the heat source uh underneath, uh and it and it just gets quick and then you just pour it out um to to get going.

Owen 10:40

Um, me personally, uh, I'm not a fan of using any kind of um you know, like kind of petrol based fire lighters. I always buy natural fire lighters. I don't want to impose the kind of petroly put you know petroleum flavors or smells uh into my food. Uh, and same for charcoal. You don't want it. You know, with the ones that like light in the bags, it's kind of got that uh, you know it's doused in in those chemicals to get the bag going. I would much prefer to use proper charcoal and a natural fire lighter couldn't agree more.

Dan 11:18

Um. I love natural fire lighters. I personally actually think they do a better job than the petroly options, the lighter fluid options and um definitely don't use lighter fluid yeah, don't, don't do that pour lighter fluid onto your charcoal jeez I mean you get igniter lighter fluid, but um, I suppose you probably could knock the cap off a lighter.

Owen 11:42

But it would blow things up.

Dan 11:43

I know, oh god, there's nothing more fun than annoying Owen. But Owen's completely right. Not only that, the chimney starters, it lights faster than if you're doing the lighting a bag items as well. I mean, you fill up your chimney with your charcoal, you put a natural fire lighter underneath, you light it, you put the chimney on top and it's lit and ready to cook in 15 minutes, maybe 20, depending on what you're using and how much charcoal you've got in there. You pour it out. You're good to go, particularly if you're doing something hot and fast in that situation, because it's not like you're then at the point where you need to be working on the temperature control.

Owen 12:28

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Dan 13:04

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Owen 13:17

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Dan 13:31

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Owen 13:42

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Dan 13:47

And while we're talking about fuel as well, beginners will be looking at charcoal and they'll be seeing lumpwood, and they'll also be seeing briquettes. What's your views on those, oh?

Owen 14:01

I like to use both uh. So my my preference is if I am cooking uh more hot and fast, I prefer to use lump wood, um, and if I'm doing more low and slow uh, you know briskets or something like that, I prefer to use uh, briquettes. And that's not to say that lump wood that I buy wouldn't do the job. It's just down to my personal preference.

Dan 14:30

I mean briquettes are known and kind of designed to be more for those long, long longer burns.

Owen 14:38

I would say yeah, I mean, you know, if you get a good quality briquette, you know you're going to get three hour burn on those. But that being said, similarly, if you get some really good lumpwood charcoal, right you, you're getting similar amounts. It's just again, it's just my personal preference. But you know it's about buying. It's not. It's not about buying the the kind of, unfortunately, the cheapy stuff that you get in your local. You know, typically your local super supermarket.

Dan 15:06

They don't tend not to last very long, um, but if you do buy some good quality stuff, that's that's the stuff that burns long and if you're thinking about carbon footprint as well, you can pay real attention to where the charcoal's been made. You can look at, get an understanding if it's been flown in. If it's something more local or british based or whatever country you're based in, look at where it is. But I would recommend looking at that side of things as well so you're not having as big an impact on on the carbon footprint. But also that gives you more of an idea quite often of the quality and time and effort put into the making of the product and you know if you're cooking food with love and with time that goes down to all aspects of it. So why not have the same thought process and opinion on the fuel as well?

Owen 16:02

Yeah, absolutely.

Dan 16:03

So we've got our fuel, we've got our barbecue. We've also talked about a really important part of one of the best ways, and it's also about um, creating repetition as well. So you know what you're going to get out of things. Chimney, stars, all of it's going to give you that control and you know what's going to happen and why it's going to happen, how it's going to happen. Um. Next, what other essential pieces of kit would you suggest? Give me one.

Owen 16:37

There's so many A meat thermometer.

Essential Tools: Thermometers and More

Dan 16:41

Yeah, perfect, that's exactly what I was going to say yeah.

Owen 16:44

So meat probe for sure. And again, it's just that confidence that you know that the food is cooked. Now, most of us in Britain know we we've kind of gone over this so many times so I'm not going to necessarily go into detail but the classic black on the outside, pink on the inside, you know of the british barbecue of when we were little kids and whatever. But a meat probe just stops that. So, uh, and you know there are some great meat probes out there, super accurate, and it just gives you that confidence that your, your meat is cooked properly so that you're not running the risk of, um, you know, making anyone ill. But it also comes down to and you know we're both massive fans of Thermapen, the brand. There are other meat probes out there, but you know their classic cook to temperature, not to time is definitely true. Each piece of meat is going to be different. The instructions that you get on the front of the packet is not always going to be as accurate, so you know that it should be a particular temperature inside.

Dan 17:59

That's what a meat probe will tell you the other thing I found as well, particularly with chicken. I can understand why they do this is the temperatures that they give you, at least in Britain, on the packets on the supermarket if you cook to the temperature they say and the amount of time and I'm going to use an oven as an example here because that should be the most basic right temperature, right timings and everything you probe it and it's the temperature's a lot higher than when a chicken is done and that's because they want to be as safe as possible and everything. But as long as you are cooking to temperature, you will know that the piece of meat is perfectly safe. If you're probing properly, accurately, in the right place. But also with things like chicken, you'll realise and understand how to get a moist chicken, a more enjoyable chicken.

