Grilling Technique Book?


 
Evan Kornacki

Evan Kornacki

New member
I was thinking about buying one of Jamie Purviance's books to learn how to better use my Spirit E-310. I already know about the Recipe Index here on TVWBB. I'm not just looking for a collection of recipe's, but something more focused on the techniques / best practices (specifically for propane grills / griddles).

So looking at his bibliography, I see the most recent options are:

  • Barbecue Bible (2020)
  • Ultimate Grilling (2019)
  • Weber's Complete BBQ Book (2017)
  • Weber's Complete BBQ Smoking (2017)
  • Barbecue Bible (2016)
Does anybody have any opinion on the usefulness of any of these books, above & beyond being simply a collection of recipes? Or are there any other books in particular that I should read first? Is there like a standard 'bible' of barbecue ... kind of like Smuggler's Cove is to tiki cocktails?

Again, I'm not doing anything with charcoal right now, or in the near future.
 
I've got the Ultimate Grilling book. It has two pages of general gas grill info:
  • Lighting a gas grill
  • Maintaining temperature
  • Heat configurations on a gas grill
    • Direct Heat
    • Indirect Heat
Then a whole section on cook times, resting, doneness charts, etc. and a section on Top Tips for Ultimate Grilling Success. There's two pages on smoking in a gas grill and a section on grilling tools.

As for recipes, they're not specific to charcoal or gas, they simply specify temperature, direct/indirect setup, and cooking/resting time.

I think it's about the same as all other Purviance books written for Weber grills. Heavy on recipes, just the basics on technique.

On an unrelated note, I'm flabbergasted to learn of these 2016/2017 Purviance books because I thought I had all of his Weber cookbooks. Apparently I missed at least three of them.
 
Does anybody know if the 2016 and the 2020 editions of the Barbecue Bible are any different? Or is it just a re-release?
 
How do Jamie Purviance's books compare to Steven Raichlen's books? They both look like just recipe collections.

What about Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling?
 
I have one printed in 1998 and (I AM PROUD TO SAY) one that is autographed by Raichlen, color edition that I WON IN 2008!!!!!
 
This was from a Q&A.
Chris Allingham

Thread 'Free PDF mini-book & sample recipes from "Weber's Ultimate Grilling"'

You can download a free PDF mini book of Weber's Ultimate Grilling prior to our Q&A with author Jamie Purviance on April 23-26, 2019. Hopefully this will provoke the posting of lots of questions for Jamie to answer!

The mini book includes recipes for:

  • Chicken breasts with green herb salsa
  • Porterhouse steak with board sauce
  • Bruschetta done six ways
  • Portabello mushrooms with chard and feta
  • Roasted carrot hummus with pita chips
Thanks to Breanne Sommer on Jamie's PR team for making this available to TVWBB readers!
 
I'm not just looking for a collection of recipe's, but something more focused on the techniques / best practices (specifically for propane grills / griddles).

For technique/best practices (but not recipes), all I needed was the link below. Absolutely required reading. I think that link covers the same ground as the book "Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling."

While it is not focused solely on gas grills, it really helped me understand the differences between the various outdoor cooking methods. Based on the primary kind of heat energy being supplied.

For a gas grill, the POWER insight is that your cooker is long on convection (hot air). And light on conduction (hot metal like a griddle or cast irno pan) and also light on radiation (which is what you get from charcoal and IR burners).

TL/DR, your gas grill probably kinda sucks at searing/browning. But you can make better steaks by (i) having an IR burner or (ii) using flat hot metal like a griddle. My personal fix for gas grill searing suck-age has been the flat side of GrillGrates (which was a Meathead gas grill tip).

Kenji Lopez Alt is also very strong on the science of cooking and related techniques. His Food Lab book is my bible for indoor kitchen cooking.


amazingribs.com

The Thermodynamics of Cooking and How Different Cooking Methods Work

Learn about thermodynamics: the basis of all cooking! Find out how heat transference works by conduction, convection, radiation, induction, and infrared heat in your grill, bbq, and smoker.
amazingribs.com
 
Last edited:
Jim C in Denver said:
I'm not just looking for a collection of recipe's, but something more focused on the techniques / best practices (specifically for propane grills / griddles).

For technique/best practices (but not recipes), all I needed was the link below. Absolutely required reading. I think that link covers the same ground as the book "Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling."

While it is not focused solely on gas grills, it really helped me understand the differences between the various outdoor cooking methods. Based on the primary kind of heat energy being supplied.

For a gas grill, the POWER insight is that your cooker is long on convection (hot air). And light on conduction (hot metal like a griddle or cast irno pan) and also light on radiation (which is what you get from charcoal and IR burners).

TL/DR, your gas grill probably kinda sucks at searing/browning. But you can make better steaks by (i) having an IR burner or (ii) using flat hot metal like a griddle. My personal fix for gas grill searing suck-age has been the flat side of GrillGrates (which was a Meathead gas grill tip).

Kenji Lopez Alt is also very strong on the science of cooking and related techniques. His Food Lab book is my bible for indoor kitchen cooking.


amazingribs.com

The Thermodynamics of Cooking and How Different Cooking Methods Work

Learn about thermodynamics: the basis of all cooking! Find out how heat transference works by conduction, convection, radiation, induction, and infrared heat in your grill, bbq, and smoker.
amazingribs.com
Click to expand...
Sorry, I leave all that "tech" stuff to others.
 
There are NO bad resources, books, video, YouTube are all good places to learn, there is no one “tell all, know all” references.
The biggest thing to do is jump in! You have to start doing the hands on to see what works FOR YOU! Some of the guys out there are doing things differently than I do simply because there is always more than one way to skin a cat or in this case a smoke a pork butt. I have 25’ of cookbooks, covering a stupefying range of methods and cuisines. Some I have never even cracker aside from when I was in the bookstore and saw “that recipe” which I probably still have not made so, having reference material is fun but there is nothing like getting your hands in and just doing it.
I don’t know if that answers anything but that’s how I work with it.
 
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