We love cooking in all its forms, but when summer rolls around and the sun comes out, there's no better way to eat than from the barbecue. The simple combination of food, fire and smoke provides a depth of flavour that's hard to achieve by any other method. The romance of building a fire, cooking outdoors and watching the smoke billowing over your food is tough to beat. It's cooking stripped down to its basics.

In many ways, barbecue is directly tied to our humanity. We remain the only animals in existence who cook our food, and some have hypothesised recently that our evolution is directly linked to our discovery that cooking food made it more digestible, thus allowing our bodies to devote more energy to brain activity. The way ancient man would have cooked is the same as when we barbecue now – over fire and embers. Cooking on a barbecue is very primal and instinctive in that sense – we are connecting with our evolutionary past.

When we think barbecue in the UK, we often have a specific idea in mind – fast cooking over high heat, so that we grill the outside of the food whilst leaving the inside juicy and tender. Strictly speaking, barbecue is anything that involves cooking food over a naked flame or embers – you can slow-cook and smoke as well as even braise and steam using barbecues. Below you'll see some excellent guides from UK BBQ Mag editor Marcus Bawdon on the various styles of barbecue, how to set up your barbecue for different types of cooking and how to use your barbecue as a smoker. Scroll down further and you'll find recipe ideas galore as well as deep-dives into barbecue styles around the world and loads of technical guides.

It's all too easy to focus on the main attraction and forget about the rest of your barbecue experience. If you want to take your cooking to the next level, you'll need to start using rubs and marinades to tease extra flavour out of your meat. Don't forget about the sides either – a good spread is essential for barbecue success. Take a look at some of our favourites below.