It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt.

So fire up your grill, light the charcoal and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios in Portland.

Here's jt.

Everybody.

Welcome to Barbecue Nation, a brand new show here with one of our favorites.

No, not me, of course.

Ms.

Whippin is one of our favorites.

But we've got Meathead Goldwyn from.

From us or just Meathead from AmazingRibs dot com.

He's got a brand new tome out and man, is it cool.

Also, I like it.

The very back of the book on the back cover where you get all the recommendations and cool stuff.

I'm on there.

Anyway, the Meathead Method right here.

I don't know if you can see it.

I should have done it.

I can see it.

I can see it.

Cool.

It's a.

It's a wonderful book.

And it's the little subtext.

There is the Barbecue hall of Famers Secrets of Science and.

Or Science on Barbecue, Grilling and outdoor cooking with 114 recipes.

I must.

Ugly, ugly cover, though.

Ugly cover.

I don't think so at all.

It's got a good picture of you.

I think it's great.

Yeah.

You want to hear a funny story about my book covers?

Sure.

My last book, just called Meathead the Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling came out nine years ago.

It was number one bestseller on Amazon for like three or four months after it launched.

And then Chrissy Teigen, the model and singer, became a cookbook author.

And she's on the COVID of hers, unbuttoned down to here.

Yeah.

Now how the hell do I compete with that?

You don't.

You don't.

Well, I'm a bit of a Photoshop geek, so I photoshopped Arnold Schwarzenegger shirtless onto the COVID of my book and sent it to the publisher and said, we need to change the COVID Needless to say, they disagree.

Disagree?

Yeah.

Isn't it amazing how some of the celebs, they get out there and one of the things that is in their PR package now is you have to do a cookbook.

You have to do a cookbook.

A lot of them.

I didn't know that.

I'm not surprised.

I mean, a lot of.

What else are they?

Guys like Stanley Tucci.

Yeah.

Stanley Tucci is a real cook.

I mean.

Yeah.

And I guess Chrissy is too, but there's just a lot of them out there who, you know, couldn't.

Couldn't boil water without burning it.

Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because it just Slays me.

In fact, one, not to get off in the weeds on this too much, but back when I was in Hollywood, back in whatever it was, 2004, the first thing they said to me is, you got a cookbook.

Really?

Yeah.

And I said, well, no, I could do one.

Well, you got to have a book.

And I was like, okay.

So anyway, anyway, that's a true story.

So enough about, enough about our ventures in that I want to talk about the book, though.

Meathead.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

It launches May 13, so it's available pre sale on Amazon and Apple and elsewhere, but it'll be in bookstores on May 13, and I'm pretty proud of it.

It was a lot of work.

It is in many ways a sequel to the first book, Meathead, because it does stuff that the original book, Meathead didn't do.

The original book, Meathead has sold almost 300,000 copies now.

I believe most cookbooks, if they do 10 to 20,000, everybody's happy, right?

I mean, this is 300,000.

Yeah, it's a lot.

I believe it's the second best selling cookbook after Steven Raichlen's Barbecue Bible.

I think that's the biggest bestseller and that's been around 10 years longer than mine.

So it's done well.

It's done well for me and for the business.

And it, it covers.

It's a great place to.

It's a great book to give to somebody who's just getting rolling with barbecued, maybe just bought their first grill or is really starting to get into it because it really covers all the basics and in depth.

It's.

There's a lot of.

The first half of the book is a science book.

The second half is recipes.

Well, I did the same thing with this book.

The first for the book is a lot of science and method, hence the Meathead method.

A lot of technique, a lot of things that you need to learn how to do to do properly.

And some of it is more advanced.

And then the recipes are.

The first book is your classic barbecue and grilling recipes.

Steaks and burgers and brisket and pulled pork and ribs and chicken and so on.

This book works with much the same proteins, but it.

The preps are a lot different and the ingredients are a lot different and a lot of fun.

It's a great challenge to somebody who likes to grill and who is also into exciting cooking, exciting food, you know, somebody who, who goes to Chinese restaurants and Thai restaurants in Spanish and likes those kinds of flavors because I've mixed them in.

I Mean, there's gochujang in here and a lot of ethnic and regional seasonings and flavors.

So it's not exactly a sequel.

