The Complete Backyard BBQ Beginner's Guide: Every Question Backyard Pitmasters Ask — Answered in One Place

If you've watched ten BBQ videos and ended up more confused than when you started — this book is for you.The Complete Backyard BBQ Beginner's Guide is the no-noise field guide for two kinds of cooks: the person staring at a brand-new smoker at 6 AM with a cold pork shoulder and no idea what to do next, and the three-years-in pitmaster whose briskets are "fine" but never great, and who isn't quite sure why.Foundations first — fire, smoke, temperature, time. Then the proteins, in the order you should actually learn them. Pulled pork. Ribs. Brisket. Poultry. Steaks. Pork belly. Plus sauces, sides, hosting, and troubleshooting — answered the way an experienced friend would answer them.Inside the book:• 18 chapters of foundation, technique, and protein-by-protein walkthroughs• 43 hand-drawn instructional illustrations — anatomy diagrams, decision flowcharts, doneness tests, sequence shots, and reference visuals• "Before Your First Cook" checklists for pork shoulder, ribs, brisket, poultry, and steaks• "From the Pit" stories — real (and mostly-real) cautionary tales from backyard pitmasters• Universal cook charts, wood-pairing matrix, doneness cheat sheet, and a complete recipe vault in the appendices• Honest gear opinions — what's worth your money, what isn'tWhat this book is not: a compilation of recipes you'll find on the first page of Google. A celebrity-chef vanity project. A safety manual written by a lawyer. A YouTube transcript dressed up in a book.What it is: the book the author wishes he'd had when he started — organized practically, written opinionated, illustrated like a Cook's Illustrated piece, designed to be dog-eared and smudged with rub."I'm Tommaso Jackson. I cook in my backyard most weekends. I'm not a competition pitmaster, a restaurant chef, or a television personality. I'm a guy who got obsessed with this craft, made every mistake you can think of, learned from people who knew more than me, and figured out what's actually worth knowing versus what's just internet noise."Welcome to the smoke. Read more