I could smell the smoke as I approached Twickenham stadium as it towered over the surrounding houses. The scent of low and slow meat filled the air, tantalising passers-by, and setting the taste-buds on a recon mission for some deftly-charred meats.
Fume is not only London’s largest BBQ festival, but it’s the biggest in Europe, hosted this year over a long weekend in the shadow of the home of rugby. The annual event features 30 of the best barbecue pit masters the world has to offer, and is spearheaded by social foodie phenomenon Eating With Tod.
Fortunately, I was heading to where the smoked meats were being cooked and, as it turned out, I learned a thing or two just in time for BBQ season.
Hosted at the Pit Boss stand, I met East London-born Jack Rowbottom, who runs Jack’s Meat Shack in Sudbury, Suffolk. He’d prepared melt-in-your-mouth, 12 hour smoked Wagyu brisket on the Austin XL wood pellet grill, and four hour smoked honey, butter and coffee ribs — and we were along not only to taste it, but to get a master class from one of the best in the business, too.
While the meat shone, I’m now considering investing in the Austin XL. As someone who loves low and slow meats, but doesn’t have the fire skill or patience to tend to a wood-burning fire for hours on end, this could be the answer:
The Austin XL takes the hassle out of smoking, with a clever onboard computer automatically feeding wood pellets to the burner to maintain a constant temperature. It’s a smoker you can set and forget for 12 hours and come back to wonderfully cooked brisket and more.
Once I’d finished gawping at the grills, Jack had me making a smash burger while imparting his top tips for your smashed patties and BBQs this summer.
5 top tips for perfect smash burgers
1. Embrace the fat
Jack says “fatty mince is key. Go to the supermarket and look for something with 20% fat. Some supermarket chains do 25%, but I think you lose a bit of flavour with that, so 20% would be my goal.”
He mentions beef is his go-to, but you can try other meat. “Pork can work quite nicely, but you need the fat content there.”
You can also use leaner meat - Jack suggests turkey or chicken thigh mince, ideally something with a line of fat running through it - but you’ll need to season the cooking surface with fat to help the flavour. He recommends Spanish avocado oil, as it has a high smoke point. You’ll want to watch the heat, and don’t cook leaner meat as high as it’ll dry out.
2. Don’t get greedy
I was presented with a 100g ball of 20% fat rib cap beef mince to cook my smash burger. No other ingredients, no binders, just pure beef. And you don’t want much more mince than that per burger, as Jack explained.
“I would go no bigger than 125g, because then you lose the thinness of the smashed patty.” Stick to his recommended weights and “the thinner, crispier and quicker your smash burger will cook.”
3. Hot and flat
When it comes to preparing your smash burger cooking surface, Jack notes you need a “nice hot, flat surface”.
I cooked my smash burger on the Pit Boss Griddle, but you can just as easily do one at home “with a cast iron pan or something that can conduct the heat really well. Stainless steel pans work nicely, [as does] carbon steel.”
4. No touching!
Patience is key when making the perfect smash burger, so don’t be tempted to move the meat around too much.
“The key is to let the ball of meat sit, render a bit of fat out of it, then press it nice and flat (we’re talking millimetres thin) against the surface”. And don’t press it more than once. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper then “don’t touch it”, Jack tells me as I close the lid of the griddle. “You want the meat to form a reaction, a bit of a caramelisation, and then it will release naturally from the surface.”
Once it’s ready, flip it, add salt, pepper and cheese to the top and cover again to allow it to steam. As Jack says, it’s “really simple. It’s a quick process.”
If you don’t have one of the best BBQs with a lid, you can instead use a frying pan with a lid, or a burger cloche, to trap in the heat while the patty cooks.
5. Have everything ready
And finally, once your smashed patty is ready, you’ll want to plate it up as soon as possible and tuck in. Jack says “have everything ready, have all your sides and bits and pieces done so you don’t have to run around, get your cheese out the wrap and all that.”
Lightly toast your burger buns next to the burger as it’s finishing off, allowing the bread to soak up some of the fat and gain structural integrity, ready to hold the burger and any other sauces and toppings you want to add.
3 top BBQ tips for your summer cookouts
After tasting Jack’s work, I wasn’t letting him out of my sight until I’d got his advice on how I can elevate all the other elements of my BBQ this summer. Thankfully, he was more than happy to oblige. Here are his key points to consider.
1. Master two zone cooking
“Whatever you’re cooking on, have half the grill hot and half the grill not hot” Jack tells me. “That way you have a zone to roast, and a zone to grill.”
I’m certainly guilty of firing up the barbecue and just letting the heat rip across the whole surface, which tends to deliver varying results.
As Jack explains, with two zones “you have a safe zone - so if you’re doing something really fatty like sausages, and cooking them directly over the charcoal for 20 minutes, the fat is going to drip down and you’ll get flames and char - you want to control it. Start them off on the indirect side, close the lid, let them slowly come up to temperature.”
This will get your perfectly cooked meats, instead of the British summertime classic of burnt on the outside and raw in the middle.
2. Know your temperatures
Purely eyeballing your meat on the grill isn’t enough to achieve the perfect cook though, even if you are practising the two zone cooking approach.
“Invest in an instant read thermometer, that way you know your meat is safe to eat, you can nail a perfect steak. If you want it medium, how do you know it’s medium? The temperature.”
It’s a simple, yet effective tip, and with food thermometers starting at less than £10, it’s also an affordable investment.
3. BBQs are more than just the meat
“Don’t overcomplicate things, meat is really simple to cook” Jack says. “Sometimes it’s the sides that make a BBQ. Look at sauces, look at doing things you wouldn’t normally think to do on a BBQ. Do a dessert, do your starters, do a bit of fish.
“Desserts are really nice, because fruit takes on smoke really nicely. It becomes nice and jammy.” And I can attest to that, as I also tried a cocktail infused with pineapple Jack had smoked.
When it comes to cooking outside, Jack concludes “anything you can do in your oven you can do on your BBQ outside, especially if it has a lid.”
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