But what it is, what I've tried to do, and we've talked a little bit about this here, is cover where barbecue goes next.

Right.

I think that the classics are always going to be part of the American barbecue canon.

But right now, I mean, there's a great barbecue joint down in Atlanta where he's from Georgia and she's from Korea, and the barbecue has distinctive Korean flavorings.

There's.

There's Bill Derny's place on.

In Red Hook.

I know you guys know Bill, where he's just really creative, and he's using flavors from all over the world, and the results are stunning.

There's a lot of Mexican flavors working its way up through Austin.

In fact, last time I was in Austin, I went to a barbecue joint.

He was from Austin and she was from Ethiopia, and there was a lot of Ethiopian flavors in the barbecue.

That sort of stuff is going on.

And I know that there's going to be a bunch of guys out there going to say, oh, that's not barbecue.

That's heresy.

Fine, you can stay where you're at.

But if you love Korean food, if you love Mexican food, if you love experimenting new flavors, I try to bring them to you in this book.

I think you've done a very good job because, like you said, the three of us have talked about this before.

There's only.

And off the air.

You guys have heard me grouse about it a time or two.

Not very much, but there's only so many ways to do a brisket.

Okay.

And that's the holy grail to a lot of the barbecue folks, and I love that, and I appreciate that, but kind of like you, and I know Leanne does this, and she does it very well.

It's more fun anymore to go out and create something.

I'll go back to the old adage, and you've heard me say this in previous shows.

George Carlin always said, nail two things together that have never been nailed together before, and somebody will buy it.

All right.

That was one of his classics.

I've never heard that.

That's brilliant.

Yeah.

And so when I'm cooking and this isn't.

This is about your book, not about me, but just to throw this in there, when I'm cooking outside, whether it's on a grill, a smoker, a flat top, whatever it is, I'm trying to do different things, and that's One of the things that I really loved about this book.

Well, I agree.

I mean, it's called the culinary arts.

Yes, Culinary arts.

It's an art form, and all art forms are based on innovation, experimentation, music, dance, painting.

They're always marching forward.

They're always innovating and creativity.

If I could see the book right now.

I don't have a book.

How come you don't have one?

You're on the.

I put you on the list.

I don't know.

But I do know that when we've talked in the past, I do like the COVID a lot, actually.

You focused on your photography and the art of the.

That's the.

That's a big twisty here.

I mean, I think that you could be up for an award for your art.

Oh, my photography?

Yeah.

Well, I worked.

I worked hard on the photographs.

I'm very proud of the photographs.

I actually did my master's in photography, so I felt like I had to bring up the quality of the photographs.

And I'm pretty good with Photoshop.

Here is a very hard to see with the reflection.

Maybe I'll do.

Incredible.

I can see it.

Maybe I'll do a screen share with some of these.

But in any case, the photos are, I think, pretty good, and I worked hard on them.

Well, I know you've been laboring for a couple of years on this because there were times I talked to you on the phone and you were like, jt, I can't talk now.

I've gotten setting my lighting, and I'm doing this.

I was like, okay, I'll talk to you next week.

You know, did you design the recipes so that they're adaptable to pretty much, you know, different kind of cookers, Smokers?

Yeah.

Most of the recipes I've tested on big green eggs and Weber kettles and gas grills.

So, yeah, I try to explain in this book and the last book how to set up grills for different styles of cooking.

And since this is about method.

Well, yeah.

Okay.

I'll give you some fun examples.

Everybody who loves Chinese food, raise your hand.

Leanne.

Leanne.

I'm not a Chinese food lover.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

But I do.

I.

I do like Chinese spareribs, and I like egg rolls, and I like.

You know, there's certain things I like.

Yes.

But overall, it's not my favorite.

I love Mexican.

There.

I love Chinese spare ribs.

And that's what.

What first attracted me to barbecue and grilling when I was a kid.

I think I have Chinese spare ribs in this book.

I'll get a check.

I forget it.

Yeah, I would love that.

But most Chinese restaurants stir fry, and they got a wok.

And if you've ever walked into a Chinese kitchen or seen a video of how Chinese that wok sits on top of a volcano, that it's a gas burner, and it is really powerful, and it gets really hot.

And I've been doing stir fry in my kitchen for years.

