Real temps and timings
Target pit temperatures and internal doneness numbers sit right at the top of every recipe, so you know when to wrap, when to pull, and how long to rest before the first slice ever hits the board.
Smoke & Char
Recipes worth firing up twice
Fire-tested, no-guesswork BBQ recipes for backyard cooks and low-and-slow weekends. Real cuts, clear temps and timings, and photos that show you exactly what good bark looks like.
Why cook with us
Recipes built for the backyard pit
Every recipe here is fire-tested and written to be followed with one hand on the tongs — no vague heat cues, no guesswork, and no scrolling through a life story before you reach the cook.
Any smoker, any grill
Built to work on an offset, a kettle, a pellet grill, or a kamado. Where a setup matters, we call out the two-zone fire, the wood choice, and an easy swap right beside it.
Step by step
Numbered instructions written in plain language, plus a photo of the finished cook so you can smoke with confidence and know exactly what good bark and a clean smoke ring look like.
Our story
A backyard pit, not a restaurant line
Smoke & Char started as a shared cook log between friends who were tired of ten-minute videos and hundred-tab recipe pages that never told you the number that actually matters.
We cook the way most people actually cook: on the weekend, over a fire we tend by hand, with whatever cut looked good at the butcher. That's the whole philosophy here. Every recipe on this blog has been run on backyard gear — an offset, a kettle, a pellet grill — never a restaurant line, and rewritten until a friend could follow it without texting us at hour four asking why the temperature stalled.
We publish two or three new cooks a week, usually a low-and-slow project for Saturday, a fast weeknight grill, and something to keep in your back pocket for when friends drop by. Each one gets run at least twice, once by the person who wrote it and once by someone who has never smoked that cut before, so the temps, wrap points, and "probe like butter" cues actually hold up on your pit too.
Everything you read here is free and always will be. If a recipe becomes a regular in your rotation, that's the only thanks we're after. Light the chimney, crack something cold, and let's put a proper smoke ring on dinner.
120+
Fire-tested cooks
2×
Run before publishing
Fresh off the pit
Latest recipes
Pick a cook, light the coals, and put some smoke to work. Tap any card for the full ingredient list and step-by-step method.
From the pit crew
Cooks who came back for seconds
A few notes from readers who made these cooks part of their weekend routine. Swap in your own reviews once you're up and running.
"The brisket guide got me my first proper smoke ring on the very first try. The wrap point was dead on — I finally stopped guessing and just watched the numbers."
Hannah P.
Backyard pitmaster, offset smoker
"I've never trusted a BBQ blog with timings before — these are the first ones that were spot on. The ribs pulled back from the bone at exactly the hour they said."
Marcus L.
Weekend griller
"Made the burnt ends for game day and ended up doubling the batch before halftime. Clear steps, real temps, genuinely the best thing off my pit all year."
Priya S.
Kettle and pellet convert
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
A few things readers ask most often about how these cooks are written, tested, and dialed in for backyard gear.
We publish two to three cooks each week — usually a low-and-slow project for the weekend, a fast weeknight grill, and something in between. New recipes show up at the top of the home page as soon as they're published.
Never miss a cook
Get new recipes, smoking guides, and seasonal fire tips delivered to your inbox. No spam — just good barbecue, a couple of times a week.