Brazilian BBQ is simultaneously a familiar concept to many Americans and something unique to imported Brazilian culture.
The concept of cooking meat over an open flame has existed more or less as long as both meat and flame have existed, and it’s something that pretty much every food culture around the world has developed. Different regions and different cultures have developed their own twists on the formula, and centuries of development (and, in some cases, millennia) have led to a wealth of unique and interesting versions of the humble BBQ.
One of the main details that makes Brazilian BBQ unique is our method of cooking using an open flame. This is familiar to Americans who grill over their own open flames, but the Brazilian method of churrasco that uses an open flame is unique in several ways. Let’s talk about it!
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Brazilian BBQ Fuel
One of the biggest aspects of churrasco that is unique to Brazilian grilling is the fuel we use to produce the flame and heat that cooks the meat.
What’s interesting is that the traditional fuel and the modern fuel aren’t the same.
The traditional churrasco came from gauchos grilling meat over open flames out on the prairies of Brazil. This necessitated using whatever fuel was readily available, and as such, usually ended up being hardwood wood chips. As the grill aficionados among you know, different kinds of hardwood can lend different flavors to the meat you cook over them due to unique compounds found in the smoke they produce when burned.
Usually, traditional Brazilian churrasco avoids the more flavorful wood chips because the goal isn’t to make the meat taste like the fire; it’s to make the meat taste like meat. You’ll see this come up a lot, and we’ll discuss it more in a later section.
Of course, modern-day churrasco is a little different. For one thing, we’re not just cooking meat on the open plains; we’re cooking it in restaurants and in households. You can really cook churrasco over pretty much any kind of fuel you want.
That said, we generally prefer a wood or charcoal fuel, and even then, usually a more neutral wood or natural charcoal rather than a fuel made with chemically saturated charcoal briquettes or a gas or propane grill. There’s just something a little bit nicer about cooking over a more natural flame than one made from a refined petroleum product, you know?
All of that aside, the important part of churrasco isn’t necessarily picking the right fuel; it’s cooking the meat the right way. If all you have access to is a propane flame, then by all means, use propane. We won’t judge you too harshly for it.
Brazilian BBQ Grills
Another big difference between various kinds of BBQ around the world and the traditional Brazilian churrasco is the grill we use.
Stretching back over a hundred years, to the time when churrasco was invented on the plains, the “grill” was very simple. Gauchos would dig a pit for the coals and flames because otherwise, the winds of the plains could carry heat away or make it a fire hazard. The grill itself was little more than this pit, and a rack placed over the top where the skewers holding meat could be held. Sometimes, the racks could hold whole slabs of beef vertically; others use a pair of rails to let you balance a skewer horizontally.
Most other forms of BBQ around the world use a grill that has, well, a grill on top of it. The “grill marks” from American BBQ are bits of extra-cooked and crispy lines of flavor where the meat directly contacts the grill over the heat.
Churrasco doesn’t have that. Because the meat is skewered and cooked evenly over the heat, the whole of the outside is able to get whatever level of crust you want to get out of it. Meanwhile, the interior stays nice and tender, as rare as you like it, and can be cooked easily by managing the height and position of the skewer over the heat.
Modern Brazilian BBQ grills are a bit more elaborate, of course. For example, the grill here at Texas de Brazil is a stone and metal “trench” filled with charcoal, where we keep our flames hot and our meat sizzling above it. Of course, since we’re indoors, we don’t need to worry about shelter from the wind, and we can have more finely tuned control over the flame and the heat.
There’s also the nod to modern health and safety, with ventilation and other features to make it safe and effective for our gauchos and no less delicious for you.
For the home cooks, you can use pretty much any grill you want to, as long as it’s capable of putting out enough heat. Some people do just fine with a classic Weber kettle grill. Others use specialized churrasco grill machines or enclosed, rotisserie-style convection ovens to achieve a similar effect using electric heating or gas flames. Some people even use more modern inventions like the Joetisserie to cook their own at-home churrasco.
Just like the choice of fuel, the choice of grill isn’t as important as the choice of meat, spice, and cooking method. Churrasco is very flexible and is meant to be enjoyed rather than some kind of prescriptive process to follow every step of the way.
Brazilian BBQ Skewers
Perhaps one of the most important elements of Brazilian BBQ, and one of the more unique elements compared to many other BBQ-style cuisines around the world, is our use of skewers to suspend the meat over the heat.
Skewers are very valuable for cooking meat in a way that doesn’t always have consistent heat, the way the traditional churrasco over the plains functioned. Since controlling the heat with precision was off the table, the easiest way to control the cooking of the meat was to adjust how close it was to the fire. Skewers are an easy and relatively safe way to do exactly that.
