Barbecue Myths That Will Not Die

Searing seals in the juices

It does not. This originated with the chemist Justus von Liebig in the 1840s and was disproved within decades, but it is still repeated constantly. Seared meat loses as much moisture as unseared meat, sometimes slightly more. Sear because the Maillard reaction creates enormous flavour, not because it seals anything.

Soak your wood chips

Water does not meaningfully penetrate wood in half an hour, it sits on the surface. Soaked chips spend their first minutes producing steam, then produce exactly the same smoke they would have anyway. If you want longer smoke, use bigger chunks.

Beer can chicken

The beer never gets hot enough inside the can to steam meaningfully into the cavity, and the can blocks the cavity that would otherwise circulate hot air. It also stands the bird upright, putting the thighs at the top away from the heat, which is backwards. Spatchcocking beats it on every measure.

Bone-in meat has more flavour

Bone is not porous and flavour does not migrate out of it into the surrounding meat during a cook. What the bone does do is genuinely useful: it conducts heat differently, so meat near the bone cooks more slowly and stays juicier, and it protects one side from direct radiant heat. Buy bone-in for those reasons, not for flavour transfer.

Only flip once

Repeated flipping actually cooks meat slightly faster and more evenly, because neither side spends long enough away from the heat to cool. The one-flip rule exists because it gives better grill marks and stops people fussing. Flip as often as you like.

The smoke ring proves good barbecue

The pink ring under the bark is a chemical reaction between nitrogen dioxide from the fire and myoglobin in the meat. It is purely cosmetic and has no flavour. You can produce one with curing salt and no smoke at all, and you can cook superb barbecue with almost no ring. Judge by taste.