What one should NEVER do while BBG-ing:
• Place the BBQ Smoker on a wooden surface like on an outdoor terrace. The oven also heats from underneath and may cause a fire.
• Use conifers or birch as firewood because conifers and birch contain resin that smudges the food and gives it a
bitter taste.
• Use too wet woodchips – shake the chips in your hands to get rid of the excess liquid. Chips dripping of water
cause a little soot and may put out the fire. Chips have to be moisturized in order to give good smoke and dampen excessive fire.
• Put wood into the fire bark-side down – bark catches fire fast, causes soot and gives a more bitter taste to the
smoke. It is best to use barkless wood or put the wood into the fire so that the bark-side is up.
• Pour too much water or other liquids in the water and drip pan – excessive liquid/steam in a hot oven impedes the smoke from absorbing into the meat and causes a steaming effect. But a little humidity in the Smoker is necessary, so the meat couldn’t dry on the top. Thus, everything needs to be in balance.
• Hold the valves open at all times – heat grows too high and food gets less smoky flavor. It is OK to do this in the
end of cooking process, so that the bones would fall off the meat better (so-called short-term spooking). Thus, it is not good to heat the oven at a too high temperature, because the meat could get dry and the result is not as soft and moist as it is in case of long-term/low-heat cooking.
• Throw garbage in the heating chamber (including throwaway dishes, cigarette butts, etc.)
What on should rather not do while BBQ-ing?
• Give the meat too strong alder smoke – excessive alder smoke gives the meat a bitter taste.
• Mop the meat with too thick mop sauce – if the mop sauce is too thick, it cannot absorb into the meat and give it
flavor. In addition, in heat it turns like into a crust that impedes the smoke from absorbing into the meat. The mop sauce has to be moderately reduced, so that it wouldn’t flow off the meat and into the drip pan. You can later apply a thicker mop sauce for glazing.
• Add butter in the beginning of mop-sauce making process – that way mop sauce will lose its glossiness. Butter is
added into the sauce after straining and is beaten in just before the sauce is ready and reduced. That way the mop sauce is glossy and you can also balance the taste.
• Add water in the water pan while cooking a fish. Fish is more tender than meat and excessive humidity can rather
boil or steam the fish, not cook.
• Light fire with lighting fluid – use paper and thin pieces of wood or, in uttermost cases, lighting cubes instead.
What to do only in exceptional circumstances?
• Pour much wine in the water or drip pan – that doesn’t give much of a result. Rather pour wine and water together with woodchips and herbs into one container that you can spray into the fire. That way, good flavored smoke is created and you can also dampen excessive fire.
• Put the BBQ Smoker on the grass – the grass will burn. We suggest to put bricks under the oven for lifting and place a heat-resistant plate or foil, that reflects heat, under the heating chamber.
• Cook very thin pieces of meat or steaks in the BBQ Smoker – BBQ is, first and foremost, meant for cooking large
pieces of meat. Steaks are meant for grilling and frying.
