How To Make BBQ answers one kind of question well: the ones you have with your hands full and a decision to make. Is this still good? How long do I have? What temperature does it need to hit?

Most of the internet answers those questions badly. Search “how to tell if ribs are bad” and you get forum threads arguing with each other, and articles that repeat the same four warnings without telling you which ones actually matter. We started this site because that gap costs people real money in binned meat, and occasionally costs them a bad night.

Where Our Numbers Come From

Every storage time, temperature and safety limit on this site is taken from published United States government food safety guidance, not from memory and not from other blogs. Our primary sources are:

When those sources disagree with popular advice, we say so and explain the difference. A good example: almost every article online tells you that grey or brown meat has spoiled. The USDA states plainly that a change in colour alone does not indicate spoilage, and that fresh pork is normally greyish-pink. We follow the source, not the consensus.

Cooking technique — pull temperatures, resting, holding, how to run a smoker — comes from established barbecue practice rather than government guidance, and we mark that distinction clearly in each article. Safety numbers and doneness preferences are different things, and confusing them is how people end up with tough ribs or unsafe chicken.

What Makes These Guides Different

  • The answer comes first. You are not reading for entertainment. Every guide opens with the decision, then explains it.
  • We name the false alarms. Half of what people throw away is fine. Grey patches, the sour smell from a vacuum pack, freezer burn, a passed sell-by date — we tell you which signs mean nothing as clearly as which ones mean stop.
  • One number per claim, with a source. No vague “a few days”.
  • We say when we don’t know. Where the honest answer is “it depends, and here is what it depends on”, that is what you get.

What This Site Is Not

We are not a medical or public health authority, and nothing here is medical advice. If you think you have eaten something that made you ill, contact a doctor.

We are also not the last word on your specific piece of meat. Our guides tell you what the published guidance says and how to read the signs — the judgement is yours, and when it is genuinely close, the answer is always to throw it out. A rack of ribs costs less than a night of food poisoning.

In the United States, the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline answers questions about specific food, free, on 1-888-674-6854.

How This Site Makes Money

How To Make BBQ is free to read and funded by advertising. Ads are served by third-party networks and are marked as advertising where they appear. We may also earn a commission if you buy through a link on this site, at no extra cost to you.

Advertisers and affiliate partners have no say in what we publish or what our guides recommend. No brand has ever paid for a mention here, and if that changes we will label it clearly. Full detail is in our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Corrections

If you find a figure on this site that contradicts current USDA guidance, tell us and we will fix it and note the change. Accuracy on this subject matters more than being right the first time. Use the contact page.

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