Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling – An NYT Bestselling BBQ Cookbook and Smoker Guide

Fantastic!!! I have used the Amazing Ribs website for YEARS and it turned me from a mediocre BBQer to an expert. I can now make steak, burgers, chicken, pulled pork, ribs, etc, as good as anything ANY restaurant or ANY of you reading this can make. I have made pulled pork for people in years past that have literally made people weak in the knees. I've made ribs before that people REFUSED to believe that I didn't buy and that I actually smoked them myself. This book is basically a summary of all of the great articles from amazingribs.com and combined into 1 place. I LOVE that. It's so nice to have all of the information I normally refer to online in an easy to use book. The look of the book is also extremely attractive. You'll be surprised at how wrong you are about a lot of things regarding cooking when you read this book. He debunks a LOT of popular myths using science which is superb and extremely interesting to learn. It's also a fun book which is important as well to learning and remembering information. I simply cannot recommend this book more highly. This IS the BBQ bible. If you consider yourself a person who likes to BBQ you NEED this book. It will change your life. Indirect heat is what separates the men from the boys when it comes to cooking. Mastering indirect heat is how you can move from simply a guy who "grills" to a professional who makes world class BBQ. He coves a lot of great gear and accessories to purchase that will help with your grilling. I have a lot of what he recommends and I won't waste your time with reviewing each and every piece of equipment he talks about but I will recommend this one thing. The Maverick ET-733 is the best piece of BBQ equipment I own. (aside from my Weber Smokey Mountain and 22" Weber grill of course...) I'm sure you've had the "well, I slightly overcooked the steak...but I'll get it next time." NEVER AGAIN if you own this thermometer and learn how to use it. You can make perfect food each and every time you cook using this thermometer. Even if I'm making something extremely simply like a single burger I will STILL use this. I will NOT cook any food on the grill without it. It takes practice to understand how deep to insert the probe, etc, but once you cook with it for a while and you master using it, and along with the information contained within this book you'll have the power to become a competition winning Q'er. PS. I'll put my pulled pork up against ANYONE in the world including the author of this book. My pulled pork in my specialty and it's unbeatable. I'm going to start entering the competition scene to prove it. See the pictures I added to see what the best pulled pork in the world looks like. That is, of course, a custom homemade rub as well.

My wife got me a smoker for Christmas and I can't wait to use it. So while I wait (6 degrees F as I write this review) until a little warmer weather I thought I should look for a book that would provide me with rubs, sauces, and recipes plus some how to do it best methods for smoking. After reading the reviews on this book I downloaded and began looking through it....boy, do I have a lot to learn about grilling and smoking. I always thought myself a pretty good griller....I bought an IR grill two years ago and it was a learning curve. This book was just what I needed to up my game and turn out some of the best tasting meat imaginable. I know, you say...."wait, you said you just downloaded so how can you make that statement". Well, after reading the science behind cooking meat I took two 2 in thick beef filets out of the freezer and used Meathead's indirect cooking method in my oven. I cooked them at 225 degrees in a cast iron skillet (not preheated) and checked them every 10 minutes until the internal temperature was 130 degrees on my thermometer. I then turned on my burner, took out the filets and preheated the skillet for about 3 minutes, put the filets back in and watched them sizzle, turning them every minute for about 5 minutes. I took them off the heat and directly to the plate, NO RESTING PERIOD. Oh, forgot i used the cowboy java rub from the book. When i sliced into the steak I was amazed at how nice and pink the entire filet was. Just a thin tan line from searing them AFTER I cooked them. That filet was so tender and juicy my wife said it was the best filet I had ever cooked and one of the best she had ever tasted. And that includes places like Morton's and Ruth's. I could cut it with my fork. Talk about tasty.....I can't wait for spring so I am going to the butcher and getting some baby backs to smoke. If you really want to up your game in the grilling department or you have a husband who thinks he knows all there is about grilling or smoking (but you know it isn't true) get this book. I plan on finding one for my son in law who got me into smoking. He could use the science behind the why and how it all works. I plan on using my same method on my IR grill this summer at the lake and intend to impress my whole family. Get this book you won't regret it.

There are many excellent BBQ and grilling cookbooks if you are primarily interested in recipes. Meathead brings us not only recipes but more importantly educates both the novice and experienced cook on the science behind cooking meat and does so brilliantly. Meathead, AKA Mr Goldwyn, does not run a BBQ restaurant, he runs the premier BBQ website/forum on the interweb: AmazingRibsdotcom. This "cookbook" is a distillation of all the expertise and scientific exploration of BBQ and grilling that the author and his colleagues have accumulated over decades. It is emphatically not a "this is the way Big Bob always did it" cookbook but rather an exploration of the science behind the magic that excellent BBQ cooks have developed. Big Bob had to develop his skills through trial and error, the rest of us can now learn from Meathead why certain techniques are better than others without having to devote decades honing the craft. Importantly the book also dispels many many myths that are reiterated in numerous other BBQ cookbooks. I just got the book and haven't had a chance to cook the recipes yet (but I have cooked recipes from Amazing Ribs which is where this book has its genesis). I don't think this is the only BBQ cookbook you'll ever need as other books explore additional styles and recipes but this book is a huge contribution to BBQ because it provides the novice and experienced cook alike the scientific basis for good BBQ. And, this is not just the latest wild theory but rather a collection of tried and tested experiments to support Meathead's teachings. I wouldn't call Meathead a guru because gurus don't use evidence. Meathead's BBQ book is more like the Cook's Illustrated kitchen approach which is empirically and scientifically based. I think anyone starting with BBQ should definitely get this book as a definitive text on how to understand BBQ cooking. Any experienced cook should also get it to challenge themselves to understand why their inherited methodology may or may not make the most sense. This book will be considered an authoritative text on BBQ for many years to come.

