A perfectly executed backyard barbecue experience is often easier said than done. On the surface, it seems like all you need is a handful of hot dogs, a few burgers, and a grill. The reality of the matter is that it takes a little bit more than that. Either way, hosting an outdoor get together for friends, family, and neighbors can be a thrilling experience and in today’s blog, we’ll provide readers with a few tips for getting it right.

It all starts when you buy a propane tank.

Here at Mighty Flame, we strive to be a key component of your incredible summer. When you buy a propane tank from us to use on your grill, you can expect a high quality product that won’t let you down. Appropriately, before we get started in listing our tips, we’ll provide readers with this bonus tip: buy a propane tank if your current tank is running low. The last thing you want when you have guests over is for your grill to run out of steam halfway through the fun, right?

Without further ado, let’s take a look at five things you can do to ensure that you’re the host of the best backyard barbecue of the summer!

Don’t Overthink the Menu

One of the most important thing you can do for your barbecue is to not overthink your food. You might be tempted to do something fancy. After all, you’ve probably been reading our “Buy a Propane Tank and Start Cooking” series and you’re feeling confident about your grilling skills and adding new recipes to your repertoire on a regular basis. A barbecue might not be the ideal time to break them out, however.

Instead, focus on crafting a menu that’s made up of the classics–you know, burgers, brats, hot dogs, and chicken. They’re considered staples for a reason (one of which is that they’re easy to scale up or down depending on the number of guests and they’re hard to mess up if you get distracted while you’re catching up with a relative you haven’t seen in awhile).

Make Sure You Have Good Tunes

You don’t want your guests to feel uncomfortable, and perhaps the best thing you can do is to set the mood with some great music. Some music from the Beach Boys is always a big hit–after all, the sun is out and everybody associates surf music with summer! So whether you like country music, hip hop, indie rock, or radio pop, having some music pumping through your speakers is never a bad idea.

You don’t have to set up an entire outdoor home theater system or anything, but a simple bluetooth speaker connected to your iPad should do the trick just fine. Or if you prefer to keep things simple, don’t worry about curating an extravagant playlist and instead just pick a preset station from your favorite streaming music service and let it play in the background. Trust us when we say that a little bit of music goes a long way towards setting the right mood for your next party.

Choose Your Plasticware Wisely

One of the biggest barbecue faux pas is having plates and silverware that aren’t up to the task of actually eating off of. Everyone’s been to a barbecue where the paper plates are easily cut through and the tips of the forks break off if you even look at the barbecue chicken wrong.

You don’t have to go overboard or anything, but simply choosing products you have experience with can go a long way towards ensuring that your guests aren’t accidentally losing their meals due to having plates that aren’t up to the task.

Stay Tuned for Part Two

Here at Mighty Flame, we want every aspect of your next barbecue to be incredible. So whether you’re hosting an outdoor get together for the first time or it’s simply your first event of the season, we have even more tips for making your event a success.

And of course it all starts when you buy a propane tank, so if your current propane bottle is running low, it might be time to grab yourself a spare.

Stay tuned for part two!