Barbecue is as American as road trips or elastic waistbands. It's casual. It's unpretentious. And it's open to everyone.

In the South, barbecue connotes ramshackle roadside joints that lure passing motorists with the smoky whiff of roasting pork and beef. Here, it's synonymous with a backyard cookout on a summer evening, a cold drink in one hand, a spatula in the other, during the precious few days of summer.

If only making good barbecue were as easy at it seemed. Although most backyard cooks would be loathe to admit it, the heat is often hard to control, leaving chicken dry and stringy, and hamburgers charred beyond recognition.

But there are secrets to great barbecue that a few local cooks seem to have mastered. The first of these is time.

At only 24, Ryan Mikal of Skaneateles is known by his friends - who include area cooks and culinary-school-trained chefs - as the master of all things grilled. Having cooked for a five-star resort in Vail, Colo. and managed a small restaurant in Vermont, Mikal has worked with some talented chefs, but says he learned everything he knows about barbecue from his dad, a highway worker with a passion for grilling.

“The best meals of my entire life have come off his Weber,” he said, “and they have not been quick.”

Patience likewise seems to dominate Mikal's approach, beginning with his choice of cooking over charcoal to his “five-hour hamburger,” a recipe for mini hamburgers, stuffed with cheddar cheese and slowly grilled to juicy perfection. To manage the heat over long-term cooking, Mikal creates different heat zones. He rakes the red hot coals to one side of the grill for searing and covers burning coals with fresh ones on the other side for low, slow cooking over indirect heat.

“Low and slow is key for moisture and flavor,” he said.

Mikal has grilled everything from Thanksgiving turkeys to pineapple and watermelon slices, whose flavor he says are enhanced by a little searing over direct heat.

But not all grilled meals need to be long and complicated. Indeed, Mikal's favorite grilling memory involves a meal he had with his dad on a small island in the middle of a lake in Illinois. That night, he said, they threw some clams on the coals and mixed up a dipping sauce consisting of lemon, butter, garlic and hot sauce.

“When the clams opened up, we dipped 'em in the sauce. (We paired it with) Budweiser,” he said.

Marinated vegetables are also easy to do on the grill and offer a quick and healthy alternative to meat-based meals. Sweet corn on the cob in the husk is also a snap, he said, and tastes great when slathered with sour cream and sprinkled with fresh cilantro, a fresh jalapeno and Parmesan cheese.

No matter what he grills, though, he always adds the one thing you can't slice, stir or baste, but you can almost always taste.

“Love is the most important ingredient in cooking. Period,” he said.

And when it comes to barbecue, many grill masters put their love into the sauce. Perhaps no local cook does this so well as “Rasta Tom” Armstrong, a chef at Rosalie's Cucina in Skaneateles and the creator of Tom's Bootleg BBQ Sauce.

A member of a large extended family, Armstrong associates barbecue sauce with weekend family parties, featuring the “rippin' soul food” tradition his grandparents brought with them from the South. The heroes of these meals were the pulled pork or spare ribs the men in his family made, using carefully guarded family recipes.

“My uncle and my grandfather took their barbecue sauce recipes to the grave,” he said.

Without a family recipe to draw from, Armstrong first started developing his own sauce in 1997, incorporating flavors from the different cuisines he'd mastered during two decades of professional cooking.

“From France to Italy, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, South of the Dixie, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and then I tweaked it,” he said.

It took him years to get the formula right, but he now sells his sweet and tangy sauce at area specialty stores such as Nelson Farms Country Store on Route 20, Green Hills supermarket in Syracuse and Joe's Pasta Garage in Skaneateles.

He says his sauce can be used for marinating, dipping or basting, but cautions against dousing meat at the outset with barbecue sauce, unless it is cooked over indirect heat. Instead, Armstrong suggests patting meat down with a dry rub and adding the sauce shortly before serving it with generous helpings of collard greens, baked beans and mac and cheese.