And it's good, it's tasty, but it just isn't the same as the Chinese restaurant.

And the reason is, is my stove top just doesn't get as hot as the Chinese restaurant.

Stove top with a wok.

And I've got great woks.

And one day I'm out at the.

Out of my backyard getting ready to fire up my charcoal grill and do some steaks.

And the best way to start a charcoal fire is a gadget called a charcoal chimney.

And it just looks like a big coffee can.

And you put newspaper underneath and charcoal on top.

You like the newspaper, and it gets the charcoal going.

And I've got my charcoal chimney started, and I'm puttering around, and I turn around, and it's about dusk.

That sun is just setting, and I can see this blue flame coming out of the top of the charcoal chimney.

It looks like the back end of an F35.

And I immediately run inside and get my walk and set it on top of the chimney.

And an infrared thermometer, which is like a gun, you point it at the surface, and it's well over a thousand degrees.

And so next night, I'm back out there, and I got my charcoal chimney started up, but I have all the fixings for a beef stir fry in mise en place on a tray next to me.

And I cooked up the best Chinese stir fry I'd ever done because I had this incredible F35 heat.

That's hilarious.

So in my world, Chinese food is a charcoal grill dish.

Yeah, it's.

It's an outdoor dish.

You can't do it on your stovetop.

You need to do it on over charcoal.

Yeah, we're going to take it.

We're going to take a break, and we're going right.

Right back, and we're going to pick up on the Chinese stuff.

And also, one of the great things you did in this book, Meathead the myths, he did this myth.

Myth busting, myth busting thing.

Whatever.

I said, yeah, we'll be right.

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.

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You'll love it, I guarantee it.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with hall of famers Plural, Leanne Whippin, my co host and meathead from AmazingRibs.com.

he's got a new book out called the Meathead Method.

Great stuff in there.

We were talking about thousand degree Chinese walks when we took a break.

That's the kind of thing that I think what you just described in the previous segment was the kind of thing I think meathead.

That is a lot of fun.

Fun and to be a little adventuresome.

And you, you know, you kind of caught that, that blue flame, if you will, just kind of out of happenstance and you.

And you saw it there and you took off with it.

Sometimes I think that we get in ruts.

I've certainly been in ruts in my life and in my cooking.

I think we can all probably fess up to that.

But that's one of the things I really liked about the book was.

And I haven't had it long enough to read every page of it, I will confess that.

But man, it's a real go to.

To pick it up and look at something and like Leanne referred to your photography is fantastic.

One of the things in the book that you do is you go after the myths again.

Like you were talking about Chinese food, msg.

You know, there's MSG and Chinese food and all that MSG stuff about how bad it was and all this all came from a letter from a doctor.

I think that with no science behind it, just the fact that he thought it gave him headaches and that's how things get started.

And then it's years till they get debunked.

Yeah, it's there.

I've read an awful lot about this.

There may be a small number of people who legitimately react badly to msg.

Yeah.

And it's like anything else.

Anybody can be allergic to bananas, peanut butter, whatever, but the vast majority of people who think MSG is an allergen or causes headaches are probably mistaken.

And it's pretty easily proven in labs.

They've done a lot of testing where they've brought groups of people in and serve them food with and without msg.

The one of the interesting bits of evidence is, is glutamate, which is monosodium.

Glutamate is msg.

Glutamate is in a lot of foods.

It's in tomatoes, it's in mushrooms.

It's in a lot of foods that we eat.

And, you know, if you.

If you can eat mushrooms without getting headaches, chances are you're not allergic to msg.

And MSG is a cool ingredient, and that's one of the things we talk about.

I keep a small jar by the stovetop, and when I'm prepping meat, I will often give it a little shake it.

It just turns up the dial from 10 to 11.

You know, it amps up flavor and the meatiness character, and it's a nice thing to play with.

And if you're just try it, probably nobody's going to get sick.

In fact, don't tell anybody.

I don't think.

And, you know, if somebody says they're getting headaches, then back off and don't do it again.

But I don't think you're going to run into it.

So.

And.

And I've also got.

I play with a few other ingredients.

There's a really interesting ingredient called koji.

Koji is a.

Is a mold.

And don't be afraid of molds.

I mean, beer is made from molds.

Miso, soy sauce.

Molds are responsible for a lot of the.

