AmazingRibs.com is supported by our Pitmaster Club. Also, when you buy with links on our site we may earn a finderโ€™s fee. Click to see how we test and review products.

BBQ And Grilling 101: A Guide To Better Live Fire Cooking (2 Recipes, 8 Pages, 18 Articles)

Share on:

Your quest to create amazing BBQ and grilling begins here!

If you are new to BBQ and grilling or simply want to step up your outdoor cooking game, start here. These articles and basic recipes give you a solid foundation on BBQ and grilling equipment, ingredients, and techniques.

By using the guideposts below, you’ll learn about thermodynamics (how heat moves through your cooker and your food), how to turn your grill into a smoker with the 2-zone method, how to control temperature, why it is critical to use a digital thermometer (don’t worry – they’re cheap), the fascinating science of meat, how smoke ends up flavoring your food, our top recipes, tips and tricks, and so much more!

homer simpson barbecue

What Is Barbecue?

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Barbecue is a hotly debated topic. Read here about a new definition of BBQ that is distinct from its legal definition. This new definition includes explanations of grilling, smoking and other terms, as well as a brief history of barbecue around the world
bookshelf

Cooking And Barbecue Glossary

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Here is an A to Z glossary of barbecue and cooking terms. Some might call it "jargon," which is the specialized language that people of like mind use to communicate. Either way, get to know these terms, use them, and you'll be on your way to becoming a barbecue insider.
Barbecue ribs

Amazing Ribs Defined: Kissed By Smoke, Hugged By Sauce, Licked By Fire

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

What are amazing ribs? When I judge barbecue, here's what I look for: Appearance, scent, pork flavor, seasonings, smoke, sauce, texture, and balance.
types of fat in a steak

Basic Meat Science For Cooks

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

What is meat and how does cooking alter it? Discover the science of what meat is made of, including water, fat, protein, connective tissue, salt, and other minerals. And find out what happens when meat meets heat.

Grill And Smoker Setup And Firing Up (1 Page, 18 Articles)

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

What's the best way to set up your grill and smoker? The secret is to have temperature control, and for grills, that almost always means using a 2-zone setup. For smokers, the secret is to get a small hot fire that makes clean "blue" smoke rather that billowy white smoke.
2 zone setup

2 Zone Grilling Setup: How Best To Control Temperatures On A Grill

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Improve your recipes and make the best BBQ possible with this one essential concept: temperature control. The secret? 2 zone grilling setup, a.k.a. an indirect grilling setup!
grilling presa

The Thermodynamics of Cooking and How Different Cooking Methods Work

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Learn about thermodynamics: the basis of all cooking! Find out how heat transference works by conduction, convection, radiation, induction, and infrared heat in your grill, bbq, and smoker.

The Top Mouthwatering Recipes From The AmazingRibs.com Team (32 Recipes, 2 Articles)

By:

Dave Joachim, AmazingRibs.com Contributing Author

Here's a list of the AmazingRibs.com top 15 recipes of the year, the best and most visited ones on our site, including ribs, brisket, pulled pork, pastrami, spice rubs, and other BBQ favorites.
rib cooking temperature timeline

Are My Ribs Ready Yet?

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

There are several techniques to tell when your ribs are ready: bend, twist, peek-a-boo, taste, toothpick, popup, and thermometer test. Since ribs come in so many different weights and thicknesses, knowing when they are done is an inexact science but here are some guidelines and techniques that will help make it easier.

Food Health And Safety: What You Are Doing Right And Wrong (12 Articles)

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Hundreds of thousands of Americans alone are sickened every year by their food, and some even die. Thousands more are hurt by knives, wire brush bristles stuck to meat, burns and other hazards around the grill. Here's an overview of the hazards and how to reduce the risk
Amazingribs.com temperature magnet

Award Winning Food Temperature Guide And What You Need To Know About Food Safety

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

We all strive to create tender, juicy, and flavorful meat, but we also want it safe. Monitoring the internal temperature is the best way to have the best of both worlds. Here's the ultimate guide to understanding proper cooking temperatures and food safety to ensure that your meat is cooked perfectly every time.

All About Our Pitmaster Club, The World's Largest BBQ Forum

By:

Clint Cantwell, AmazingRibs.com President And BBQ Personality

AmazingRibs.com's Pitmaster Club is the world's largest BBQ and grilling forum, providing paid members with access to flame-war-free discussions with over 16,000 like-minded outdoor cooks. Enjoy recipes, techniques, product reviews, interviews with top pros, monthly giveaways, and more!

How to Buy the Best In-Food And In-Cooker Thermometer

By:

Bill McGrath, AmazingRibs.com Chief Thermometer Reviewer

An in-food/in-cooker thermometer should be a part of every chef's tool collection. It displays the temperatures of the food(s) and the cooker simultaneously and is much more reliable than the dial thermometer that comes with most grills. Here's what to look for and how to buy the best in-food/in-cooker thermometer.
termometer comparisons

Thermometers: How They Work, How To Select Them, and How To Use Them

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

How to use our comprehensive buying guide and reviews of thermometers for barbecue, for cooking, for food, for the oven, for the grill and for the smoker.

