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BBQ & Grilling Tips. Com
All About BBQ, Grilling, Recipes & Reviews
Tips & Tricks
Learning how to barbecue and grill isn't easy; it takes practice and patience.
Weeknight grilling can serve a double purpose, (1) grilling is a quick, easy way to get food to the table after a long day. (2) Grilling is relaxing; there is just something about cooking with fire that helps us unwind.
We're here to help you make your best barbecue, and weekends are best time to barbecue because of its low and slow nature. We'll be sharing our award-winning BBQ tips & grilling tricks with you so, you too can relax and enjoy.
We're here to help you make your best barbecue, and weekends are best time to barbecue because of its low and slow nature. We'll be sharing our award-winning BBQ tips & grilling tricks with you so, you too can relax and enjoy.
BBQ & Grilling Recipes
Stop by for a minute today; come check out our unique grilling and bbq recipes for:
• BBQ Chicken
• Spatchcock Chicken
• The Lonely Grilled Chicken Breast
• Loin Back Ribs, AKA Baby Back Ribs
• Carolina BBQ, Pulled Pork
• Texas Beef Ribs & Brisket
This is just a small sampling of our best summertime grill and BBQ recipes with our added twist.
Reviews
We're sharing with you 20 plus years of our insight into barbecue and grilling.
We'll be review everything barbecue and grilling:
• BBQ smokers
• Offset Smokers
• Charcoal grills
• Pellet Grills
• BBQ & Grill accessories
And when time permits, we share our favorite barbecue restaurants and grilling cookbooks.
Your #1, how to source, for barbecue & grilling tips. Jack Daniel's World Champion BBQ Winner Wee Willy's; shares their award-winning BBQ recipes & grilling tips for how to BBQ and Grill.
What is Barbecue?
(Coals + Meat) + (Time + Patience) = Barbecue™
We define barbecue and grilling as an outdoor cooking method that uses direct or indirect heat, and sometimes a combination of both. Hardwood or fruitwood coals are best for cooking barbecue. Wood splits, BBQ grill pellets, hardwood briquettes, and lump charcoal are all excellent choices for cooking barbeque and grilling. In a pinch, electric, natural gas, and propane gas are used.
What is A Barbecue?
(Friends + Community) + (Gathering + Event) = Barbecue™
We carry on the legacy and history of barbecue as an event or gathering of friends, family, or community as much as a cooking process.
The Perfect Barbecue & Grilling Storm
Today's BBQ Blending With its Legendary History.
A Great Time For Barbecue
Has there ever been a better time to barbecue and grill? Today's pitmaster and grillmasters have choices with fast, easy access to all things BBQ.
No Shortage of BBQ Smokers & Charcoal Grill
An Old-time pitmaster can't fathom the choices of BBQ grills and smokers that we have today. Today's grillmaster has many options when shopping for a BBQ smoker.
Barbecue grills and smokers range from the simple, lightweight, and portable Weber kettle grill and vertical water smoker, the WSM (Weber Smoky Mountain). To space-age ceramic material now used to make the centuries-old Kamado grill and smoker, such as the Big Green Egg.
What's HOT? Pellet Grills & Pellet Smokers
The HOT smoker grill the past several years (since the Traeger Pellet Grill patent ended) are the pellet grill and pellet smoker. Both use hardwood barbecue pellets, a combustion fan, and a digital or PDI controller to control temperature and smoke output.
the cooking temperature of both the pellet smoker and grill. The new pellet grill can control the temperature inside the smoker or grill better than many home ovens. That can be good and bad, but we;ll get in the later.
How BBQ Wood Pellets are Made
Making barbecue pellets is a natural process (be sure to verify your source) of compressing and extruding (forcing) sawdust through a die. The pressure applied to the sawdust to form the pellet while being forced through a die creates heat. The combination of heat from forcing the wood through a die (picture a giant pasta machine) and the natural juices in the wood bind the pellets together; that's it.