Well, wine is yeast.

Yeast or fungi.

So this miso, if you've ever traveled to Japan and had miso soup, it's lovely.

Or gotten it in a Japanese restaurant.

And miso is a fun thing to work with.

Nobu restaurant serves a.

A fillet of sable with miso, which is brilliant.

It's like their most popular dish.

And there's like 30 Nobu restaurants around the country.

So in any case, miso or koji is the mold that makes miso.

And you can fiddle with with food.

You can add it to or spread it on the surface of a steak or chicken and then cook with it just like you might with msg.

And it modifies the flavor slightly and it amplifies flavor, and it does nice things.

Very nice things.

So I've got a little chapter on cooking with koji in here.

Just another one of the methods to play with.

All right, I'll try.

Let me.

I want to try another vote here.

Okay.

Who likes fried chicken?

Love.

Okay, now, I got.

I got.

I got Leanne.

Yeah, it's unanimous.

It's unanimous.

Well, actually, I ate fried chicken at your restaurant in Chicago when you had it, and I missed.

Dearly departed.

Missed.

And.

Okay, so fried chicken.

But do you cook it at home in your kitchen, Leanne?

I cook it in bacon fat in my grandmother's iron skillet.

Uh huh, uh huh.

In the, in the kitchen.

Yeah.

And it's a disastrous mess.

I mean, because I make gravy with the dripping.

So it's even worse.

But it's full on.

It's, I have to detail the kitchen afterwards.

Oh, it is.

It spatters all over the stovetop, all over the counters, gets on the floor, stinks up the kitchen, in the house for days, sets off the smoke alarm.

Yeah.

Well, I got news for you.

It's a grilled dish.

Go out back with a Dutch oven.

Not a skillet, a Dutch oven.

It's got higher sides, captures the spattering.

And put about 2 inches of oil in the bottom of the Dutch oven and drop it on your gas grill.

Turn the heat under the gas grill, the, the, the burner under the gas grill until the oils up to 350.

375.

That's your magic number for deep fat frying.

I go for 375 in that range and leave the other burners off.

So you got a classic two zone system.

And you got your Dutch oven with high sides sitting on top of the flame.

And you're up around 375.

Dredge your chicken and whatever you want.

Flour, flour, corn starch blend, which is good.

Roll it around in some eggs or buttermilk, whatever.

You know, there's a bazillion ways to do a nice dredge and then drop it in the hot oil.

You're outdoors.

Who cares if it smokes?

Who cares if it spatters?

Fantastic.

Great idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when it's beautiful golden, you take it out and you put it on the indirect side where it drip dries.

And yet you close the lid.

It stays warm while you're running a second batch and a third batch.

And it's nice and hot, nice and warm, super crispy.

Bring it in.

It's fantastic.

And there's no fuss, no muss.

Cleanup is next to nothing.

It's a like Chinese food.

Fried chicken is now a grilled food.

I so declare it.

I love it.

And make it so number one.

And you can do it any night of the week.

Who cares?

Because, you know, the prep and the cooking is really easy.

I mean, sure, you got three bowls.

Flour, egg, or buttermilk, or I, I, I'm, I'm partial to pickle, brine, and then back into flour.

Or you can do corn flakes or, you know, bread crumbs, whatever you like, and you can play with all of them.

You know, I've made really good fried chicken.

Just taking the chicken, getting it wet with my, you know, get my hands under the sink, get the chicken damp, and then roll it around and flour.

And that's it.

That's the way I do it.

Yeah, you don't need all that butter.

And in fact, if you do buttermilk or egg, which I've done, it tends to turn the flour dark brown during the cooking.

Yep.

And I prefer golden fried chicken rather than dark brown, so I don't do buttermilk at all.

I've occasionally done egg, but now my favorite is flour and then pickle brine and then back to the flour and that's it.

But I've done it many times where it's just flour.

Yeah.

We're going to take another break, but I will say this.

When you were talking about MSG earlier and headaches, my aunt, who's long gone now, always claimed that she got headaches from msg.

It wouldn't have anything to do with the five martinis.

So we'll go from there.

We'll be right back.

Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.

If you've ever looked at me, you know that.

But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon and our Dungeness crab.

If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.

