BBQ advice

Barbecue food safety tips

As a barbecue chef, you are not only responsible for your guests’ enjoyment – you also have the pressure of being responsible for their health! Don't let food poisoning ruin your BBQ, instead, brush up on these tips for food safety:

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Avoid cross-contamination

  • Shopping
    Pack raw meat in a separate bag to your vegetables and sundries. If you don’t, juices from the meat can drip onto the other items and cause contamination.

  • Storing
    As soon as you’re home from the shops, refrigerate the goods – again keeping raw meat and vegetables away from each other. If you don’t plan to use the meat for a couple of days, get it in the freezer as soon as you have the chance.

  • Marinating
    When preparing your foods for the grill, be careful never to mix different raw foods (i.e. fish and chicken) in the same marinade. Always keep them in separate containers.

  • Chopping
    Use separate chopping boards, plates and utensils for handling raw and cooked foods.

  • Grilling
    Cross-contamination can take place on the grill itself, so always keep raw meat away from partially, or fully, cooked meat.

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Defrost frozen goods thoroughly

  • Fridge
    Make sure you thoroughly defrost frozen meat in the fridge 24 hours in advance of your barbecue. Don’t simply let it defrost on a work surface at room temperature.

  • Microwave
    If you don’t have time to defrost in the fridge, most microwaves have a “defrost” feature which helps to thaw food in a matter of minutes. Be certain the food isn’t still frozen in the middle before putting it on the grill.

  • Don’t refreeze
    Do not refreeze food that has already defrosted. If you think you have too much food, it is safer to barbecue it all and freeze the thoroughly cooked food.

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Get a head start

Microwaves are also very useful for starting off the cooking process, thus reducing grill time. You can even finish one dish on the barbecue while you start another in the microwave.

If you do adopt this approach, be warned that you need very good timing! You can’t allow the food to cool down after pre-cooking in a microwave, it needs to go straight onto the preheated grill to finish off – so make certain the barbecue is clear and ready for use.

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Cook it through

Exposed to a very high heat, food will brown – even blacken - very quickly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the centre is cooked.

Find out by cutting into the centre and checking it's colour - if your chicken, pork, sausages, burgers or kebabs are at all pink in the middle, leave them grilling. If the meat juices run clear the meat is ready.

If you don’t want to spoil the presentation of your food with a large incision, use a meat thermometer to determine when your food is fully cooked.

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Use clean equipment

Before handling food, cooked or otherwise, wash your hands and any utensils you plan to use, so that bacteria won’t be transferred onto safely cooked food.

Wash salads and raw vegetables well to remove all traces of soil and insects.

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Keep it covered

Cover all food to protect it from dust and insects.

The list of rules may seem lengthy, but in practice it does nothing to hinder the alfresco experience.

As the old adage claims, “If something’s worth doing then it’s worth doing properly” – and we all know a barbecue is definitely worth doing!

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Related articles

Using alfresco appliances safely
Further information on how to enjoy an alfresco lifestyle while taking care of the wider environment.