The Essential Ice Step You Can't Skip When Prepping For A Barbecue

Setting up for a barbecue takes more planning than some folks might think. Splurging on wagyu hot dogs and saving a spot for your famous Carolina coleslaw are good starts, but exceptional food shouldn't be your only concern. Guests are going to be looking for cold refreshments to wash down all that barbecue fare, and if you didn't prepare enough ice in advance, they might end up flocking to the nearest watering hole for a chilled cocktail.

Unless you are only serving a small handful of acquaintances, the ice maker in your fridge door won't be enough to serve the masses. Whether it's cold cocktails or tall glasses of lemonade for the little ones, you'll need roughly a ½-pound of ice per drink. It's hard to assume how many beverages folks will consume at your shindig, but a reasonable estimate is about one drink every hour. If you have around 30 people hanging out for four hours, that's about 120 refreshments. With each one requiring half a pound of ice, you are looking at needing six 10-pound bags of ice, at a minimum.

Of course, not everyone will want a cocktail. It's common at a barbecue to see a case or two of Coors Banquet beer and a few bottles of wine chilling in an iced-down cooler. There's nothing wrong with going that route, but you still want to prepare enough ice in advance for those who aren't going to partake in cooler drinks.

You could simply fill a couple of coolers with ice to keep canned and bottled beverages cold, but adding a little variety goes a long way in the eyes of your guests. A cold beer is enough for some, but others might appreciate a refreshing Tom Collins or a margarita on the rocks. But if you plan on serving your guests a mixed drink made with ice from your beer cooler, you, my friend, have neglected your hosting duties.

Backyard barbecues are pretty laid-back environments. Yet, with that easygoing atmosphere often comes a lackadaisical approach to cleanliness. People are going to be reaching into a cooler without much consideration for the last thing they touched, meaning that the ice bath soon becomes a breeding ground for bacteria. Aside from being nasty, tossing ice into a cocktail that came from the beer cooler could ruin your cookout if someone gets sick and spends the night praying to the porcelain god. If you're serving both mixed drinks and ready-to-drink beverages at a barbecue, you need to prepare more ice so you can have a separate bucket or cooler solely devoted to cocktail ice.

And don't sleep on maintaining a suitable temperature for the star of the show: the food. Any dishes that aren't served warm need to be kept on ice as long as possible to ensure that no one leaves your get-together with a foodborne illness. Send your guests home from your barbecue raving about how much fun they had, not feeling like they need to make a beeline for the restroom.