Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-09)

GRILLING

With the lid up, you

use high-tempera-

ture direct heat on

the bottom of the

food, instead of all

around it. This is con-

duction heating; food

is cooked by direct

contact with a heat

source: the metal

grates. High heat pro-

duces little smoke.

It brings meat up to

its internal doneness

temperature quickly;

typically, within five

to 20 minutes. Best

foods for grilling are

thin steaks, chops,

hamburgers, seafood

fillets, and vegetables.

THE TRICK TO a perfectly cooked
hunk of protein is to get the
temperature close to uniform
throughout the flesh. That’s not
easy to accomplish if you consider
the physics of heat transfer. When
heat hits meat, the molecules on
the outside start moving quickly,
and then gradually transfer their
energy toward the center. “Hot air
cooks the outside of the meat, and
the outside of the meat cooks the
inside,” says Meathead Goldwyn,
author of Meathead: The Science
of Great Barbecue and Grilling.
“But this takes time because meat
is 70 percent water and water is a
good heat absorber, especially
when entrapped in muscle fibers
and fat.”
So when cooking meat outdoors,
it is critical to understand the
makeup of your meat and match
it to the right heat source. Meat is
muscle tissue, made up of mostly
water, protein, fats, and minerals.
When you look at a steak, you see

streaks of intramuscular fat woven among the thick bundles

of muscle fibers called myofibrils. You may or may not see

connective tissue like collagen that surrounds the muscle

fibers. Lean meats like chicken and tenderloin don’t have

much collagen. Thicker, tougher cuts like ribs, shoulder, and

brisket have a lot.

“A good rule of thumb is the thicker the meat, the lower

the heat; the thinner the meat, the higher the heat,” says

Meathead. (Goldwyn prefers to be called Meathead, a name

bestowed upon him by his father during the reign of All in

the Family.) “I’m talking about skinny foods like skirt

steak, shrimp, asparagus,” he says. “You want what I call

Warp 10 cooking; crank that grill and give ’er all she’s got,

Scottie!” That method delivers a dark brown sear to the sur-

face (known as the Maillard reaction; see “Get Down With

Browning,” page 40) without overcooking the center. Keep

the lid up or off and f lip your food often, almost like a rotis-

serie. Thicker, tougher cuts of meat (like beef brisket, pork

shoulder, and ribs that have a lot of fat and collagen) should

be cooked low and really slow—“that’s when the magic hap-

pens,” says Meathead. The collagen slowly breaks down and

melts into a rich, silky liquid called gelatin.

“It’s that melt-in-your-mouth moistness you get in

braised meats, pork shoulder, and brisket,” says Deutsch.

“It takes time, roasting slow at 200 to 275 degrees.”

One of the biggest mistakes backyard chefs make is

cooking thick cuts at too-high heat to accelerate cook-

ing. An experiment by scientist Greg Blonder, Ph.D., a

professor at Boston University’s College of Engineering,

demonstrated how impatience can ruin a meal. The scien-

tific advisor to the barbecuing website AmazingRibs.com

roasted two identical 4" by 3" pork loins, one at 325 0 F and

the other at 255 0 F. He inserted a thermometer into the

surface and center of each. When the center hit the per-

fect 145 0 F, the outer layers of the loin roasted at higher

heat were overcooked and dry, while the loin cooked lon-

ger at 225 0 F was moist throughout, except for the delicious

brown crust.

BARBECUING

This is “low and slow”

convection cooking:

low temperatures

(200° to 300° F)

bathe all surfaces of

the food, transfer-

ring heat indirectly

for 2 to 18 hours.

Only slow cooking

over indirect heat will

break down the

connective tissue

on tough cuts like

brisket. “Smoke is

the essence of barbe-

cue,” says Meathead.

You can barbecue

with smoke on most

grills by creating a

low-heat zone (see

page 40).

The terms grilling and

barbecuing are often

confused and used

interchangeably. But

they’re very different

cooking methods.

LEARN THE

RULES

OF HEAT

TRANSFER

KNOW

THE

LINGO

WHY COOK

LOW & SLOW

PORK LOIN

COOKED AT 325°F

❶ 200°F = Crusty

❷ 165°F = Dry

❸ 145°F = Juicy

②③

PORK LOIN

COOKED AT 225°F

❶ 200°F = Crusty

❷ 155°F = Moist

❸ 145°F = Juicy

①②③

①

Thick meats get

dry when cooked

too high.

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