The Backyard Fire Cookbook: Get Outside and Master Ember Roasting, Charcoal Grilling, Cast-Iron Cooking, and Live-Fire Feasting (Great Outdoor Cooking)

This is the nicest book I've bought in years! It's superbly organized, so easy to grab up and get answers. The photos make your mouth water, and the recipes are really good, and there are lots of them (3/4 of the book)! It explains how to cook with ultimate control over an easy-build fire pit or using your metal covered grill with hardwood charcoal. It explains the stages of fire building, controlling the burn at each stage, how to use cast iron, skewers, foil, or cedar planks, also arranging coals to create zones to cook with different temps and materials simultaneously. It explains how to safely use your hands to estimate the temp of your coals. It has a chart for meat temps according to Rare or Well Done. It explains the different types of cooking oils and how they react to heat and flavor the food, especially when charring or blistering veggies. Theres a chart of commonly used woods for different meats based upon Mild to Intense flavoring. There's a section on knowing your cooking woods and using herbs and spices to transfer aromatics to your food. There's a great couple of pages on knowing when the food is done. And this is all done in 30 pages with great photos. The rest of the book is beautifully explained, photo'd, and organized recipes that have NORMAL INGREDIENTS that taste like backyard-feast food! Y'all get this book and go for it!

Provides excellent information and recipes

Tasty!

I have only the most basic grasp of cooking over a fire, and this book opens new vistas of what is possible. I haven't got all the way through the book, but I'm learning quite a bit. Eventually, after trying the various cooking methods, I should be able to confidently cook a number of things I never would have thought feasible. I realize it will take much practice to get good at this, but at least I have a good starting point for experimentation.

I love cooking on the grill, but I'm always a little worried that my fire is too hot, or that I set something up incorrectly. This book has diagrams and charts telling you what type of starter to use, how to place the coals on the grill or fire pit for different results etc, and even how to tell how hot the grill is. I love it! I can't wait to try the recipes, but I'll definitely keep the book handy when grilling for the how-to part!

Very thoughtfully written for beginning grillers as well as tips for seasoned grillers. I don't like a lot of heavy all meat recipes, so this was a perfect balance of recipes to put on our backyard fire pit/grill. Makes a great gift too!

have not had a chance to try any recipe, but all look great

This book is not as advertised. Sure, the pictures are real pretty but there is almost no real info here. Less than a page each for cooking styles and then some recipes. I wanted a hundred pages of real information and got about 5. This book does not give all of the info about live fire cooking. It gives you some glossy photos and some recipes, rather than in-depth detail about cooking with fire in different ways. A total waste of time and money.

I bought this as a gift for my brother, he found it helpful and has followed advice in the book, the results are delicious! He cooked one of the best steaks I've ever had!

Good book very well illustrated .

Nice book with some good ideas. Unfortunately I was really looking for more information on fire pit cooking which was only a small part of the book.