When the weekend is ahead or a special occasion is looming, it is great to think about spending time with family or friends outside enjoying the smell of cooking and getting ready to eat from the barbecue. The summer months can represent some of our most pleasurable experiences.

When the weekend is ahead or a special occasion is looming, it is great to think about spending time with family or friends outside enjoying the smell of cooking and getting ready to eat from the barbecue. The summer months can represent some of our most pleasurable experiences.

You must always think of safety during grill preparation and remember that if you are careful you won't have to do too much cleanup. One of the beauties of using a gas grill is that you just have to heat it up to high-temperature and they say that you should leave the bars accumulate a certain amount of residue over time to add flavor to the finished result.

Grill preparation does not take a lot of hard thought, so long as you remember to put it in a position where it won't annoy the neighbors or your invited guests due to the accumulation of smoke. From a safety perspective, always move it to position away from anything that could burn and anything over hanging which could trap smoke.

While gas grills are a lot easier, charcoal grills take a little bit of time to put together. Nevertheless, watching it heat up can be part of the enjoyment but never try to accelerate the fire until the coals become white-hot by squirting some kind of starter fluid on the flames. Your focus for this weekend is on food preparation and not on first aid.

If you have stored your grill next to an outhouse or a wooden structure or even on top of a wooden deck then you need to move away from anything that might catch fire. Also consider putting a patio plate or deck protector beneath your unit and keep a fire extinguisher close at hand.

If grill preparation is fun, cleaning up is not and you should put an absorbent pad underneath the unit before you start cooking. Those drip trays are not particularly effective and when the liquid inside is hot and you try and move the grill you will inevitably cause a nasty mess. Trying to clean up a stained outdoor area is very difficult.

You will need to undergo a little bit of trial and error while you are cooking outside, whether you have a charcoal or a gas grill. Slow and steady generally wins the race as otherwise you might burn the outside before the insides are cooked, so look for low heat to start off with.

When you are making a shopping list, grill preparation should be at the top. How often have you run out of propane gas in the middle of the party? Now is the time to check the level and to get replacement tanks. A spare tank is always a good idea.