The Home Front: Getting Set for Barbecue Season

The Sun caught up with these grill masters to hear their insights into the latest barbecue technology and design, along with their tips for successful summer entertaining.

Thomson says the most important thing to remember when it comes to choosing a barbecue is find one you're comfortable with.

"If you're comfortable with the barbecue, then you're going to be a little bit more relaxed," he says. "You're going to eventually feel a little more experimental and try some different techniques." Thomson, who has won over 120 barbecue awards in Canada and the U.S. and was recently named Canadian national champion, says it's natural to feel intimidated when first trying your hand at charcoal grilling or smoking meat and says gas barbecues are a good place to start if you've got a busy family life and just want to "push a button and come back in a few hours." For those interested in trying a smoker, he recommends a Traeger as a good starting point and says Real Canadian Superstore has a good line of charcoal barbecues with their Tera Gear range.

When it comes to the tools he uses, Johnson says there are only three: a long-handled spatula, a good pair of tongs and a thermometer. Of course, he also recommends choosing good quality meat.

"People buy inexpensive cuts of meat and then work really really hard to make them taste good," he says. "Why make your job harder?I'm very conscious about what I eat and what I feed my family, so I make sure those meats are free of hormones and free of antibiotics." Johnson uses a dry brine when barbecuing, sprinkling a quarter of a teaspoon of a brine rub made up of salt, pepper and garlic ("four parts kosher salt, two parts granulated garlic and one part coarse ground pepper") on to each side of a steak and putting it in the fridge.

"It uses salt to draw moisture up out of that meat, the moisture then mixes with the salt that's on the surface and it gets reabsorbed into the meat," he says.

A common mistake people make at the barbecue is the way they cook steak, he says.

"Typically, when people put steak on the grill," he says, "they put it on the hot part of the grill. They sizzle it, sear it and try and lock in the flavours, and then move that to an indirect cooler area of the grill to finish the cook that way.

"I like to do the opposite. I start with the cooler side of the grill, and that wayI can control how long it takes for me to get up to my target temperature steak, and then I'm going to sear it at the end. The end result is a very tender steak you could cut with the side of your fork." Barbecue technology has come a long way from when George Weber, founder of the well-known Weber brand, built his first charcoal grill, says Clive, who runs Weber's Canadian Grill Academy.

"In 1952, the grill du jour was nothing more than an open-styled brazier with no lid. George worked in a factory by day, where they worked day in and out on buoys. Big metal things. He brought one home, cut it in half, and poked massive holes in it and boom, just like that he had a charcoal grill." We've gone from that to Weber releasing the iGrill , says Clive, a bluetooth thermometer that speaks to your smartphone or tablet (the device has probes that go into the meat) and lets you know when your barbecue is ready.

"Looking isn't cooking," Clive says. "How many timesdo we go into a backyard and see somebody lifting the lid, and moving the food around, and closing the lid for 30 seconds, only to lift it up again and move the found around again. I say trust your thermometer, trust your timer and keep a lid on it." Weber's new Spirit II gas barbecue in sapphire blue. Photo: Weber for by Rebecca Keillor [PNG Merlin Archive] PNG The bold colours used in Weber's new Spirit II gas grills have proven really popular, Clive says.

"Millennials today are buying more and more grills, and millennials seem to gravitate towards colour," he says. "We released Spirit II this year, and offered it up in red, sapphire, blue, ivory, white, fuchsia, purple, orange and red and boy, did they suddenly start moving off the shelf." Related The Home Front: Stargazing with London designer Lee Broom Rebecca Keillor Updated: June 23, 2018