How To Buy A Grill (5 Articles)

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Grills are not created equally. Before you sink any money into a grill check out this article. It could save you from buying a lemon and make sure your grill meets your needs.

How To Buy A Smoker: Take This When You Shop (1 Page, 5 Articles)

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

A good dedicated smoker will make ribs, brisket and pulled pork that rivals most restaurants. There are many choices: gas, charcoal, wood and wood pellets. Before you go shopping click here and print out our article on How To Buy a Smoker.
bread grilling

How to Calibrate Your Grill or Smoker with Dry Runs

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Calibrate your cooker. There is often dust and grease under the hood from the factory on new grills and smokers. Here's how to prepare your cooker with a dry run so you can control its temperature when it's showtime.
smokers and grills

BBQ Gear Guide: The Best Smokers And Grills To Buy Today

By:

Clint Cantwell, AmazingRibs.com President And BBQ Personality

Picking the right smoker or grill for your personal needs can be a difficult task, with countless brands, styles, and prices to sort through. To help you find the best smoker grill to buy, we have compiled an elite list of top rated AmazingRibs.com gold and platinum medal winners.
burning charcoal

Charcoal Grills: Buying Guide, Reviews, And Ratings

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

A comprehensive review and buyer's guide of almost all the wood burning and charcoal grills available from experts, with ratings.

Charcoal Grillin’ Starter Kit

By:

Dave Joachim, AmazingRibs.com Contributing Author

New to charcoal grilling? Here's everything you need from the best grill and charcoal to tongs and a reliable thermometer.
photo of the weber calibration

Using the Vents to Control Temperature on Charcoal and Wood Burning Grills and Smokers

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Here's how to use the two vents to control temperature in a charcoal or wood grill or smoker.
Gas Smoker

Gas Smokers: A Buying Guide And Reviews

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Ratings, reviews, and recommendations on how to shop for gas fired barbecue smokers. These are simple smokers that produce good flavor, on a modest budget.
komodo kamado

Buying Guide To Kamado, Ceramic, Egg Smokers And Grills

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

The kamado, ceramic, egg grill, smoker, and oven is a fast growing category with more and more choices every year. Here are reviews and ratings of them all.
Camp Chef Woodwind

Pellet Smokers And Grills: Buying Guide, Ratings, And Reviews

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Ratings, reviews, and recommendations on what to look for and what to buy when shopping for pellet barbecue smokers and grills.
Weber Genesis EPX-35

Gas Grills: Buying Guide, Reviews, And Ratings

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Here's how gas grills work and what to look for when you go shopping.
man burning wood in a burn barrel

What You Need to Know About Wood, Smoke, And Combustion

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Learn all about wood smoke and how it adds flavor to BBQ. Find out whether you should be using wood chunks, chips, pellets, logs, or sawdust in your cooker. Discover the truth behind the claim that different woods have different flavors.
the perfect grilled steak

Recipe Secrets Revealed For Grilled Steaks That Put The Best Restaurants To Shame

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

Create grilled steaks as good or better than they do in the best expensive steakhouses with this comprehensive how-to and recipe. From selecting the right cut and beef grade to smoking and searing on the grill, you'll be grilling up mouthwatering steaks for your family and guests in no time!
pulled pork sandwich with sauce

An Easy BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe With Mouthwatering Results

By:

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com Founder And BBQ Hall of Famer

This easy pulled pork recipe skips the slow cooker to create authentic low-and-slow smoked pulled pork on a smoker or grill. With smoke woven through the moist meat, bits of seasoned crust, and a gentle splash of BBQ sauce, pulled pork is perfect for your next backyard cookout.

Related articles

Published On: 7/1/2019 Last Modified: 6/24/2024

 

High quality websites are expensive to run. If you help us, weโ€™ll pay you back bigtime with an ad-free experience and a lot of freebies!

Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for high quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we donโ€™t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us.

Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club. But please donโ€™t think of it as a donation. Members get MANY great benefits. We block all third-party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive.


Post comments and questions below

grouchy?

1) Please try the search box at the top of every page before you ask for help.

2) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.

3) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer. Dial thermometers are often off by as much as 50ยฐF so if you are not using a good digital thermometer we probably can’t help you with time and temp questions. Please read this article about thermometers.

4) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different.

5) Posts with links in them may not appear immediately.

Moderators

  Max

Click to comment or ask a question...

Spotlight

These are not paid ads, they are a curated selection of products we love.

All of the products below have been tested and are highly recommended. Click here to read more about our review process.

Use Our Links To Help Keep Us Alive

Many merchants pay us a small referral fee when you click our “buy now” links. This has zero impact on the price you pay but helps support the site.