For those who prefer to let someone else do the cooking, a southern-style barbecue joint is just around the corner. On the rise overlooking Cayuga Lake, next to a decrepit wooden barn where swallows swoop and nest, Mo's Pit BBQ and Cowboy Cuisine in Cayuga looks like two double-wide trailers with an add on, painted red. The parking lot is crushed gravel and two blackened iron smokers pump the sweet apple and hickory smoke into the air, drawing diners inside for what their noses tells them will be delicious.

More concerned with authentic food than fancy decor, owner Kevin Morriseey has left the place refreshingly humble, with a formica counter and half a dozen tables covered with plastic tablecloths. The result is worth the ride.

Mo's roasts its meat for 12 hours in a rotisserie wood-fired smoker, then slices and pulls them into hearty sandwiches served on soft white rolls to soak up the homemade sauce. Labeled simply as No. 1 and No. 2 sauce, Mo's two levels of barbecue sauce are made from jalapenos grown out front and smoked out back. Homemade baked beans with smoked tomatoes, homemade lemonade and a chocolate Texas sheet cake round out the meal with flavors that complement the main event.

And from the crispy smoky skin on the ribs to the roll of paper towels on the table, Mo's delivers the experience that barbecue embodies and a true grill master can achieve: uncomplicated food, a relaxed atmosphere and the taste and smell of summer.

So however you choose to enjoy your barbecue this summer remember that this is not just another 30-minute meal. Take a lesson from these local grill masters, slow down, fiddle around with your sauce and above all, put a little love into it.

Ryan Mikal's Grilled Chicken

Chicken breast with bone

Barbecue sauce of choice

Salt chicken with kosher salt and pepper.

Sear meat over coals.

Move to indirect heat, bone side down.

Baste meat every 20 to 30 minutes.

‘Rasta Tom' Armstrong's Spare Ribs

Pork ribs

Dry rub

Barbecue sauce

Season meat on both sides, any way you like it (salt and pepper and dry rub should suffice).

Fill a roasting pan with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water. Put meat in pan and roast in the oven at 275 to 325 degrees for 3 to 4 hours.

Once cooked, let them cool and then sear them on the grill. Once seared, transfer them to indirect heat and let cook for 15 to 30 minutes.

Serve with Tom's Bootleg BBQ Sauce.

‘Rasta Tom' Armstrong's Mac & Cheese

1 box and a half of elbow macaroni

4 cup cheddar cheese

1 cup asiago cheese

1 cup romato locatelli cheese

1 cup mozzarella cheee

1 quart half and half

1 cup Corn starch

Boil macaroni in pan of salted water until cooked. Drain.

Over low heat, add half and half and a pinch of white pepper. Bring sauce to boil.

In a bowl, mix together 1 cup of corn starch and 1 cup of water. Add corn starch mixture to boiling cream. Next, stir in cheeses until melted.

Pour cheese sauce over macaroni and bake for 20 to 30

minutes at 325 degrees.

Serve with favorite barbecued items.

Ryan Mikal's Five-Hour Hamburger

Ground beef

Extra sharp Vermont cheddar cheese

Ketchup

Worcestershire sauce

Brown sugar

Soy sauce

Onions

Garlic

Tabasco

French baguette

Mayonnaise

Pickles

Pickled Jalapenos

Mix together to taste: ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, soy sauce, onions, garlic, Tabasco (or cayenne pepper). Add mixture to ground beef.

Roll meat into 1- to 2-inch balls.

Make a depression in the top, and stuff with extra sharp Vermont cheddar cheese. Pinch meat back over hole.

Sear burgers quickly, then transfer to indirect heat side and cook, “low and slow”# until done (for 4 to 5 hours).

For Rolls:

Slice baguette in half, lengthwise, and cut into two 4-inch pieces. Brush bread with butter and garlic and bake in 375-degree oven until toasted.

Serve burgers on baguette rolls with mayonnaise, pickles and pickled jalapenos.