Did you know that grilling is different from barbecuing? Most people believe they’re one and the same thing, but they’re not.
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It’s much easier to differentiate between grilling or barbecuing and smoking, because you know about smoking that you do it differently and that it can take forever.
But when it comes to barbecue and grill, these two terms are used interchangeably so much that it can be confusing, more so since there is no actual difference as to the hardware.
A grill or a barbecue is the same device, yet when it comes to the cooking process, they refer to different things.
The one thing though that grill and barbecue have in common is that they involve cooking meats and typically cooking them outside.
Let’s check out the difference(s) so that you don’t mistake barbecuing for grilling and vice versa.
‘Slow and low‘ is barbecuing.
People in the South can tell you all about barbecuing, and that it’s about cooking the meat low and slow using indirect heat.
No way would you be ‘barbecuing’ hamburgers. That, is grilling southerners will tell you.
Also, in the South people barbecue mainly pork and the whole thing often implies having a large number of people and/or family invited.
How exactly do you barbecue? Well, you take Boston butt or pork butt for example, cook it for a prolonged time inside the grill, meaning you close the lid and make sure the meat is not directly over the charcoals.
What this accomplishes is that larger meats can cook thoroughly, until almost falling off the bone before you get them to crisp on the outside.
That whole poultry that you roast in the oven – according to southern cooking, that is also barbecuing.
High heat and fast is grilling.
So if you made hamburgers and hot dogs outside, you’d be grilling.
The grilling method uses high heat to cook the meat and is usually done for a short amount of time, just enough to achieve a decent char and seal the juices into the food.
With grilling, the meat is cooked to a tender and juicy inside and meat is most often of the tender type, usually chicken, pork chops, beef loin strip steak and similar.
Grilling also includes vegetables like onions, peppers, potatoes, and fish, or even pizza.
So now you know the difference between barbecuing and grilling.
There are also people who discard the divide because barbecue does actually mean different things to different people in different countries.
The U.S. isn’t the only country that barbecues and when taking a look at barbecue around the world, it’s indeed obvious that this style of cooking includes different methods but is not limited to either barbecuing southern-style or grilling.
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So we may have the element of heat, of time, of smoke, and of type of meat used to cook the food, but there are way too many cooking methods referring to barbecue in the world to have it divide in just two, or have it mean just one thing.