Big BBQ Smokers & Grills
The backyard grillmaster, competition pitmasters, both the backyard and Pro, and BBQ restaurateur looking to cook barbecue in larger volume have no shortage of options too. They also have the opportunity to use the new pellet barbecue smokers. The tough part is deciding between them, and the updated design of the massive steel and insulated fire box of the Texas offset smokers.
Vertical Cabinet Smokers
Vertical cabinet smokers offer the efficiency of there thick insulation. Some models provide a thermometer, a thermostat, and gas assist, your choice of natural gas and propane gas, and a rotisserie with cooking greats.
Counting Our Barbeque & Grilling Blessings
It's to often forgotten how fortunate we are to have easy, convenient, all most instant access to high-quality barbecues, smokers and grills, and there accessories. Hardwood charcoal and smoking wood we use to cook our barbecue to perfection are equally accessible today.
The Key to Great BBQ & Grilled Food, Harwood Coals
Hickory • Charcoal Briquettes • Lump Charcoal • BBQ Pellets • Oak
Hardwood Charcoal
Back in the day, the pitmaster and grillmaster were lucky if they had two choices of charcoal, the original blue bag of Kingsford charcoal briquettes. And their other option was to make their charcoal. More times than not that is the route they took, making hardwood coals in a burn barrel.
Making Charcoal
Making charcoal is hard work; it starts by sourcing, locating a reliable source of the prevalent wood in their area.
Oak + Hickory Wood = BBQ
The pitmaster's and grillmaster's choice, usually oak or hickory wood, depended on the area where they lived. Both oak and hickory wood produce hot, long-burning wood coals.
And you can't forget the all familiar smoky flavor and aroma associated with authentic barbecue and grilled food. Wood split to their liking is then burned down to hot, glowing embers in a burn barrel. As soon as the coals are ready, they start to shovel and skillfully spread the hot smoldering wood coals under their barbecue and grill's cooking racks ever 20 to 30 minutes.
They cook their BBQ and grilled fare using the tools God gave them and skills passed down to them. They rely on their senses, gauging their grill and barbecue's cooking temperature and performance. The skilled old school pitmaster and grillmaster used their wits, eyes, and ears, with the final check being a well-placed hand on the steel cover and over the cooking grates of their BBQ Pit and grill; no need for a fancy Thermapen or infrared thermometer.
What Do You BBQ With?
Today's pitmasters have many options for fueling their barbecue pits and grills, maybe too many?
- Charcoal Briquettes
- Lump Charcoal
- Woods Splits
- BBQ Wood Pellets
- Wood Chunks
- Smoking Wood
- Smoking Chips
Our choice of wood coals for cooking our grilled food and barbecue is hardwood charcoal briquets and lump charcoal.
With that said, we have found ourselves barbecuing and grilling more often recently, using our pellet grill and
BBQ pellet smoker. And most recently, we have been cooking more with wood splits and chunks.
We have had our share of success using 100% oak barbecue pellets in both our pellet smoker and grill.
It's hard to believe; we have been cooking for 20 years now on a pellet smoker, cooker. The exciting part of the story is we didn't get our start on a Traeger Pellet Grill, as you might think, but rather a W'ham Turbo Cooker.
Please share with us what you use to cook your barbecue. Our preference is pit-cooked BBQ, low and slow, using quality hardwood charcoal briquettes or lump charcoal with the addition of wood chips and chunks as needed.
Barbecue, What's Old is New Again
The Return to Old School, Low and Slow Barbeque; No Foil
Defining Barbecue
How has what we barbecue evolved? The short answer, a lot.
It has changed significantly in just the past several years with the resurgence of heritage breed hogs, two of our favorites are Duroc and Berkshire pork. The popularity of prime beef and American Wagyu also referred to as Kobe beef.
STOP! We're getting ahead of ourselves. The fancy choices of today were not an option up until just several years ago, except for heritage hogs.
Insight Into Regional BBQ
Barbecue didn't start with today's defined regions, such as the Carolinas being defined by whole hog BBQ and whole pork shoulder and BBQ's slow-cooked BBQ fresh hams.
