BBQ Party Calculator

You will find bbq written in thousands of different ways: Barbecue, BarBQ, Bar-B-Q, Bar-B-Cue. Call it what you want. The word itself points to cooking over live flame and smoky foods, although the exact method changes a lot based on the place where you find yourself.

Australians and New Zealanders use their own name for it: “barbie” or “barby“.

Different Kinds of Barbecue

Here is where everything gets tricky… The meaning of bbq changes based on the region. At its base, it means cooking directly above open flame or heat source, but that is a very broad field.

Ask around various areas what truly is real bbq, and you will soon start a wild fight. In Australia, any grilling or cooking above flame outside gets the label of bbq. Sausages (they call them snags), steaks, kebab sticks, lamb chops and hamburgers all belong to typical Australian bbq spreads.

Enter a typical American bbq meal, and you will see beef brisket, pork ribs, beef ribs, chicken, pulled pork and hot sausages, all smoked or cooked low and slowly. They serve them as sandwiches or on plates. Ribs and pulled pork go well with homemade baked beans, together with hamburgers and hot dogs.

As side dishes, grilled corn on the cob covered with sauce, melted butter and bbq rubs hit differently. Coleslaw, potato salad, macaroni salad, deviled eggs and sides like stuffed potatoes end most menus.

When you plan a bbq party, planning of amounts really matters. Start with a list of guests, that tells you how much to buy. Adults usually take around one pound of meet for one sitting.

Whole meat parts weigh about half to three-quarter pound per person. Children eat around a quarter pound of meat. Leftover bbq meat?

Count around four pieces per person as a guess. Wings served alone? I found that seven to ten pieces per person disappear quickly.

If other dishes mix in, five or six ribs per person work well.

Briskets are popular in bbq, but here is the thing, it loses around thirty to fifty percent of its weight during smoking. A whole brisket of sixteen to eighteen pounds needs around eighteen hours in the smoker to perfect it. Boston butt cooks a bit more quickly, with twelve to fifteen pound pieces needing around twelve hours.

Do it too quickly, and you end up with raw meat (not funny). Smart idea? Hold backup hamburger patties and sausages or hotdogs ready for surprise guests or those that choose there own food.

Low and slow cooking is the heart of bbq culture everywhere. What connects all those different local styles across the world is gentle heat with thick meat pieces that change into something tender and delicious. Even today you can reachgreat results with a basic smoker for pork butt.