Low and slow cooking involves cooking food at a low temperature for a long time, often used for grilling or smoking meat to avoid burning or drying out the meat and add flavor. Indirect cooking is used, and meat smokers allow for low, slow cooking while smoking the meat. The process can also be applied to other forms of cooking.
Low and slow is a term used when referring to foods cooked for a fairly long time at a low temperature, often used for grilling or grilling that involves smoking meat. This is generally accomplished by indirect heat cooking, such as inside a smoker or on a grill. The purpose of low, slow cooking is to allow the meat to cook fully, but to avoid burning or drying out the meat in the process, and to avoid smoking to add flavor and depth to the meat itself during the cooking process.
When grilling or barbecuing, low and slow cooking is usually achieved through indirect cooking. This is the process of cooking foods, often meat, on the grill so that you are not exposing the meat directly to the heat of the fire or charcoal inside the grill. With charcoal grills, this is generally accomplished by moving the briquettes to one side and placing the food on the other side of the grill. For gas barbecues with multiple ranges, this is often done by only using the range on one side but placing the food on the other side.
Meat smokers allow for low, slow cooking while simultaneously smoking the meat. The meat is placed in a closed smoker with hardwood chips such as walnut, oak or apple wood, which are burned and produce smoke. Smoking the meat exposes it to fairly low temperatures, which cooks it slowly and allows the smoke to penetrate the meat, usually adding depths of flavor otherwise unobtainable.
The process of smoking meat also typically adds a “smoke ring” to the meat, which many barbecue and smoked meat enthusiasts look for as a sign of high quality. This smoke ring is a slightly pink layer of meat just below the surface of the skin that runs around the circumference of the smoked meat. The smoke ring can typically only be achieved through low, slow cooking in a smoker and can often be the result of hours or even days of slow smoking the meat.
While the term low and slow is often used of barbecuing, the process of slowly cooking food at low temperatures can be applied to other forms of cooking as well. While frying at low temperatures can produce undesirable results, roasting in the oven and pan can include both slow and slow cooking for varying results. For foods like peppers and onions, low, slow cooking is often preferable, as it allows the food to soften without burning. Similarly, garlic is often cooked this way, as burnt garlic takes on a bitter taste that is far less pleasant than the sweet, earthy taste of lightly sauteed garlic.
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