Texas barbecue is represented by their love of all things beef; for example, brisket chuck roll and beef short ribs, all eaten with equal satisfaction. And yes, there oversized steaks.
Memphis is a pork town with their pulled pork (they use the shoulder butt) wet ribs, and legendary dry ribs and in Kansas City for all three types of BBQ.
Barbecue, way back in the day before boxed meat and BBQ restaurants were the norm was defined not by there location as we do today. But instead by what they could raise themselves or could barter for, much different than today.
Trip Back in BBQ History
What we find interesting is that barbeque continues to evolve and to reinvent itself. But many of these changes are not new concepts or techniques to barbecue. Instead, they are a trip back in BBQ history, when time moved slower and details mattered.
We see a resurgence of barbeque cooked low and slow, with indirect heat and, more recently, the return of BBQ cooking over direct heat.
When cooking BBQ over direct heat, the meat greats are raised to 18" to 24" from the hardwood coals. The traditional process was to use a burn barrel to burn hardwood down to coals. Some still do it that way today, but most adapted to the convenience of charcoal briquets or lump charcoal.
The magic of this old school way of making BBQ is that the grease drips on the coals and evaporates, and as it rises, flavors the meat to succulent perfection. Please, be careful with this method there is a reason that this method fell out of favor, it was grease fires.
Take Pride in What We Barbeque
Today's pitmasters are also taking much pride in the meat they source. Many are insisting on humanely raised and harvested meat that is antibiotic-free.
These practices are nothing new to the pitmasters of our past and the ones that apprentice under them; it was just the way they did things; it's just the way they were taught. It's a good thing to see that we are adapting some of the ways of the past; when time was more simple.
Texas Crutch; Over-Rated
We found out early-on that authentic, old school barbecue doesn't have a prerequisite for using the Texas Crutch, aluminum foil, as many insist on today.
We believe that there is no need to rely on aluminum foil, other than when resting or storing barbecue.
Don't be fooled; you can make a moist, tender, and delicious barbecue at home or a BBQ contest without foil.
We won our Barbecue World Championship without the Texas Crutch, debunking the myth that if you are not wrapping you are winning.
Rest assured, you too can make great barbecue without the Texas Crutch.
Sharing Our Passion
Old School Authentic Pit Cooked BBQ
Grilling Recipes & Tips
We'll get things kicked-off with our favorite summertime grilling and barbecue recipes with are unique, Wee Willy's twist to them.
Barbecue Shrines
We're reviewing each of our favorite BBQ Shrines. Bear in mind there is a difference between a Barbecue Restaurant and a BBQ shrine.
Authentic Pit Cooked BBQ
We are going to walk you through how to barbecue and grill. Not just our way, but in a unique approach that will empower you to make your own best barbecue and all things grilled.
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Monthy Drawing &
a Gift on Your Birthday.
We have a drawing each month for a Free bottle of Wee Willy's Dry Rub. The good news is, It doesn't stop there. We want to send you something special for your Birthday. It's our way to show you our appreciation for your support throughout the year.
Thank you!
Bill, Lana and Lil Willy
Bbq Tips and Tricks. Com
(Coals + Meat) + (Time + Patience) = Barbecue™
Recipes & Reviews
Tips & Tricks
bbqandgrillingtips.com
About Bill & Lana
Bill and Lana are passionate about all things food; barbecue in particular. They're accomplished cooks, recipe developers, barbecue world champions, and business owners with interest in helping people to cook their own best barbecue. Their diverse backgrounds range from recipe creation and development to food product, and barbecue process development to BBQ Grill and cooker design and troubleshooting, with experience in fabrication, airflow, and controls. They reside in the BBQ Capital of the North, Minnesota.
We would welcome an opportunity to hear from you. Please, let us know how we are doing and what you would like to see from us moving forward.
Work with Bill and Lana.
Have a project that would be a good fit, be sure to reach out.