Check it out.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with hall of Famers Leanne Whippin and Meathead from AmazingRibs.com today, we'd like to thank the folks at Grilla Grills.

Both Leanne and I have used Grilla Grills in our TV show and which the first season is complete and it's out there on Golf Newsnet, so you can look it up there.

And also Leanne has her own beautiful product that is wonderful and we recommend highly pig powder.

Go ahead.

Yeah, pig powder.

And I've been talking about the latest spicy pig powder coming out and believe it or not, I should have it by the end of May.

So I'm not that far off.

And it's new labels and everything.

So you can go to pigpowder.com to order the original right now.

And then the spicy will be available hopefully in the next month, I'm thinking.

So the orders take place among, count.

Me among the many fans of pig powder.

Oh, thank you so much.

It has won many awards, including the coveted best rub on the planet.

So it's sweet with a little bit of heat.

And as I said, the spicy one's got more heat, so it'll be.

It's really good on pork, chicken, scrambled eggs, baked beans, you name it.

It's great.

Be still my heart.

I can't believe that you've been talking about this for a better part of a year.

The spicy one.

And yes, it's finally coming.

Yes, I'm excited about that.

Yes, I will expect a care package in my.

You will be getting.

Yes.

And Meathead will also.

Finally.

It's all good.

Meathead's new book, the Meathead Method.

A Barbecue hall of Famer Secrets and Science on Barbecue, Grilling and outdoor cooking with 114 recipes.

I don't know.

What were you looking up there, Meathead?

Well, we were talking about msg, and I couldn't remember which of the favorite snack foods, but it was Doritos.

Oh, yeah.

Doritos are heavily coated with msg.

So if you can eat Doritos without getting a headache, you can eat all the Chinese food in the world.

And of course, the great food writer Jeffrey Steingarten once wondered aloud, you know, if it causes headaches, how come everybody in China doesn't have a headache?

Yeah, yeah.

So see, my.

My thoughts on that is people say they not.

This is not directed at you, land.

But people say they don't care for Chinese food.

Right.

And my theory is that you don't see a lot of overweight people in China.

It's one of.

Because it's based so much on, you.

Know, proteins, but also bad headaches all the time.

Yeah, right, right, right.

I don't think they use it in China.

That's a good point.

Good point.

Yeah.

One of the things, of course, where I come from and Leanne in Florida and, and to some degree the Chicago area, but we have a lot of seafood.

And a couple of points you made in the book, which I've tried to preach off and on when I get on the pulpit, you might say is if you're like cooking shellfish, don't overcook it, don't turn it into rubber.

You don't have to get it up to 165 degrees, folks.

You really don't have to.

It's not going to hurt you.

You know, people often ask me when I'm being Interviewed about the books.

What is the most common mistake?

And you've nailed it right there.

And particularly men.

I mean, you know, we, we get the fire going and give it all she's got.

I'm the caveman.

And, and you know, the problem is if you throw a steak on a really hot fire, it is going to blacken the exterior of the steak, which is carbon, carbonize it.

It's not tasty before the interior is cooked.

And so you're going to have what they call black and blue.

You're going to have a dark black outside and a blue or a purplish center that's undercooked.

And the key to good cooking is to get everything cooked right.

And the way you get there is dial it back, resist the male tendency to try to crank it up, cut the temperature down.

When you do, you allow the meat to cook gently and slowly and thoroughly from edge to edge.

And there's a trick, we've talked about it before, but I do describe it in the book.

It's called the reverse sear.

And if you're going to do something skinny like a flank steak or skirt steak, you can cook it hot and fast because it's skinny and the interior is going to cook.

But if you've got an inch and a half rib eye, you need to take it down.

You need to gently warm the interior so that the interior is even temperature throughout.

And here's the other secret to good cooking.

You've got to have a good digital thermometer.

You can buy a just fine dandy digital thermometer for 30 bucks or less and it'll give you a precise reading in, in five seconds.

And that makes all the difference in the world because a medium rare steak is at its most tender and juicy, and that's 130 to 135 and not a penny more, a penny less.

So you've got to have the digital thermometer and you warm that steak up to about 120.

It's not quite ready yet.

130 is your target or minimum 1 30.

So once it hits about 120 on, it's even throughout on a low temp and also at low.

At high temps, the muscle fibers contract and squeeze out juices.

