Top 5 BBQ Accessories for New Pit-masters 2021
Why you need them
You can certainly make some great BBQ without to use of anything other than your smoker, fuel, meat and wood. However, there are a few tools that we think are certainly worth the investment. In this list, we will go over 5 BBQ accessories that we think every pit-master should have, especially new ones.
How These Tools Help
The BBQ accessories we are going to go over cover a variety of uses. For example, keeping you safe, monitoring temperatures, flavoring food, etc. As you can see, some of these are a really good idea to have at your disposal as you take up BBQ. A lot of these tools are ones that we use ourselves or wish we had.
How to Prioritize What you Need
This list will pretty much be in the correct order (in our opinion), but we will share our thoughts on how to choose the tools you should add to your BBQ collection.
- Grill Cleaning Tools
- We recommend getting a grill cleaning kit right off the bat. This small investment will help keep your bigger investment (the smoker) running great and keep your food tasting great for a much longer time than if you skip over this. It is important to have the tools to keep your smoker working to the best of its ability. Plus scrubbing down the grill only takes a few minutes. Trust us, you need this.
- Temperature Measuring Tools
- We think a temperature probe is the first thing you should get to help your barbecue skills out. Having a probe affords you a lot of time as you don’t have to continue checking your meat every 15-30 minutes to check the temperature. Better yet, most have multiple probe ports that allow you to monitor the meat temperature as well as the cooking chamber temperature. An Instant-Read thermometer will save you from keeping the lid off on faster cooks.
- Waterproof/Heat Resistant Gloves
- Admittedly, this is more a quality of life item to add to your arsenal, but they are incredibly useful. There are a few kinds of gloves you can find: pure waterproof, very high heat resistant, and a combination of the two. The kind you should consider depends on what you cook mostly. All around, I recommend a pair of gloves that are waterproof and moderately heat resistant. They are incredibly versatile
- Coolers
- Coolers are phenomenal for buying time for your cook. If your cook finishes up early, just throw it in the cooler to stay warm for several hours. Pork shoulders (not pulled) will stay piping hot, but not continue to cook in the cooler for 2-4 hours. It is a great place to buy time and rest your meat at the same time
- Flavoring
- We lumped everything like injectors and wraps into this category, because there are so many options and opinions here. We believe these should be had for experimentation, but aren’t necessarily essential. Plenty of people, us included, cook without wraps or injections all the time. However, you sure can make some killer barbecue with them.
Top 10 BBQ Accessories for New Pit-masters
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1. Grilljoy Grill Cleaning Kit
This grill cleaning kit may be boring pick, but it is an essential pick and one we stand behind, especially for a new pit master. Having the tools to keep your grill clean will not only increase the lifespan of your smoker, but it will also help make your food taste better because the charred bits from the last cook won’t be sitting on the grate. All it takes is a quick scrub down while the grill is hot and you’re good to go.
2. ThermoPro TP20 Wireless
The ThermoPro TP20 Wireless is our favorite barbecue probe for 2021 and the one we cook with. It is a good blend of value and functionality. The TermoPro comes with 2 probes that you run simultaneously. They can be used to measure the grate-level temperature and the meat temperature, for example. Both probes will sound an alarm if the temperature is outside the set perameter. As you can tell, this is a very useful tool to keep an eye on those temperatures.
3. RAPICCA BBQ Oven Gloves 14″
The RAPICCA BBQ Oven Gloves 14″ are our favorite gloves to use for bbq. These gloves are 14″ long and pretty much protect your full forearm. They are waterproof and heat resistant up to over 900 degrees F. That is far more than you will probably ever encounter with bbq, but they will allow you to grab meat straight off the smoker and not risk losing what you worked so hard for by using tools you have laying around!
4. Lavatools Javelin Pro
The Javelin Pro is another staple for a lot of pitmasters, us included. It is one of those tools that we couldn’t believe we waited so long to get. It reads in 1-3 seconds to within a degree of accuracy and up to over 450 degrees. Plus it is ambidextrous due to the rotating display and swiveling probe. This thermometer is great for checking temps quickly. We use this with every cook, including our St. Louis style spare ribs to check for temperature AND tenderness.
5. Coleman 48-Quart Cooler
This cooler is a great size to double as meat storage or drink cooling (after washing, of course). Most people think of coolers as a place to keep stuff cold, but they work the other way, too. Coolers are a great way to keep your bbq warm for a few hours while it rests. This is extremely handy if you are cooking toward a deadline.
6. Flavoring (Bonus)
There are too many products in this category to pick just one and it is far too subjective, but we feel that new cooks should branch out and try some new techniques when they cook as it won’t do anything but build skills and confidence. For example, some people swear by butcher paper to create the perfect bark, others love foil and some don’t wrap at all. Some people like to use injectors, and some people don’t. We would recommend you just spend some time cooking and experimenting with these kinds of products. You might surprise yourself with what you end up liking.
These are all of our recommendations for the Top 5 BBQ Accessories for New Pit-masters 2021! This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but contains some great choices from our point of view.
