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BBQ recipes, grilling tips, and smoker secrets — delivered to your inbox.
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Four quick-reference tools every cook bookmarks — target temps, pull temps, and how long leftovers keep, plus the full BBQ glossary.
| Cut | Pull | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Brisket | 203°F | 12–16h |
| Spare ribs | 195–203°F | ~6h |
| Pork butt | 203°F | 12–14h |
Target temps & times for 17 cuts, sortable by meat, weight and doneness.
View full chart →| Doneness | Target |
|---|---|
| Rare | 125–130°F |
| Medium-rare | 130–135°F |
| Well-done | 160°F+ |
Rare to well-done, burger safety (160°F) and resting times.
View full chart →| Food | Fridge | Freezer |
|---|---|---|
| Brisket, ribs | 3–4 days | 2–3 mo |
| Smoked sausage | 1 week | 1–2 mo |
| Potato salad | 3–4 days | no freeze |
How long smoked meats & sides keep — fridge and freezer, USDA-based.
View full chart →Every pit term decoded — cooking methods, gear, cuts, wood, and technique, A to Z.
Open the glossary →Reader Favorites
Tested against potato salad, baked beans, watermelon, and corn on the cob over 3 Memorial Day cookouts in 2025: 5 sides that earned the swap. Smoked mac, grilled watermelon salad, burnt-ends beans, smoked deviled eggs, grilled corn esquites.
Wagyu ground is $18–$24/lb. Cook it past medium and the fat that makes it Wagyu renders straight onto the grill. The technique that protects that investment: low handling, simple seasoning, 130°F pull, minimal toppings.
Bark and crust on brisket are different things. Bark is dark, flavorful, pliable. Crust is hard and dehydrated. The difference comes from fat cap, smoker temp, and surface moisture.
Pellet smoker stalls at 165°F because the meat is sweating — surface evaporation cools the protein as fast as the smoker heats it. Four fixes: butcher paper, foil, crank the temp, or wait it out.
Tri-tip vs. brisket: which one wins for your Memorial Day cookout? The decision matrix — cook time, cost-per-person, group size, skill ceiling — and how to cook each one right.
Memorial Day brisket math, in one table: 1/2 lb cooked per adult, 1/4 lb per child, +20% safety. Plus the raw-weight conversion, ribs/pork/chicken/tri-tip portions, and the buy-by-May-20 timeline.
Swicy — sweet plus spicy — is the dominant 2026 BBQ flavor trend. Three sauces define it: Honey-Habanero glaze, Pineapple-Chipotle BBQ sauce, and Hot Honey + Bourbon mop. The chiles, the sweets, the acid — and how to build your own.
The Ugly Drum Smoker is having its biggest year since 2018. Why 2026 BBQ trend forecasts all flag drum smokers as the surprise comeback — simpler than offsets, more flavor than pellets, 12+ hour burns on a single fuel load, and as cheap as $120 DIY.
A great Memorial Day brisket isn’t a single 14-hour cook — it’s 30 days of preparation that starts today. Order your brisket, book your fuel, run two practice cooks. The day-by-day calendar pitmasters use to deliver flawless brisket on the holiday.
Five months of winter does strange things to a smoker. The 7-step startup that takes 90 minutes — gaskets, ash-out, grease flush, probe calibration, fuel check, paint touch-ups, and a 90-minute burn-in — that saves your first brisket of the season.
Smoked carrot steaks are the surprise plant-based BBQ entrée of 2026 — slow-cooked over hardwood until the sugars caramelize and the bark eats remarkably like brisket. Recipe with bourbon-maple glaze plus three variations.
When the game won’t end, Overtime on the Blackstone delivers fast, safe griddle food—sliders, nachos, cheesesteaks, and more.
