THE COOKERY SCHOOL

WHERE Weber Grill Academy, Stoke Newington, London (grillacademy.co.uk; locations nationwide)

THE COURSE American Barbecue, £129 for 4 hours

TESTED BY Hugh Thompson

NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE Outside at Meat N16

Kai uses a chimney starter

Beef brisket with smoke ring

WHAT IT’S LIKE The Weber Grill Academy runs different courses at various venues across the UK. London has two venues: The Jolly Gardeners pub in Earlsfield, south London; and, north of the river, Meat N16, a butcher’s shop and deli, which I visited. Instructors are trained by Weber in how to operate the barbecues and cook the recipes.

After donning our aprons and meeting our teacher for the day, a dapper butcher called Kai Marsand, we were given a glass of something chilled and started prepping. The various tasks, divvied up among the group of eight or so, included making slaw, removing the tough outer ‘silverskin’ off whole packs of ribs, preparing spicy potato wedges (my task), trimming and coating chicken wings and mixing up barbecue sauce. Kai went round making sure everyone was clear about what they had to do, helping them if need be. Next, as the rain had stopped (classic barbecuing weather), Kai fired up the barbecues…

WHAT I LEARNED American barbecue, or smokehouse cuisine, is mainly performed with the barbecue hood down and uses a combination of heat and smoke from woodchips to cook and add flavour. The prepped food (chicken wings, rack of ribs, potato wedges, smoked hickory barbecue sauce) was distributed between various barbecues, then Kai talked us through the basics: direct and indirect heat; lighting a barbecue using charcoal briquettes and a tool called a chimney starter (it helps the coals reach the correct temperature faster); what charcoal to use (lumpwood) and how to soak and use wood chips… There was a lot of information flying around and it would have been good to get a more detailed pack of instructions.