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Join The Pitmaster Club & Get:
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* A new improved Comprehensive Food Temperature Guide Magnet that sells for $9.95 on Amazon.com
* Live video Seminars with the world's top Pitmasters
* Access to The Pit forum
* Entry into the Gold Medal Giveaways
* Support for Operation BBQ Relief
* Support for AmazingRibs.com!
Why not give a gift membership? Surely you know folks who need to up their game: Neighbor? Nephew? Spouse? Click to learn more. |
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If you like all the free info on our site, please use our links when you shop. Many websites pay us a small referral fee when you click our links and purchase from them, especially Amazon. Please save this link and use it every time you go to Amazon.It works on everything from grills to diapers, it has zero impact on the price you pay, but has a major impact on our ability to improve AmazingRibs.com. Without it we could not survive.
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Quick Links
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Here are some of our most popular articles with direct links.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TECHNIQUE
For both the beginner and expert, here are articles on how to get 'er done right.
RECIPES
Scores of tested restaurant quality recipes carefully explained so even novices can be great cooks.
EQUIPMENT REVIEWS
Unbiased recommendations for the best products for the back yard cook. |
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FREQUENT TIPS ON
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About Smoke Signals
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|  Smoke Signals is the occasional free e-letter from Barbecue Whisperer and Hedonism Evangelist, Meathead, and the team at AmazingRibs.com. We use Smoke Signals to tell folks about what's new in Barbecutopia & Grillandia. If you like it, please . And remember: No rules in the bedroom or dining room! |
Debunking Beef Roast Myths
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Is there anything more festive, impressive, and luxurious than a big bad beef roast? Well it's easy to make outdoors and it definitely tastes better, but my techniques work fine indoors and for other beef roasts, even tenderloins and rump roasts.
As you might expect, I veer from the old fashioned cookbook recipes and apply a little mythbusting food science to the problem.
1) Get the bones off. They are a heat shield and prevent 1/3 of the surface from browning. It is a myth that bones contribute to the flavor. Their exterior of a bone is calcium and it is flavorless. Yes, bones in a stew add tons of flavor from the marrow dissolving, but not in a roast. Save the bones for cooking alone (some nice meat between them) or use them in a stock to make your gravy. THEN you can get the marrow extract.
2) Tie it into a round shape so it cooks evenly.
3) Consider removing the spinalis muscle. It is the single best meat on the steer and it is incredible grilled.
4) Go easy on the smoke.
5) Start at a low temp over indirect heat to get an even edge to edge color and finish on direct heat at a high temp to build the crust.
6) Use a dry brine, not wet brine.
7) Use an oil based rub, not a dry rub.
8) DO NOT place the meat INSIDE a roasting pan. You need the meat ABOVE the pan to get even heat all around.
9) Cooking time depends on thickness not weight, and you absolutely must have a good digital thermometer to knock this one out of the park. Medium rare is 130F. No clock can tell you when it is medium rare.
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If you are cooking ham for Christmas
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To make the perfect ham, start with my article Hamming It Up: A Survey Of The World's Great Hams. There are instructions on cooking all types of hams there. You should also read my recipe for The Ultimate Smoked Ham and Chris Lilly's Spiced Apricot Glaze. And if you are really industrious, why not buy a fresh ham and cure it yourself? But before you do, be sure to read my new article on how to cure meats safely.
