Weber Cookbook Recipe Index
- Thread starter Chris Allingham
- Start date
W Paul
New member
This may not be the right place to ask this question, but of the books listed in the index which book(s) do you think would be best to get started? (I think by "best" I mean which would be most versatile.) I'm pretty new to smoking and charcoal grilling if that helps narrow down the options.
Bruce
TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
Lots of great information in the Barbequing and Grilling sections on this site. You can just sift through the threads or do some searching on them. Also, just jump in and ask questions.
Also, check out the various sections under recipes which are divided into the types of meat. If you prefer a book that you can put your hands on, that is fine, but otherwise you can find a ton of info and links in these forums.
Also, check out the various sections under recipes which are divided into the types of meat. If you prefer a book that you can put your hands on, that is fine, but otherwise you can find a ton of info and links in these forums.
If I might add my 2 cents to this discussion, I think you might enjoy these two books - 'Weber's Big Book of Grilling"- ( I posted some recipes from it on the cookbook thread, post #136 and #158) and also "Weber's Charcoal Grilling". They both are filled with very useful information on how to's and what to cook.
Enjoy!!!!!
W Paul
New member
Thanks for the tips everyone! About 5 minutes after posting I found an ad for New Real Grilling that the lady was giving away for free and only a lives a few minutes from my house. Score! I’ll be sure to keep scanning the forums for good recipes too.
(Also, I just noticed my posts show up as ‘W Paul’. Didn’t mean for that to happen.
Never understood why my parents didn’t just call me by my first name, and then I turned around and did the same thing to my son. 
)
(Also, I just noticed my posts show up as ‘W Paul’. Didn’t mean for that to happen.
Never understood why my parents didn’t just call me by my first name, and then I turned around and did the same thing to my son. )First and foremost, my thanks to @JRPfeff for creating and maintaining this spreadsheet index.
Weber's Big Book of Grilling has been on my bookshelf for a very long time. I looked at it, and it was awful, so I put it on the shelf many years ago, mostly so I would not hurt the feelings of the person who gave it to me. With my newfound interest in grilling, I pulled it off the shelf and looked at it yesterday, and remembered why I thought it was so awful.
The Table of Contents does not list the recipes. The Table of Contents shows only large sections like Beef, Pork, Lamb, Game, Poultry, Fish and Seafood, etc. If you want to know which recipes are actually in the book, you must flip through the pages one by one. There is an alphabetized index in the back, in the usual index sized small font.
Who on earth would design and publish a cookbook that does not list the recipes in the front for easy perusal and selection? Really?
JRPfeff should have never had to create his spreadsheet in the first place. In doing so, the true beneficiary is Weber's publishing arm, who dropped the ball when they designed The Big Book of Grilling. I ordered the spreadsheet by book, deleted the other books that we don't have, and printed the list in page order and again in alphabetical order by recipe. I put the two printouts in the book, but they should have been in the publication itself. I call shame on whoever was responsible for that.
I would like to see a list of those chicken recipes and their page numbers in the front of the book. That's all.
In fairness, @Joan is correct and I was wrong. Weber's Big Book of Grilling is designed like many other cookbooks. Before now, my expectations were different. I looked at other cookbooks and was surprised.
Explanation:
I do not own many cookbooks myself. The few I own tend to be more "academic." (Example: "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart, which has a Table of Contents, immediately followed by a "Formulas" page listing the bread recipes in page order.)
My partner has many cookbooks that I never looked at before. I pulled ~20 random ones off the shelf, and found four common designs:
- The Table of Contents shows general categories only, like Weber's Big Book of Grilling.
- The reader leafs through the pages in the category that interests them, just as Joan described.
- The Table of Contents shows both general categories and a list of individual recipes.
- This would be my ideal choice.
- This is what I expected, but now see that it is less common than I thought.
- The main Table of Contents shows only general categories, but ...
- ... The start of each section has its own Table of Contents listing the recipes and page numbers for that section.
- That design was more common than I expected.
- No Table of Contents
- Several books launched immediately into text and recipes. There were no tables or lists at all.
Hugh Hamilton
New member
Late to the game...but what a nice resource to find! References the Weber books I keep at hand. Thank you for all the effort it took to assemble this!