Skewers also allow for a few unique processes to occur with churrasco cooking and serving.
The first is that you get a nice, even crust all around the outside of the meat. It’s easy to balance and position the meat at whatever angle you want, and you don’t have things like the grill getting in the way and leaving uneven grill marks on the meat. You also don’t have to worry about it sticking to a surface and tearing, and with meat as tender as the cuts we offer, you certainly run that risk.
The second is in serving. Especially when you serve your meat in the rodizio style, you take the skewer out and cut off the cooked outer parts. The interior of the meat (especially if it’s a thicker cut of meat) isn’t cooked yet, but that’s fine. When the exterior, the part that has been cooked perfectly, is all trimmed away, you simply return the skewer to the fire and start the process over again. This way, every bite of meat is cooked perfectly instead of having those rich and flavorful outer bits and a less flavorful inner portion like you would get in other cooking methods.
Obviously, this doesn’t necessarily work the same way with every cut of meat. When we cook chicken drumettes over the fire, we don’t cut off an outer portion of them to serve since they’re small enough to be cooked and served in their entirety.
There are even specialized kinds of skewers you can use for other kinds of meats. A broad sausage can be skewered over a forked tine skewer so it doesn’t slip and rotate when you try to turn it and doesn’t need to be precisely skewered down the middle. You can even “skewer” ground meat on a broad, flat skewer, though this is actually seen a lot more often in Middle Eastern cuisine than in Brazilian BBQ.
If you’re curious to learn more, we have a deeper dive into the skewers we use, the variations available, and the history behind them in this post. Give it a read, and you might just be convinced to pick up a set of skewers for yourself.
Brazilian BBQ Spices
Another way that Brazilian BBQ differs from other forms of BBQ is the way the open flames of the churrasco grill play with the spices used in the meats we cook over that open flame.
Most of the time, traditional churrasco does not really use spices.
Take our menu, for example. On the list of meats we have on offer, there are sixteen listed. Of these, only the barbecued pork ribs, spicy sirloin, parmesan drumettes, parmesan-crusted pork loin, and garlic picanha have what you would consider a spice mixture, rub, or marinade to them.
All of the rest, like our regular picanha, the filet mignon and petit filet, and the flank steak, have a much simpler “spice” rub to them. All we do is add coarse salt to the outside.
This salt plays a very important role in the cooking process for churrasco. It pulls some moisture from the meat, which then reabsorbs both the moisture that lingers, the rendered fat from the cooking meat, and some of the salt. This naturally enhances the flavors of the meats without overriding them with the flavor of a spice mixture or marinade. Depending on the fuel used, it can also absorb some of the flavors of the smoke, though this isn’t necessarily going to be overly impactful.
Before you worry about getting overly salty cuts of meat, set those concerns aside. Yes, the outside of the meat is crusted with salt while it cooks. And yes, when we bring a skewer to your table, we cut the outside layers off to give you (depending on the cut, of course). But the majority of the salt is scraped off before it’s brought out to you.
It’s important to do that because no one wants to bite down on a tender piece of meat and find a crunchy chunk of almost rock salt between their teeth. More than that, though, the salt can be readily reused for further cooking until it has all been dissolved and absorbed into the meats we cook.
Brazilian BBQ is all about open-flame cooking because, at the end of the day, it’s a celebration of the flavors of the meats. Even our spicy picanha, garlic picanha, or parmesan pork are all more nods to an international audience than they are staples of the Brazilian table.
Doing Brazilian BBQ The Right Way
While we’ve talked a lot about the right way to cook Brazilian barbecue, the truth is, there is no one right way to do it. Fans of Texas BBQ know exactly what we’re talking about. After all, the origin of Brazilian BBQ is from Rio Grande do Sul, known as the Texas of South America. And, just like American BBQ, everyone thinks they know the one right way to make it, and everyone is, in their own way, correct.
Getting churrasco right really just comes down to three things:
- The meat, which should be the kinds of cuts you find the most delicious.
- The heat, which should be an open flame of some kind, if you can swing it.
- The skewers, which allow for the control, texture, and cooking method of traditional churrasco.
As long as you can get those elements correct, you’ve made it. Everything else is a matter of preference and the resources available to you to make your own Brazilian BBQ.
And if you can’t? Well, that’s why we’re here. Texas de Brazil is dedicated to bringing a fusion of traditional churrasco and modern American steakhouse dining to audiences all around the world. You don’t need to buy the equipment and learn how to make Brazilian BBQ yourself; you can just find your nearest Texas de Brazil and come visit us directly. We’d love to show you how it’s done and convince you why it’s some of the best BBQ in the world.
