Reddit mentions of The Barbecue! Bible

Bbq Bible

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0761149430/ref=mp_s_a_1_sc_1?qid=1417791485&sr=8-1-spell&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

How to Grill

Welcome to the tribe of grillers and smokers!

Looks like the coals are still active, but you may just not have had enough for the conditions. Since you're cooking outside, you need to be aware of environmental factors, especially wind, ambient temperature, and humidity.

I would suggest switching to natural hardwood charcoal. It burns longer and cleaner than briquets. Ditch any liquid fuels you might be using, they aren't necessary and can make your food taste like petrol. If you haven't already, learn how start your charcoal with tinder. Charcoal chimneys are very helpful. (edit: looks like you already got this covered!)

I also can't recommend enough these books by Steven Raichlen, host of the PBS shows Barbecue University and Primal Grill. He has studied grilling and smoking methods from all over the world, and is very good at explaining techniques and concepts to people of all skill levels.

• The Barbecue! Bible
  
• How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques
  
  Finally, here are some subreddits with very helpful and friendly communities:
  
  
• /r/grilling
  
• /r/smoking
  
• /r/BBQ
  
  Hope this helps!

https://www.amazon.com/Barbecue-Bible-Steven-Raichlen/dp/0761149430

the barbecue bible

Oh, lordy...

I'm not knocking you at all. We all have to start somewhere. The fact that you WANT to make BBQ rocks.

But yes, going above 240 degrees just broke the cardinal rule of smoking - low and slow. When you go above 240, you aren't smoking meat anymore, you're cooking it. You need to aim in the range of 220 - 240. And the closer to 220 you are, IMO, the better product you will make.

If you have chips that won't smoke, break them smaller next time and soak the hell out of them (2-24 hours) in a bucket with water.

So what you ended up doing with that brisket is that you cooked the hell out of it for hours. No wonder it ended up tough.

Please, invest some time and read the virtual bullet site I linked above. They are an amazing resource for recipes and techniques.

If you want something else from the "pros", I strongly recommend the following books by Steve Raichlen.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761131337
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761119795
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0761149430

Buy this:

The Barbecue! Bible: Over 500 Recipes https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0761149430/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_xaJUCb09DM41S

It will transform your bbq experience. You’ll understand how the mechanics work and you find easy to do recipes that will thoroughly impress your guests.

I’ve purchased more than ten copies over the years as gifts. It’s that good.

Be warned though, you might get bitten by the bug like I did. I’m now banned from buying any more BBQ’s until I sell one of the seven I currently have.

In his book, Barbecue Bible, which I would highly recommend, he has a recipe for caveman potatoes.

Probably the best way to cook sweet potatoes (white or orange yams) is roasting on the coals. I'll throw them on top of the coals and turn them after half an hour. Sweet, smoky, and delicious, every time. After an hour they'll be cooked perfectly, just peel off the char. You can serve them mashed, or whole. I like them with a little bit of honey butter, or even plain.

The Barbecue! Bible author Steven Raichlen recommends flipping once. Each time you open the grill, you are letting out a significant amount of heat.

EDIT: Note, the OP did specify "Grill" and not Pan as shown Heston Blumenthal video

First off, you can grill on anything, a cheap $30 grill from Walmart will make a steak taste as good as anything else if you know what you're doing. Smoking is a little different but if you want to keep the cost down, I got a smoker from amazon for Father's day that was less than $150. After some sealing along the edges it's an excellent smoker. Some of your questions are a bit vague, a lot of it depends on what you're cooking. I do pork butts for competitions and the general rule of thumb is to cook low and slow, about 250 degrees is your sweet spot, for about an hour for each pound of meat. Once you get an idea of how your smoker handles you will know how often to add fuel and check the temperature. There are plenty of great meat thermometers available everywhere that link with your phone through Bluetooth and you can set it to alert you when the temp drops too low. Really it comes down to what you want to cook. Every type of meat has an ideal time and temp and even wood and type of cooker. I smoke ribs on a 50 gallon drum grill with hickory wood. I do my butts on a box smoker with maple wood. This is what I use for most of my smoking Dyna-Glo DGO1176BDC-D Vertical Offset Charcoal Smoker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BQ59VTO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_C7rGyb0MAMD9Z with various woods mixed with charcoal based on what I'm cooking. I use a separate plain barrel grill for every day grilling. I'm just one guy telling you what I use. There are a lot of ways to burn meat and I think at the end of the day you should go with what works for your budget and skill. If you're just getting into it and want to learn, get a cheap $100 smoke box. This is a great book that will teach you all the basics of cooking any type of bbq The Barbecue! Bible https://www.amazon.com/dp/0761149430/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_d.rGyb7HTT3HP . This is a great subreddit that always has a lot of good cooks showing off really good stuff so I'm sure you will get more advice, but this is my advice, I learned from a man who's won a lot of contests but I still bought that book and try to learn from many sources. Pm me if you want more specifics but it's going to come down to what you want to cook that determines how you go about doing it.

Not to be "that guy," but BBQ and grilling are two related but different things. BBQ is about slow cooking using lower temperatures and hardwood, and grilling is is faster cooking over wood, charcoal, or gas. BBQ is a way of dealing with cheaper cuts of meat such as brisket and pork shoulder, where the long, slow cooking breaks down the connective tissue and dissolves the fat, which tenderizes the meat. Grilling is done usually over higher heat and works best with foods that are less fatty, such as steak, fish, burgers, and pork chops. These foods will usually dry out if cooked low and slow, so the quicker cooking works better.

You can BBQ with an inexpensive barrel smoker such as a Brinkman's Smoke'N Grill, but the kettle grills such as the Weber are really better suited to straight grilling. I know there are people who do smoking with soaked chips and gas grills, but Aaron Franklin made a good case in his book Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto that that's not true BBQ. My first unit was a "Texas hibachi," which is a 40 gallon drum split in half, and it worked just fine for what I used it for.

In any event I'd recommend getting a charcoal grill and a recipe book such as Steven Raichlen's The Barbecue! Bible and start trying recipes. It's really the best way to learn.

Stephen Raichlen Barbeque Bible

Obviously focused on live fire cooking, but it has some technique in it - it's where I first learned of spatchcocking. It also is not just about meat, and is truly international, with recipes from all over the world. Has some nice short stories about the origin of some of the recipes as well. At this point, I use it more for inspiration than anything, but my copy is well marked and dog eared.

Better Homes and Gardens New Cook book

Probably too basic for most people here, but I find that when I just need a quick recipe for something simple, it's got a lot of them. For example, I don't bake a whole lot, so I don't have a recipe for something simple like french bread committed to memory. This has it though. I like that it's a binder, and I've shoved extra pages into it.