Comparisons · Two ways of cooking
Indirect roasting or Skewer grilling
Two techniques suited to opposite ends of the size range, which is the whole of the answer.
What each one is
Indirect roasting
Cooking with the lid down and the fire to one side, turning the barbecue into an oven that happens to smell of woodsmoke. The default for anything large.
Skewer grilling
Small pieces threaded onto skewers and cooked close over an open fire. Included because three separately sourced traditions turn out to share it, and because the skewer material — iron, bamboo, lemongrass, bicycle spoke — is a real variable that the sources themselves distinguish.
What actually differs
| Aspect | Indirect roasting | Skewer grilling |
|---|---|---|
| The fire it needs This is the difference. Everything else about the two techniques follows from where the fire is relative to the food. | Indirect heat | Direct heat |
| What it suits | Whole birds; Joints and thick cuts; Anything where the centre has a long way to travel | Small pieces that would fall through a grate; Cooking where the eater is served continuously rather than at one sitting |
| What it does not suit The more useful half of the comparison, and the half most published guidance leaves out. | Thin cuts, which will dry before they colour | Anything thick enough to need indirect heat |
| Cookers that can do it | 10 of the 11 modelled | 7 of the 11 modelled |
Which one, for what
Conditions rather than a verdict. Each line below is a thing one of them can do that the other cannot, or does without arrangement where the other needs it — taken from the what each cooker is documented as doing, rather than from a preference.
Indirect roasting, if:
- Whole birds.
- Joints and thick cuts.
- Anything where the centre has a long way to travel.
Skewer grilling, if:
- Small pieces that would fall through a grate.
- Cooking where the eater is served continuously rather than at one sitting.