So you're going to get dry meat.

At low temp, they hold on to their juices.

Now when you've hit around 120 in the indirect zone, you move it over to the hot side.

So you set up your grill in two zones.

One side hot, one side not.

You Move it over to the hot side where it's directly above flame or coals.

That is the infrared radiation zone.

And you're going to pound the surface of that meat with infrared radiation.

You're going to lift the lid so all the energy is hitting the underside of the meat.

And if you close the lid, then warm air is going to circulate above the meat and also enter from above.

We don't want that at this stage.

Lift the lid, pound the underside with energy and flip.

And I know so many of the books say put the meat down and don't flip.

No, you have to flip.

This is, this is.

You know, I'm not a scientist, but I'm into the science and we've learned a lot.

And the old mythology that my father passed down to me and his father to him was put the meat down and don't touch it, but that's a mistake.

So you get the energy pounding on the underside and you're going to brown those proteins.

And when you brown those proteins, they grow in flavor.

And now you're going to flip it and the energy that is built up in the surface that you were just facing the fire with is going to bleed off into the atmosphere because the lid is up.

So it's going to cool.

And now the other side is going to get hit with energy and it's going to brown.

And again, two or three minutes in, you're going to flip.

And if you flip every two or three minutes, you're allowing the surface to brown.

But when you flip it so that it's up, it prevents the heat from penetrating further and you don't get what we call the rainbow effect.

The rainbow effect is when if you cook it over direct heat the entire way, you get dark brown surface, then a tan layer, then a pink layer, and then maybe half the meat in the center is perfect medium rare.

So you've got only got about half of it cooked properly.

If you do this reverse sear technique, and it works best on thick cuts, inch to an inch and a half or bigger, you'll get perfect even.

And I've got pictures of this in the book.

You can see the reverse sear versus the high heat cook and the, the rainbow effect.

And one is clearly more delight delectable than the other.

So you've got to learn this simple technique, technique.

And you know, I try to teach the science as I was just going through here, I do a little better job in the book.

But, you know, this is, this is, this is a really important thought here too.

This is 2025.

This is a highly technical audience that we have out here.

People are very technically knowledgeable.

I mean, we carry around in our back pocket a computer more powerful than the one that went to the moon.

People want to know why in my parents day you got a recipe and you did step one, you did step two, you did step three, and your dask near never vary.

People want to know now what happens if I don't do step two?

What happens if I change brown sugar for white sugar in step three?

We want to know why.

And that's the kind of thing that I'm trying to do.

And there's a bunch of other cooks out here like that, you know, Kenji Lopez, alt.

Alton Brown.

Alton Brown wrote the foreword to this book, by the way.

Right, right.

He wrote the foreword to my book.

He also said he ripped up his manuscript, his first three chapters of his manuscript, after he read your book.

I hope he was kidding.

He said he was working on a barbecue book and after he read my book, he tore it up.

I, I hope he was kidding because I would be the first in line to buy a barbecue book from Ken from out.

And.

One of the things again.

And we got a couple minutes before we, before we get out of here for break.

Something that's very popular.

I'm not a big fan of it, but it's beer butt, chicken, beer can chicken beer, you know, whatever you want to call it.

It's just your chicken on a metal.

Yeah, it's another one of those cooking myths.

But when you think about the science involved, you realize there are better ways to cook a chicken.

Let's start off with this premise.

Beer can chicken is delicious.

Yeah.

And the reason it's delicious is because it's a roast chicken.

And all roast chickens are delicious unless you immolate them.

So beer can chicken is a great thing, but it's not the best way to cook a chicken.

And it doesn't work the way you think it does.

And now let's, let's, let's see why you're going to take the beer can and the chicken out of the fridge and they're going to come out around 38 degrees.

That's what your fridge temp, your target fridge temp should be between 33 and 38 or 39.

Shouldn't you never let your fridge go over 40 so they come out at say 38 and you stick the beer can up the butt of the chicken.

Well, you now have a thermal mass.

It's like a bowling ball because chicken 75% water, and the beer is 90% water.

So you've got this big watery thermal mass all at the same temperature.

And you put the chicken on the grill, and it's never going to boil.

You better get that chicken off at 170 at the most.

Otherwise it's going to be dry as cardboard.

