BBQ Guides

Did you choose a gas grill for convenience? No room for more than one piece of equipment in your outdoor space? Smoking food may seem like an unachievable dream to you. Not anymore! Discover how to use a smoker box to take your backyard grilling game to the next level.

Not all smoke is created equal when it comes to smoking meat. And there’s plenty more to it than just setting the wood on fire, then hoping for the best. If you want to experience the best in home smoking, you’ll need to master this critical skill — making thin blue smoke.

To nail a delicious smoked chicken, you have to pick a suitable wood. It’s an easy flavor to overpower and lose the poultry taste, but you want to add smoke if you want the very best flavor. So check out this guide on the best woods for smoking chicken.

Part of the challenge of smoking a great turkey is choosing the best wood to use. You don’t want the perfect moistness and texture ruined by an acrid and bitter smoke taste! So here’s how to enjoy a smoked turkey triumph by picking the best wood for the job.

Wood smoke is an important ingredient in BBQ, can dramatically affect the results of your finished food and make or break your meal depending on getting it right or wrong. In this guide, we dive deep into the science and practical use of smoke and smoking woods, to arm you with the knowledge you need to master this aspect of outdoor cooking.

When it comes to smoking meat, your choice of wood is as crucial as the meat itself. In this guide, we'll explore the top woods that can transform your BBQ from ordinary to extraordinary, each adding its own unique flavor and aroma to your favorite cuts. We look at each wood in turn to see what others, as well tell you which is the best for pork, beef, poultry, and more.

This comprehensive guide will take you on a visual journey, helping you to identify various smoking woods by their unique grain patterns, bark textures, and other defining features. From the deep, warm tones of hickory to the smooth, subtle texture of maple, you'll learn to recognize the different woods you smoke with and never get them mixed up again.

Do you think all wood is suitable for grilling? Then it's time to reconsider. Many wood types can ruin your smoked meats and even potentially make you ill. So today, we look at the different woods you must never use for smoking and why. From the hazardous fumes of treated lumber to the overpowering aromas of certain hardwoods, learn which woods to avoid.

Successful barbecue lies not only in the meat, sauce, or rub, but also in the type of wood smoke used. Our chart for smoking wood is the result of years of experience and testing. It's become the roadmap that guides me to the correct flavors to use for all my smoking endeavors.

Buying a smoker is a significant investment, so you should try to make the best use of it to get the best bang for your buck. Here are nine tips to help you use it more often, more effectively, and in ways you may not have thought of before.

Kamado grills are the Swiss army knife of outdoor cookers that can do it all. You can smoke, grill, roast, bake and sear your way to fantastic food — if you know how to use one properly. And that’s where this detailed step-by-step guide with illustrations comes in.

Before using your electric smoker for the first time, you should burn off the residues leftover from manufacturing, as well as coat the insides with a thin film oil that after heating helps to protect it and ensure a longer life. Here’s how in our new smoker seasoning guide.

Some people don’t wrap their meat during smoking, and others use aluminum foil. But recently, some have started to use pink butcher paper. But what is pink butcher? Why are people using it in their BBQ? What does it do that other wrappings do not? Find out below.

Rib membrane is tough and chewy, even after a long smoke when the meat is tender, and it spoils the presentation of the final cooked product. Some people like it, most don’t, so let’s get rid of it. Here’s how to remove rib membrane before cooking, in a few simple steps.

Wood comes in logs, chunks, chips, and dust. Each serves a different purpose and needs to be used differently. In this guide, we focus on chips and how to use them properly to smoke on a charcoal or gas grill, to add smoky flavor to your food.

The charcoal snake method of fire management is one you need to learn if you want to do low n slow smoking on your standard kettle-style grill. It’s an easy-to-use, reliable, and highly effective way to smoke food controllably for many hours. So, brisket and ribs, here we come!

The Texas crutch is used to help keep meat moist during very long cooks, and also to speed up cooking time by pushing through the stall instead of waiting. You lose some crunch in the bark, but the extra tender meat more than makes up for it.

The minion method is a way to configure, light, and burn charcoal in your smoker to get many hours of controlled, low-temperature cooking and smoking.

Curing — or seasoning — A new smoker, is a must-do process before cooking your first food that burns off all the oils and contaminants picked up or leftover after manufacturing. The seasoning also helps protect your smoker from corrosion, so it lasts longer. Here’s how to do it correctly.

3-2-1 ribs is a popular, almost foolproof way to get deliciously moist, probe tender ribs, still with a bit of bite. This is how you do it.