Equipment

If you don’t have any outdoor cooking equipment that lends itself to hardwood cooking, you’ll need to go shopping. We’ve taken our time to create our dream outdoor kitchen, and we recommend that you take your time as well. Invest in equipment that has an excellent reputation for performance and can withstand the elements of your particular region. From our perspective, there are three main categories of outdoor hardwood cooking equipment: charcoal grill, wood-fired oven, and pellet grill. Throughout this chapter, we offer guidance for cooking and purchasing from all three categories. Although we don’t regularly cook on one ourselves, if you’re looking for something more entry-level, we recommend the Weber Smokey Joe. Over the years, it has made a good name for itself as a backyard standard, and it is perhaps the most approachable, affordable, and dependable option on the market. Use an infrared thermometer to test for temperature and determine heat zones. Hardwood cooking is far from elite, and we wouldn’t want anyone with a passion for gaining this skill set to be held back by access. We’ve cooked on rusted-out, twenty-year-old Smokey Joes enough times to say that this Weber bestseller has been labeled the backyard go-to for good reason.