160 to 170 is your target for chicken.

So at 170, that beer.

Beer is not going to boil.

All right?

There's no beer coming out of the can, and even if it did, it's down here from the chest level below.

Moisture coming out of the can would only contact the shoulders, and there's nowhere for it to go inside the meat.

The meat is fully saturated.

It has 75 water, and there's no room.

It can't get in.

And it's certainly not going to get into the thighs and the legs.

It does.

There's no interstate highway that runs from the shoulders down to the legs and thighs.

It's just not going to get there.

To make matters worse, the fat and the juices from the chicken often get into the can and sit on top of the beer.

So it's got a lid on the beer.

Yeah.

So, you know.

You know, you've made.

What you've done is you've made a beer, a chicken coozy.

You've taken it.

You've taken the chicken and wrapped it around a beer can, and so you now have a chicken koozie.

Okay?

And.

And finally, the last issue is I love beer.

I love chicken, but I don't need chicken that tastes like beer.

Or you don't need beer.

You don't need beer that tastes like chicken either.

Or vice versa.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna.

We're gonna take a break while meathead has a slug there from his beer.

Chicken koozie.

And we'll be right back.

No MSG though, in that.

Hey, everybody, it's jt.

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And you can thank me for that later.

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You won't regret it.

Hey, everybody, J.T.

Here.

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If you're really into cooking.

I think you're really gonna.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen, whose pig powder El Spiso is coming out shortly.

That's.

That's one of the biggest.

Besides the book, that's one of the biggest news items on the show today.

And also meathead from AmazingRibs.com his new book.

Hold on, because I had it open for a second.

The Meathead Method.

Give you the whole thing here, a Barbecue hall of Famer secrets and science on barbecue, grilling and outdoor cooking with 114 recipes.

I will tell the listeners.

And of course, you know, if you don't know this, then I guess you've been living in a cave.

But Meathead and Leanne and I are very good friends.

We spent a week together one night in Fort Worth.

Separate hotel rooms.

Separate hotel rooms.

But, I mean, he covers all kinds of things in this book.

I'm really excited to try a couple of these recipes.

And when you start talking stuff like cooking mud bugs, crawfish, that and the different things, that's what kind of always pulls my chain.

Well, you're up in seafood country.

Yeah.

Do the miso, the Nobu recipe, the meat with miso.

Yeah.

And I think the book calls for sable, which is absolutely my favorite fish.

But you can.

I've done it on salmon, and I know there's plenty of salmon where you are.

Oh, yeah.

You'll.

It's.

It's a.

It's a pretty simple recipe, but you'll love it.

I'm.

I'm.

I truly am excited about this.

Yeah.

What was your.

Let's take a step back and talk about the.

Actually putting the book together.

What was your biggest challenge in doing this?

Was it the photography 24 hours a day?

Yeah.

Creating the recipes.

I mean, Bridget worked with you a little bit.

Well, I think I may have told this story before, but I'll tell it again.

I run a website.

I've edited magazines.

I've been a journalist since I went to journalism school and college.

I've been a writer and an editor, and I've worked with a lot of amateur writers, people who are not writers by profession, who are cooks and chefs or whatever, and they struggle with the writing aspect.

And the advice I always give them is, don't sweat it.

Just sit down at your keyboard and start wherever you feel comfortable and just literally barf up everything that comes to mind into your keyboard and get it on paper, get or you know, get it on the screen.

Save regularly.

And once you've got it all out, then you can go back and you can rearrange.

You can figure out what to start with and what comes next.

Norman Mailer once said, you don't write a book, you edit a book.

And that's good.

That's so true.

And so you can rearrange things.

And that's the beauty of books.

That's why I love books.

I have a website and I'm very proud of it.

I'd encourage all your listeners to go visit it.

A lot of the stuff that we talk about in the books is on the website, but it's not as you know, you parachute in and you look and you land on the page about beer can chicken and the fact that the chicken is 75% water is touched upon there.

But there's another article elsewhere on the website that talks about the construction of meat and what is in the meat and everything.

And so you're jumping around and you're gathering information like a, a scavenger hunt.

When you start with a good book like mine, there's a beginning and a middle and an end and it flows.

And I start you at a point, at point A and take you to B and then C and D and I move you through in A, in a coherent manner and you learn better that way.