If I could give this 20 stars, I would! This guy knows what he’s doing, trust me. I haven’t grilled for years, so I was a bit rusty. He starts from the very beginning, picking out the meat, prepping g it all the way cooking the meat thoroughly. It’s a must have for beginners!!!! I’m not even 1/4 way in, and a have learned A LOT!!!

I think you will either love this book, as I do, or hate it. You will not be indifferent towards it. There is so much written about Barbecue that it is hard to imagine anything new can be written. However, much of the writings are too anecdotal, and perpetuate Barbecuing myth and lore. I love to 'Que. Good 'Que is a joy but it wasn't until I read Modernist Cuisine, that I realized I didn't understand the first thing about what it takes to elevate good 'Que to great 'Que. That book costs over $600 new, way out of my league. This book offers the same insights, and makes them easy to understand. Many old school 'Quers will find this book annoying as it dispels many old ideas but if you want genuinely relevant information then you want this book. The only reason I didn't give this five stars is that I found the recipes somewhat uninspiring. Don't get me wrong, they are not bad recipes but I was hoping for something that wowed me more. I am glad I purchased this book and consider it an important addition to my culinary library. It's worth every penny.

Bought for husband and he loves it

I get asked frequently "What cookbooks should I buy?" Well, I bought this one recently and I believe it has immediately floated to the top of my list for recommendations. I consider myself to be near expert level with barbecue and grilling because of my time and experience in the hobby. I often find it difficult to admit that I have learned something new because I think I know it all already. This book humbled me within the first five minutes of browsing it. I intended to browse it for a few minutes before going to bed last night and ended up putting it down four hours later. I have an extensive collection of books on this subject and THIS book is my new favorite already. It's a 'cover-to-cover' read... not just a recipe book. The recipes are just added bonuses to what you will learn from this trove of barbecue and grilling love... push the ADD TO CART button now! 5/20/2016 UPDATE: I finished this book cover-to-cover yesterday. I did not find any content in the book that I would consider to be 'wrong' in any way. There is, as with any book of this nature, some content that is open for interpretation. After all, this is a book about barbecue and grilling. Preferences vary. After finishing this book cover-to-cover, it has become my number ONE recommendation for any barbecue and grilling enthusiast who wants to do more than follow a recipe. If you want to understand barbecue and grilling to the point where you become the master of your equipment AND your recipes, then this is the book for you. The recipes included in this book are adequate. Some of them look to be fantastic and others look OK to me. This book is not so much about the recipes. It's about helping you understand what is going on inside your grill and inside the food you put on it. Having that level of understanding will make you a great cook in your own rite. This book should not be the ONLY book on your shelf, but it should be one that you have read cover-to-cover :)

Wow. If I were teaching a course on BBQ, I'd use this book as my textbook. I've been into BBQ for a few years now and I've read a lot of books, spent many hundreds of hours reading message boards and websites (including amazingribs.com, a website started by this author), I even attended an in-person course by a championship pit master. I've been obsessed with learning everything I can about BBQ. Despite all this research and background, I started learning new, interesting, and helpful concepts in the first 20 pages and it just continued on throughout the book. It's also covered in such a down to earth and understandable way that it's not too much for a beginner either. This book is different than other BBQ books in that it tells you WHY (where others focus more on recipes and stories). When I'm learning something, I really crave the why and very few BBQ books deliver in that arena (Franklin's BBQ book does and it was previously my favorite BBQ book, but this book goes over more and in more detail). When you know that moisture attracts smoke, it can inform your opinions on other things like water pans, spritzing, or warming your meat to room temperature before putting it on the grill. Knowing how the wood burns can inform your opinions on whether to use chips, chunks, or logs on certain smokers or certain cooks. Learning the why is the essential building block of mastering a skill and there are so many building blocks in this book (including food safety, choosing a smoker, how to cut your meat, etc.). If you want to master your BBQ and grilling skill, I can think of no single better resource to recommend than this book.

Excelente calidad, y mejor aún el contenido y la información que proporciona.

A must have If you’re into grilled and smoked meat.

Love the book, only hoped it had arrived in a better condition.

Beaucoup d'infos utiles et de techniques. Pas mal de choses m'ont servis également pour la cuisine en dehors du bbq. Dommage qu'il n'y ait pas une version française car les températures en °F et dosages en onces/cup sont une plaie. Je me suis fait un marque page avec table de conversion et j'ai annoté tout le bouquin pour m'y retrouver.

Debunks many myths regarding grilling. Very nice and simple for the scientifically curious