Tips, tricks, and facts

[Rev. Rex]

Barbecue tips and facts:

* To clean a grill, make a paste by mixing equal parts of baking soda and water, then apply with a wire brush, wipe clean, and dry.

* To clean the grill, spray the grill with oven cleaner, place in a black trash bag, close it with a twisty tie, then set it in the sun for 3-4 hours. At the end of this time, remove the grill and spray it off with the garden hose.

* For a quick and easy barbeque sauce, mix Coke with Ketchup.

* After barbequing, sprinkle salt over the charcoals to help keeping them from flaring up.

* Cut the bottom out of a 3 lb coffee can to form a tube, and cut a few holes in the side with a pair of tin stips (or similar). Place this in the middle of the bbq, fill with briquettes, add briquette lighter fluid, then light. The can will cause the charcoal to burn faster and more evenly, so that when they are gray on the oudside, you can remove the can using some long handled tongs and the bbq will be ready to go much more quickly.


Facts related to Barbeques:

More than 3 out of 4 households in the US own barbecue grills, and use them an average of 5 times a month. Almost half of these families barbecue in the winter months.

President Johnson asked french chef Rene Verdon, who had been hired by Jackie-O, if he could cook "Texan". Verdon replied, "I don't cook fried chicken, corn bread, or barbecue." Verdon later quit the White House and opened a restaurant in San Francisco.

The largest one day barbecue in the world was held at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on June 21, 1988, with 35,072 people attending. They achieved the record for the most amount of meat consumed at a barbecue when they devoured 20,130 pounds of pork in 5 hours.