But one thing I've always had difficulty with. Getting the temperature right and knowing when it's done. My backyard doesn't have a lot of light, and I typically BBQ for dinner, so in the spring and fall, it can be dark outside while I'm cooking. It can be hard to eyeball the steak or chicken and it may look ready in the dark, I'll get it inside and on a plate and crack it open only to find its still undercooked and back out to the grill it goes.
My latest specialty is beer can chicken. I've spent the last couple years perfecting it, trying different types of beer with it. My personal favorite is Guinness, but others like a lager which gives it a sweet taste. The directions on the various recipes say to leave it for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. That was always a bit tricky. I found that depending on the size of the chicken it could be shorter. Also, I'm usually cooking for 8, so I usually make two at the same time. There is nothing like pouring the beer into the bowl with the chicken and dipping a fork-full of chicken into the beer sauce. Yummy! I think I'll make that for lunch tomorrow now that I think about it.
Anyway, after a couple of times where I had to perch the chicken back on the grill when I thought it was ready, or it was way overcooked and tasted dry, I decided I wanted to try something different.
I decided to experiment with temperature gauges, and came across the perfect one for an iPhone loving BBQ chef like myself, the iGrill!
They have a device with temperature probes to go into your meat on the BBQ. And it connects to a free app on your iPhone or Android via bluetooth. The app is unbelievable. You can set up timers for various types of meat and when it gets with five degrees of it, it'll give you an alert and you can go get it. It will give you recommended temperatures for your steak for rare, medium, medium rare, or however you like it cooked. Here's a screenshot of it.
I found it stunningly accurate. I could poke the probe into my chicken, set the timer, and walk off. I wouldn't have to check it every 30 minutes letting out precious heat in the grill to make sure it was okay or whether it was ready. I don't have to slice a bit inside to see if its cooked, thereby releasing precious chicken juices. It'd just vibrate my phone and by extension, my pebble smartwatch as well. If you don't know about the pebble, check my prior article about it.
On the right is a picture of the device itself, with the probes.
My conclusion - if you like to BBQ, and want to have a way to measure your meat's internal temperature so you know when it's ready, AND you have an iPhone, this is a must have! I was able to buy it off Amazon for only $79.95.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I have so far, I don't know how I did without this!
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