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Turkey
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If you're doing turkey for the big holiday and you haven't applied my tips and techniques, read the comments from people who have at the bottom of my page with the Ultimate Turkey recipe. It works indoors or out. The picture above was taken by Adam Page of his spatchcocked bird. Speaking of my turkey recipe, it got this hilarious Tweet from Max Unger of the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks.  |
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January Pitmaster Club Seminar:
Ardie Davis on The Best Barbecue Joints In America
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 Every month members of our Pitmaster Club get to watch a one hour seminar I record with a top pitmaster. The next one features Ardie Davis, PhB, know around the BBQ world as Remus Powers. For our Seminar we'll get him to tell us about some of his favorite barbecue joints across the nation, and his favorite dishes. Davis is perhaps the best known face and name on the barbecue circuit where he can often be found issuing the oath to judges. He is also beloved for his humorous monthly column in the KCBS Bull Sheet. He was named a Kansas City Barbecue Legend by the Kansas City Star with Calvin Trillin, Paul Kirk, Carolyn Wells, Ollie Gates, Rich Davis, Arthur Bryant, Anthony Rieke, Amazing Grace Harris, and Henry Perry. He also writes a weekly column Kansas City Star Chow Town blog on barbecue-related topics.  Lately, Davis has been eating his way across the nation with Chef Paul Kirk working on the second edition of America's Best BBQ by Ardie A. Davis and Chef Paul Kirk, to be released in May 2015. His other books are 25 Essentials: Smoking; 25 Essentials: Grilling; America's Best BBQ, with Chef Paul Kirk; the 25th Anniversary Kansas City Barbeque Society Cookbook with Paul Kirk and Carolyn Wells; America's Best Ribs, with Paul Kirk; America's Best BBQ - Homestyle - What the Champs Cook in Their Backyards, with Paul Kirk; The Great Barbecue Sauce Book; Kansas City BBQ Pocket Guide; and co-authored the Kansas City Barbeque Society Cookbook Edited by Ardie A. Davis, Chef Paul Kirk, and Carolyn Wells. Davis is a certified Memphis Barbecue Network Judge and a Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS) Certified Master Judge. A charter lifetime member of KCBS, he has served three terms on the Board of Directors. While on the board he proposed the development of a KCBS Certified Barbecue Judge (CBJ) program. Davis and Ed Roith wrote the original judge certification curriculum and conducted the first classes. The CBJ program has become a successful sanctioned contest network resource of more than 17,000 certified barbecue judges in the US and other countries. Davis penned the official judges' oath administered at all KCBS-sanctioned contests. He is now a Board Member Emeritus and inductee in the KCBS Hall of Flame. Davis also founded the Diddy-Wa-Diddy National Barbecue Sauce Contest in his backyard patio in 1984. Three years later the contest became the American Royal International Barbecue Sauce, Rub & Baste Contest. Davis has appeared on various TV and radio shows, including three History Channel programs: Modern Marvels, America Eats: Barbecue, and How the States Got Their Shapes - State of Rebellion. A thoughtful philosophy major in college, Davis' interests are wide-ranging. Join the Pitmaster Club and come see Ardie "Remus Powers" Davis, PhB, on "The Best Barbecue Joints In America" on Wednesday, January 7 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, 7:30 Central, 6:30 Mountain, 5:30 Pacific
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Give to Operation BBQ Relief
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At year end, when you allocate for charitable giving, may I suggest you find some money for Operation BBQ Relief?
The devastation after a tornado is horrific. Looks like Hiroshima. Lives are lost, livelihoods are lost, places to live are lost. But within hours neighbors, police, firefighters, the Red Cross, and Operation BBQ Relief (OBR) are on the scene to help.
OBR is a 501(c)(3) charity and it has a list of Competition BBQ teams who have big rigs, mobile kitchens, and pitmasters who can hop in their cars and be on the road in a hurry, and they even have a small fleet of mobile kitchens of its own. When disaster hits, the emails for help go out and pitmasters rally to the call.
After a tornado, hurricane, or flood, not many people are able to cook for themselves for a while. After the heartbreak of digging through rubble around the clock, first responders and victims need to eat. A first rate pulled pork sandwich is powerful relief. As of May 2014, OBR has served more than 500,000 meals, an average of almost 5,000 meals a day at the scene of a disaster.
AmazingRibs.com has been a major supporter of this amazing system for several years and donates 5% of the membership fees from the Pitmaster Club to OBR. If you are not already a member of our Pitmaster Club, click here for more info and to join. Or if you prefer, donate to them directly.
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