Food and Safety for Home Barbecues

Barbecuing can produce delicious food and is a great social occasion. This leaflet gives advice on making sure that the food cooked is safe to eat.

Preparing for a Barbecue

Ensure that the grill and equipment are clean.

Depending upon the food to be cooked, a barbecue can be a spontaneous affair. Foods that are quite thin, such as burgers or fish fingers, can be cooked straight from the freezer.

Other foods, such as frozen chicken joints or other frozen items, eg chops or sausages, should be thoroughly thawed out, either overnight in the 'fridge or by using a microwave oven. Whatever the food, it is important that plenty of time is allowed for the fire to reach cooking heat. More sophisticated barbecues, such as gas fired units heat up quite quickly, whereas the ones that use charcoal briquettes or charcoal lumps need up to an hour from lighting. These are ready to cook when the coals are just white.

Cooking the Food

Make sure that the grill height is set so that the food cooks right through. It is easy to think that food is ready when the outside looks cooked, but it won't be if the grill is too near to the fire. In this case, the food can be burned on the outside, but uncooked in the middle, which can cause food poisoning.

Always ensure that poultry and 'made up meats' such as sausages and burgers are cooked thoroughly, so there are no pink bits left.

Kettle-type barbecues (those with a lid) cook food more evenly as the heat is better distributed, even though the grill is further from the heat. Joints of meat or whole chickens should only be attempted on this type of unit.

A safe way to obtain the barbecued flavour is to completely cook food in a conventional oven or in a microwave and then barbecue it until the flavours are absorbed.

Never partially cook foods in stages, ensure cooking is thorough and done in one operation.

Keep foods, such as raw meats, fish, marinades etc in the fridge until needed and try and 'cook to order' to avoid keeping cooked food for an excessive time.

If it is necessary to keep food hot, make sure that this is done in a warm oven at a temperature above 63ºC. Prepared hot sauces should also be stored in this way.

Keep cold sauces, salads etc in the fridge until ready to eat. When cooking foods, have separate plates for cooked and uncooked foods. Never put cooked food back on the plate that it was on when raw.

Protect food from flies and other contamination by keeping it covered until needed.

HAPPY BARBECUING