Dan 18:46

I mean, owen and I have both worked with someone who was so worried about cooking chicken. He'd put a chicken breast in the oven at 190, 200 degrees Celsius for 45, 50 minutes some of of the small ones and they'd come out almost like a piece of leather. But that was just how he felt comfortable because he was so afraid of getting any sort of food poisoning. Whereas a meat thermometer and same as when you're cooking an oven actually I use it all the time inside, but, even more importantly, on a barbecue gives you full understanding and control of what's happening in the piece of meat. And we've just mentioned chicken there, right 75, stay alive. I'm talking Celsius because we're Brits, but you know, if you're looking to cook a piece of steak and you want it to be rare, medium, rare, medium.

Owen 19:33

Yeah, 55 degrees, it's just steaks is another great example poultry steaks. You know, if you have your steak in a particular way, uh, of course you know there's the old kind of touch, you know pushing it and feeling it and depending on the kind of the feel of it, you'll get that all right. We're not all chefs, so having that, uh, you know, having that probe to definitively tell you, uh, the temperature inside, and then you can make sure that you do end up with your medium rare, your rare steaks, etc. So for me it's an absolute essential.

Dan 20:09

And going on to low and slow as well. If you're doing something like a brisket and you start reading it and understanding it you're doing something like a brisket and you start reading and understanding it you're going to go right. So I'm going to do it low and slow. I'm going to temp probe it after the first two and a half, three hours, every 45 minutes to an hour. When it hits 75 celsius, I'm going to wrap it and then, once I've wrapped it, um, I'm going to keep cooking it, um, until I get to 93 95 and it's probing like butter, um, and then experience comes into things like the feel as well.

Dan 20:44

But you know that if you're going to stick into the internal temperatures and you're going to do it in the right way, it's going to give you the best possible results. And that's why, if owen hadn't said to me that and a chimney star, for me are the two most essential pieces of equipment and accessories from barbecue, and I'd even go as far to say from my perspective that's even more so than like a spatula and tongs, which are really important and useful to have. But if you want to be confident in what you're doing, you want to be getting consistent results and you want to be safe. Those things are going to make you sure and know that you don't have to be worrying about those sides, because everything's going to be cooked properly and safely and accurately.

Owen 21:29

But let's start talking about things like tongs and spatulas, because they are pretty important they are, and there's not too much to say in that you are going to need tongs to turn the meat, your spatulas or whatever to, to flip burgers or whatever. Another really obvious one is right heatproof gloves. Yeah uh, you don't want to burn yourself. Get some gloves, uh.

Owen 21:51

So yeah, I mean, I think we've covered the kind of essentials. And then there's just the obvious stuff. You know, you have to have cutlery and utensils to be able to cook the meat and you have to be able to hold the lid, you have to be able to hold the cooking grate. You're going to need heatproof gloves for those things, yeah, and I'm sure there's loads of other things. But you know, and I personally use uh food gloves and stuff when I'm actually preparing the food and there's all these other things. But I think you know, as long as you've got a good barbecue, decent charcoal, chimney, starter, thermometer, um gloves and spatula, etc.

Wrapping Up and Community Tips

Dan 22:39

You're good to go one thing that I would add, particularly when talking about kettles, because not all of them come with this is the lid of the kettle, right? So if you've got the lid of the kettle and it's something you're going to be taking off, I mean mean you can put it on the floor. But I mean a lot of Weber's come with this anyway, but other barbecues you can buy them as an extra accessory, for want of a better word. It's almost like a handle thing that goes on the inside that allows you to hang it off the side of the barbecue. So you've got somewhere for it to sit, that it's not on the floor.

Dan 23:14

It's less likely that young people, if they're running around, are going to go touching, touch it or run into it, and it gives you somewhere safe to put it as well, if you're busy faffing with things, that you're not going to step back on it. If you're going for the kettle, like we've suggested, if you haven't bought one that's already got one of those clips that sits inside the lid, you can buy them as an added accessory. I'd highly recommend getting one of those as well, because it just it makes your life so much easier and it means you have less of those or risk less opportunity for the barbecue fails that we've talked about in the past as well definitely, and look people that listen to this podcast regularly.

Owen 23:54

Um, and you know a lot of the community that we know that are no doubt far more experienced than we are. I'm sure there are other tips and hints, and, and some of our previous guests uh have definitely, you know, put forward some really really useful tips, uh for beginners. But let's hear from you. So please do you know, uh, write in, tag us in socials, whatever it might be. Um, you know, and what are your tips for for anyone that wants to get into barbecuing? What are the kind of essentials? What would you recommend? Uh, they do to get themselves going?

Dan 24:31

exactly, and in this episode we've covered from our. If you've never barbecued before, those are the essentials that we would recommend you having. I'm sure in other episodes we'll start talking about different meats, proteins, whatever you want to call it, that you want to cook and how to cook it, but that is our guide, for if you're setting up a new barbecue area and you want to get into barbecue, that is where we'd start, so reach out to us. Thank you again for listening, liking, subscribing, following us on our social medias. There's lots of different ways you can contact us, give us a google, etc. And we'd love to hear from you, but, um, yeah, thank you for listening until next time, keep on grilling today's episode of the meat and greek barbecue podcast is brought to you by aos outdoor kitchens.

Dan 25:33

They are the south's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.