There are several types of cooking on the BBQ. The first are indirect and direct. Indirect cooking means that the food is not placed directly above the flame (with or without a diffuser), so it is placed in a place in the BBQ where there is no flame below. Direct cooking is used to sear or grill food.
The difference between grilling and baking
There is a huge difference between grilling and cooking food. Grilling is exposing the meat to a direct flame in order to caramelize the outside of the food without burning it. Cooking a food is making the central part of the food at a high enough temperature in order to eliminate possible bacteria and thus make it safe to eat, all without burning the outside. Indirect cooking is used to cook the food, without grilling it, because if it has already been seared, it should already be grilled to perfection. So:
Direct cooking = searing, intense grilling.
Indirect cooking = internal cooking, slow cooking (ribs, pulled pork, brisket).
Indirect gas cooking
To cook indirectly on a gas BBQ, start the burners on the sides and place the meat in the center. The heat created on the sides will be uniform in the BBQ with a process called convection. The air movement, equal on both sides, will create a very equal air circulation in the BBQ that will allow the food to raise its internal temperature, to cook, without grilling. If by cooking indirectly we needed to grill vegetables, we would use the burners that are already lit on the sides without affecting the cooking of the center.
Indirect charcoal cooking
When it comes to charcoal, cooking indirectly is just as easy. Sometimes, BBQs come with ceramic bowl dividers that exist to keep the charcoal on one side of the bowl and even prevent the heat from traveling horizontally, making it even easier to control your cooking zones. If the BBQ doesn't have a bowl divider, a poker does the job very well to move the molten charcoal around the bowl to keep it in a more defined space.
Cooking = temperature
Cooking is not defined by time, but by temperature. To achieve perfect cooking, you must get as close as possible to the desired internal temperature, which differs depending on the cooking desired.
- 120 degrees Fahrenheit = Blue (beef)
- 130 degrees Fahrenheit = Rare (beef)
- 140 degrees Fahrenheit = Medium (beef and pork)
- 150 degrees Fahrenheit = Medium cooked (beef and pork)
- 160 degrees Fahrenheit = Well done (beef, pork, and chicken)
At 160 degrees Fahrenheit, there are no bacteria left in the meat, so that's the temperature you need to reach with chicken to make it 100% salmonella free.
Cooked and undercooked meat?
Meats like beef can be eaten undercooked because bacteria are only transmitted through the butcher's blade. So if you eat a steak, only the thin outer layer could be contaminated. Since bacteria do not penetrate the inside of the fiber, once the steak has been seared, it is safe to eat. This is also why you can dry-age meat because the layer of bacteria that forms on the outside works with the enzymes inside to "undo" the fiber of the meat and tenderize it considerably. Before selling it to you, the butcher cuts off this surface "rot" and when you sear it, ALL bacteria will be killed. So you can safely eat it undercooked.
This is also why you need to eat your hamburger steak well done, because the butcher's machine has touched EVERY grain of meat and the outside of each grain can be contaminated. So every grain, all the way to the center, needs to be 100% cooked.
Blue balls
On the other hand, if you buy your own steak to grind, you can eat your blue meatballs because you can be sure that the grains have not been exposed to a contaminated blade.
There is another way to cook blue meatballs. Without grinding them yourself, you can cook your meatball at 135 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 95 minutes. Even if you don't reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit, the cooking time will kill the bacteria, however you will need to add liquid containers so that your meat doesn't dry out during this long cooking time.