Contrary to what you might think, Al Dente is not a hall of fame third baseman. It is an Italian phrase that means roughly "to the tooth" but what it really means is that the food in [..]

A small styrofoam clamshell box in which BBQ competition teams prepare their entries for presentation and turn-in.

The process of killing all or most of the microbes in food, usually by heat. Pasteurization may not kill all microbes, but it reduces the population to a level deemed safe. It cannot kill spores, whic [..]

A method of cooking meat over a high heat for a short time to create a brown surface and alter the flavor by the Maillard effect. Searing is not sealing. Contrary to popular belief, searing does not s [..]

At a barbecue competition, when a friendly competitor wanders over with a beer for you and starts up a casual conversation coincidentally just at the moment you are mixing up your secret sauce.

The temperature at which a fat begins to smoke. Some fats have a low smoke point, such as butter (250 to 300°F) and others have a high smoke point, such as peanut oil (450°F). The flash point is the t [..]

, As defined by FDA, is usually done at temperatures under 140°F. The food, often cheese, fish, or sausage, is heavily infused with smoke flavor, but it is not cooked by heat. Most commercial smoked f [..]

New York Times Best Seller! Amazon's Best Cookbook of 2016 at Midyear! Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling

Click Here Not interested. Take me to AmazingRibs.com A Glossary Of Cooking And Barbecue Lingo "Dictionary: Opinion expressed as truth in alphabetical order." John Ralston Saul

The single most important technique an outdoor cook can learn. It involves dividing the cooking surface into a hot direct hear zone and a not-so-hot indirect heat zone. This gives the cook much more c [..]