INTRODUCTION Today, the interest in BBQ is growing like never before, with local competitions springing up all over and slow-cooked, smoked meats making their way from hard-to-find back-woods shacks into manicured suburban neighborhoods. People love barbecue and are expressing that love by learning how to do it. If you've decided to learn the craft, or even if you have cooked a few butts in your day, you've probably come across the million blogs, forums, books, and magazines that are available to those that want to perform carnivorous alchemy, and you've likely been overwhelmed by it all. I know I too was.Nowadays, the word barbecue is synonymous with outdoor grilling but for a long time they were considered very different. The history of grilling and barbecue and how they're connected can be at times confusing but the one thing that historians agree on is that barbecue derived from the Native American word "barbacoa," which was the word for a raised wooden rack that was used, among ot
