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from the perspective of science and mechanics. Our goal is to impart an understanding of what happens during grilling, so that you can make better-tasting grilled food. Great grilling and barbecuing involve more than following accepted techniques and endless ingredient jockeying. Grilling is more than an art. It’s simply not enough to say that grilling is an “inexact science,” as many grill books do. After all, baking was an inexact science before we understood the structure of flour, the browning properties of sugar, the alchemy of leaveners, and the tenderizing effects of fat. Just like bakers, tinkering grill cooks want to know more about the medium and the method. They want to know what’s going on when raw food meets live fire. They want to know when to use a dry rub and when to marinate, what meats should be brined and which foods take best to mops, sops, and sauces. They want to know why a strip steak sometimes browns nicely, while at other times it burns inedibly. And they want the holy grail of grilling—to know how to make a simple, tender grilled hamburger rather than a charred hockey puck. We believe that just as baking science has allowed bakers to hone their craft, knowing the science of live-fire cooking will allow backyard grill lovers to vastly improve their flair with the flames.

This book tells you exactly how various grills, pit barbecues, and smokers work. It explains the physics of fire, the chemistry of dry-heat cooking, and the mystery of this most primal cooking method. It’s also an owner’s manual to virtually all of the equipment that home cooks will encounter when grilling and barbecuing. We explain not just how to use various types of grills but how they work mechanically, how to maintain them, and how to repair them. You’ll also learn about the science of heat transference and how different fuels affect this fundamental process. You’ll marvel at the physical and chemical transformations that govern all live-fire cooking, from the gradual magic of slow, low-heat barbecuing to the brisk alchemy of fast, high-heat grilling. Then we move on to ingredients, discussing in lay terms the basic molecular makeup of meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish, vegetables, fruits, cheese, eggs, and doughs—and, most importantly, what happens when these foods react with flame.

Our goal is to help you understand the hows of grilling: how a hot grill fire quickly melts and caramelizes the sugars in vegetables, increasing their sweetness and taming their bitterness; how the low, wood-fueled heat of a smoky pit barbecue slowly melts the fat in meat, which in turn acts as a natural basting liquid; and how the intense flavor of a grilled steak with a crisp crust results from the accelerated browning that occurs when the compound sugars on the surface of the meat quickly caramelize over a hot flame.

With this grounding in the fundamentals, you can be confident about the whens and whys of grilling: when and why to marinate, brine, rub, baste, mop, glaze, and sauce to achieve the optimal flavor and texture of various grilled and barbecued foods. We give you the knowledge you need to grill without following recipes. After all, the fun of grilling is participating directly in the cooking process as it occurs—and, ultimately, influencing that process. Let’s face it: Live fire is inspiring. And grilling is the most basic enactment of the principle that cooking = food + heat. We simply explain what’s going on during grilling so that you can play more freely at the fire and experiment with the variables of tools, fuels, time, temperature, ingredients, flavors, and go-withs.

But this is not a book just for grilling extremists. We recognize that some cooks want to be experts, while others just want to make dinner. The bulk of the book is filled with recipes. From basic Steakhouse Burgers (page 93) to a fire-roasted Honey-Glazed Roast Suckling Pig (page 239), the more than 300 recipes in this book demonstrate basic grilling principles and fabulous grilled flavor. Rib-Eye Steaks with Fragrant Chile Rub and Salsa Butter (page 141)