Helpful Grill Tips Just In Time For Summer

1. Let the meat reach room temperature before cooking: This actually applies for chicken and fish as well. The meat will cook more evenly if it is the same temperature throughout.

2. Make it thick and marbled: Often the best tasting steaks for home grilling are nature’s perfectly marbled beef ribeye steaks or bone-in ribeye steaks. The marbling enhances the flavor of these cuts while basting the meat in the cooking process to ensure a juicy steak. When selecting your steaks, try to get one that is at least a 1 to 1 & 1/2 inches thick.

3. Try making a cheap, homemade smoker: Use an aluminum bread pan, hickory chips, foil, and a skewer to create your own smoker for under a buck.

4. Poach your dogs: Poach sausages for a few minutes to ensure that they stay tender and develop a nice char when it’s time to grill.

5. Spiral your hotdogs: Not only does it create an awesome texture, spiraling dogs gives people a perfect place to put condiments.

6. Know how to utilize citrus fruits: Grill citrus fruits for a few minutes to up the favor factor. Also, they’re great for squeezing over the fish.

7. Use lemons when you cook fish: Seafood and lemons make quite the match, but it’s no secret that grilling fish can be a tedious process. Slice lemons, lay them on the grill, and put the fish on top. The bed of fruit will keep the fish from sticking, and will provide extra flavor.

8. Know your vegetables: Being able to know the difference in how long veggies take to cook is important. For example, a summer squash can be done in just a few minutes, while denser veggies such as potatoes can take much longer.

9. Utilize skewers and foil packets: If you’ve diced up your veggies, try using a skewer to keep them from falling through the grill. If you’ve got your hands full and don’t have time to shepherd the grill, you can always wrap up your veggies in a foil packet and then leave them to steam for about 15 minutes while you focus on other tasks.

10. Keep it simple: Like you’d do with meat, use a small amount of seasoning. A little bit of salt, pepper and additional flavoring is fine, but let Maillard reaction (the caramelizing of natural sugars caused by heat) do the bulk of the work, then sprinkle with finishing salt before serving.

11. Try soaking your corn on the cob: Corn will grill with the husk both on and off, but if you peel the husk back to expose the kernels while grilling, soak them in water for 15 minutes. When the grill is hot, pull the husks back up around the cobs, twisting the leaves at the tip as needed to help them stay in place.

12. Cook the same types of veggie together: Cooking similar vegetables at the same time helps them cook more consistently and evenly. Try cooking your tomatoes and mushrooms together, your zucchini with squash, and bell peppers with onions, at the same time.

13. Prevent burger patties from sticking: The juices that come out of burger patties while they’re cooking tend to make the meat stick to the grill. To avoid this, try dabbing your patty with a paper towel to make sure they’re as dry as possible. Then season them and put a very thin coat of canola oil on each side.

14. Know when to use a ‘dimple’: Sometimes adding a dimple to the center of a patty works and sometimes it doesn’t – it largely depends on the meat. If you’re cooking with cuts that are high in collagen, such as brisket or short rib, a dimple will help. If you happen to be cooking sirloin or chunk, it’ll hinder the cooking process.

15. Flip your patties once and only once: Constant turning will toughen and dry out the meat, and if you flip too soon, burgers will stick. Cook 2 minutes per side for rare, 3 for medium-rare, 4 for medium, and 5 for well-done.

16. Checking the wellness on a patty: Unless it’s a very thin patty, you should avoid cutting into it while it’s cooking. Instead, try using a instant-read thermometer to gauge temperature.

17. Let them rest after you’ve cooked them: Resting allows burgers, like all meat, to finish cooking and allows their juices, which have collected on the surface during grilling, to redistribute throughout the patty for maximum juiciness. Since burgers are generally somewhat small (compared to giant roasts), allow them to sit for 5-10 minutes for max flavor. It will be well worth the wait.

18. Use the right types of buns: If a bun is too firm, it can overwhelm the burger. Try using a softer option such as a Hawaiian Roll or sourdough bun, so you can maintain a softer bun without losing texture or body.

19. Cleaning up the grill: If you happen to misplace your grill brush, try using tinfoil. Cover your grill with tinfoil, warm it up, crumple the foil, and use it to scrub off stubborn messes.