America's Test Kitchen, 2005, 420 pages, hardbound, more than 450 recipes, many B&W photos and excellent line drawings, 28 color photos.
As I have exclaimed perhaps too often and too breathlessly elsewhere on this site, Cook's Illustrated, the magazine, the website, the book publisher, and producer of America's Test Kitchen on PBS, is my favorite source for no-nonsense, thoroughly tested info. The editors take little for granted and they are constantly questioning and testing accepted wisdom and wives' tales. And these folks really understand barbecue.
Here's a sampling: "Ounce for ounce, hardwood lump charcoal burns much hotter than briquets. However, the differences are less dramatic when the coals are measured by volume. (Because of their shape, briquets compact more easily so you can fit more coals into the same amount of space.) For all practical purposes, a heaping chimney of charcoal briquets will make a fire that is as hot as a level chimney of hardwood lump charcoal. So if you need to substitute briquets for hardwood, use slightly more briquets to achieve the same heat level." They then show a chart of equivalent volumes.
The limited illustrations are mostly high quality black and white pen drawings with a handful of beautiful large color plates scattered throughout.
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