So I did that same thing that I advice I gave to my amateur writers.

I sat down and just barfed up everything that I thought should go in the book.

And then I rearranged it and organized it.

And when I did a word count, I realized I have two books here.

I have twice as much information as the publisher paid me for.

So I went to the publisher and I said, let's do a two book set.

I've never seen a two book set that would say in the marketing language this is definitive.

And they said, nope, we don't think the market can withstand a sixty, sixty five dollar book set.

Cut it back.

So I had to push the whole book back a year because it took me a year to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of.

So that was a very painful process.

But it worked.

It worked.

But one of the things I really wanted to emphasize in this book that got that hit the cutting room floor is I really wanted to talk about barbecue as an art, as a culinary art.

I wanted to talk about culinary art.

Why I believe culinary art belongs in the pantheon of the great fine arts, alongside of painting and dance and concert music and that, you know, these are the great fine arts.

And I think culinary art deserves to be considered in the same vein.

And I make that argument, or I made that argument in the first version of the book.

It's now on the cutting room floor.

I have a folder on my desk that has everything that came out.

And, you know, I'm 76 years old in June, and I've.

I'm the classic entrepreneur.

And Leanne, you've been down these roads.

Jeff, you've been down these roads.

Entrepreneurs work seven days a week, ten hours a day.

Yep.

You know, I watch Shark Tank and these guys, you know, they go up before the sharks and the sharks saying, nope, you haven't got a product or it's not going to work.

And they go back behind stage and they look at the camera and say, I don't care what they say, I'm gonna do it anyhow.

And you want to reach through and grab them by the throat and strangle them and say, you're going to lose your house, you're going to lose your wife, you're going to work seven days a week for 10 hours a day.

When you're all done, you're going to be broke.

You're going to have nothing.

Don't do it.

Go get a job that works 9 to 5.

Gives you healthcare, health, healthcare, Paid vacations, weekends off.

Well, when you start your own business, you.

You.

That's what you leave behind.

And I've been doing this now for 50 years.

Yeah.

And I've had success, I've had failure.

And I'm.

I'm ready.

I'm ready to.

I'm ready to.

With what's left of my life.

There's this concept that I've been hearing about that I want to try.

It's called vacation.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So that.

That's actually in a.

If you're into quantum physics, that's in a parallel universe.

Yes.

Not at ours.

So, you know, that's what.

That's what's next.

I might try to cobble together a book out of the content that I cut.

And I wouldn't be cobbling.

I'd.

I'd do it.

I'd do it right.

But I don't know if I want to spend another 2, 3 years working on another book.

Yeah.

And there's some good stuff there, and I hate to see it rot.

But we'll see.

We'll see.

Well, I guess my big question is I don't want to talk about semantics, but do you think it was good to talk about barfing up on your computer when you're writing a cookbook?

I couldn't let that one go.

I couldn't let.

That's a metaphor.

I know.

I'll find a better one.

Okay, Everybody, go to AmazingRibs.com, join the Pitmasters Club if you haven't, you know, do that.

There's a lot of good information there.

In fact, you find some of our old shows on there.

Yeah.

And in fact, we had recently added 120 beautiful, high quality, broadcast quality instructional videos from people we all know, you know, some really great stuff.

So that's great.

We'll do that.

And Meathead, the book coming out May 13, which is next week, pre orders.

Available on Amazon, Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble's website.

It's available everywhere and it's going to be though physically in the bookstores then.

Too, May 13, it should appear on the shelves.

I want to make sure we all know that Meathead's new book, the Meathead Method.

He's got a mug shot on the front.

Looks very nice.

I know him personally.

I don't think there was too much photoshopping in that.

So that looks good.

Actually, there was a little bit.

I had my hair long in those days and there was sort of a hillbilly flip.

Oh, yeah.

Back of my head over here, a little ducktail.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and the editor said this doesn't look right.

And so the hillbilly flip got photoshopped.

Well, it's all good.

The Meathead Method out next week.

Meathead's gonna stick around for after hours because I got several new questions for him.

Anyway, we got to get out of here.

Leanne, thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll be back next week with another edition of Barbecue Nation.

Till then, go out, cook something, have some fun, get Meathead's book, and remember our motto, turn it, don't burn it.

Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.

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