When it comes to cooking, there are people who will try just about anything at least once. They want to make sure
their food is as good as it can possibly be, and that means trying things that may seem a little odd.
One of the more popular odd techniques of late involve grilling, specifically, spraying water on meat while you’re grilling it. Is this technique actually a good technique, or is it one of those weird things that has caught on in spite of the fact that it does nothing of worth?
First, if you want to know whether or not the technique is worthwhile, you have to understand what it’s supposed to do. The idea of spraying water on your meat while it grills is a fairly simple one. Grilled meat can often wind up dry, so spraying water on it, supposedly, keeps the meat moist. Moist meat is flavorful meat, and so if you keep a gentle spritz on it, you won’t have to worry about the heat sucking out all that important flavor.
Unfortunately, the act of spraying water on grilling meat is completely worthless. It may seem like it keeps the meat moist, but that’s nothing more than a trick of the senses. Spraying meat with water does nothing more than have a small layer of moisture on the meat itself, and cool down the fire. The combination of these two things make it seem like spraying the water on your meat keeps the meat moist, but it really doesn’t.
So if you want to keep your meat moist while it’s grilling, what should you do? The old tried and true method of keeping your meat moist is marination. Many people dislike marination because it requires so much prep time, but if you want to keep your meat moist, it’s really the best way.
But what if you can’t manage to marinate the meat properly? As unfortunate as it is, not everyone can prepare several days in advance so that their meat is properly marinated. This is why bar-b-que sauce was invented. If you can’t manage to marinate your meat properly, you want to make sure you have a great sauce.
If you slather the sauce on the meat while it’s grilling, this actually will help keep the meat moist. This is because the sauce gets cooked into the meat, thus allowing some amount of flavor and moistness to seep into the skin. Thus, if you can’t manage to marinate the meat, make sure to sauce it up!
Personally, I like the idea of making your own flavored grill spray. Watch the video below to learn more about it.
At the end of the day, there’s no real harm in spraying your meat with water while it grills. If you find that the technique really works for you, then by all means, use it. However, it’s not an incredibly useful technique, and if you’re trying to keep your meat moist, you’ll find much more use in actual marinades. If you’ve never tried proper marination, give it a shot. You may wind up being pleasantly surprised.
