Pro Tip: How To Get The Most Out Of Your Grill Pinz

If you've ever watched a perfectly wrapped hot dog come apart on the grill -- bacon curling loose, juices running into the coals, toothpick splinters where your dinner used to be -- this one's for you. Today we're getting into how to squeeze every bit of performance out of your Grill Pinz, plus a bonus trick pulled straight from our Sticky Situation box.

First, why Grill Pinz beat the toothpick

Toothpicks and long skewers do one thing: they stab straight through your food. That's the problem. Every hole is an exit ramp for the juices you worked to keep in, and wood loves to splinter, char, and snap right when you're trying to pull it.

Grill Pinz work differently. Each 1.5" pin has a barbed tip that grips the surface of the meat instead of piercing all the way through. You catch the overlapping edge of the bacon, sink the barb just into the surface, and it locks. The bacon stays wrapped, the juices stay inside, and nothing splinters. They're molded from FDA-approved, BPA-free nylon rated for indirect heat up to 500°F, so they hold up over the fire and rinse clean for the next cook.

See it in action: Bacon-Wrapped Sabrett Hot Dogs

Here's exactly what we're talking about. In this cook, Sabrett hot dogs are wrapped in bacon with Grill Pinz used to lock the wrap in place -- no twine, no toothpicks, no drama. Watch how the pins hold the seam shut through the whole cook:

Getting the most out of your Grill Pinz

The pins are simple, but a few small habits take you from “it worked” to “that was clean.”

1. Pin the seam, not the center

Always drive the barb through the overlapping edge of the bacon and into the surface of the meat underneath. That seam is the part that wants to unravel, so that's where the pin earns its keep.

2. Let the color coding do the thinking

This is the trick most people sleep on. The pins are bright and color-coded, so assign a meaning before you start: red for “spicy,” blue for “plain,” yellow for “pull these first.” On a full grill with fifteen dogs going, you'll know at a glance which is which -- no cutting one open to check, no guessing whose is whose.

You can also use the Grill Pinz to keep track of "doneness" on the grill. Mom likes her steak medium? Assign a color. Dad likes it medium rare? Assign a color.

3. Pull before you plate

Grill Pinz come out as clean as they went in. Pull every pin before serving, give them a rinse, and they're ready for the next cook. Because they're reusable, it's worth doing a quick pin count when you clear the grill so none sneak onto a plate.

4. They're not just for the grill or smoker

Rated for indirect heat to 500°F, the pins move indoors too -- roasting a bacon-wrapped pork loin, baking stuffed chicken breasts, broiling bacon-wrapped shrimp. Anywhere two pieces of food need to stay put, the pins work.

Recipe Inspiration

Need a little recipe inspiration? Once you've got your pins, the only question left is what to wrap. Here are a dozen barbecue favorites to get you started:

1. Bacon-Wrapped Pork Loin with a brown-sugar and mustard glaze
2. Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers stuffed with cream cheese and cheddar
3. Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Thighs in a smoky-sweet barbecue rub (like Bless Yer Heart BBQ Rub by The Spice Guy)
4. Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp Skewers brushed with hot honey (try Hot Honey Drizzler by Urban Slicer, Mike's Hot Honey, or Zab's Hot Honey -- Zab's is the spiciest of the bunch)
5. Bacon-Wrapped Little Smokies tossed in brown sugar
6. Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with a sticky ketchup-glaze lattice (or add it to our Sticky BBQ Meatloaf recipe)
7. Bacon-Wrapped Corn on the Cob with chili-lime butter
8. Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breast filled with spinach and pepper jack
9. Bacon-Wrapped Beef Tenderloin finished with a peppercorn crust (try Char Crust's Roasted Garlic Peppercorn Rub)
10. Bacon-Wrapped Pineapple Bites glazed in teriyaki
11. Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus Bundles with a maple drizzle (try Maple Bacon BBQ Sauce by Whiskey Bent BBQ, it's a fan-favorite)
12. Bacon-Wrapped Armadillo Eggs (sausage-wrapped, cheese-stuffed jalapeños)

🧩 Bonus: A tip from our Sticky Situation box

Here's the one we promised. Bacon-wrapped anything usually gets a glaze -- a barbecue sauce, a hot honey, a brown-sugar sticky coat -- and glaze is where good cooks get burned. Literally. Sauce with sugar in it scorches fast over direct heat, so if you brush it on early, you get a black, bitter shell before the inside is done.

Glaze late, glaze twice. Cook the wrap most of the way through naked over indirect heat first. Only in the last 5–8 minutes do you start brushing on your sticky sauce -- one thin coat, let it set, then a second coat right before you pull. You get that glossy, tacky, caramelized finish without the burnt taste.

Then let the pins track the flavors. Doing a batch where some get the hot honey and some get the mild barbecue? Use one pin color for each glaze. When everything's coated in shiny sauce and looks identical, the colored pins are the only way to tell the fire-breathers from the crowd-pleasers -- no surprises when you hand one to a kid.

That's the sticky situation solved: late glaze for the flavor, color-coded pins for the sanity.

Get the sticky sauces that make it sing

That late-glaze trick is only as good as what's in the brush. The Sticky Situation box is our pitmaster-curated lineup of sweet-heat and sticky sauces built for exactly this -- the glossy, caramelized, finger-licking finish on bacon-wrapped anything. Some flavors are so good they leave a mess behind, and that's the whole point.

Pair it with your Grill Pinz and you've got the flavor and the color-coding to keep every batch straight. Free US shipping, and it's the easiest way to make your next cook the one everyone remembers.

Grab the Sticky Situation Box →

Want to mix and match your own? Build a set of 5 seasonings, sauces, and tools (Grill Pinz included) for $49.99 in our Build Your Own Bundle.

Barb, pin, and glaze. 🔥