Meet your new instructor: Aaron Franklin, a Central Texas barbecue legend. In your first lesson, the award-winning pitmaster takes you inside his famed restaurant, Franklin Barbecue, explaining the techniques and recipes you’ll learn in the class.

Building and managing fire is key to barbecue mastery. In this chapter, Aaron demonstrates his technique for constructing clean fires, explains how to analyze smoke, and unpacks the anatomy and science of an offset cooker.

For your first cook, Aaron takes you step-by-step through his recipe and technique for smoking tender, flavorful pork butt: from seasoning and wrapping through shredding into tender morsels of pulled pork.

Wood, and the smoke it creates, is the primary flavor agent in barbecue. In this chapter, Aaron takes you through a woodpile, explaining how to assess a piece of wood and how to choose the right pieces for different phases of your cook.

When Aaron isn’t cooking low and slow at Franklin Barbecue, he’s often grilling at home. Here, he shares his method of incorporating direct and indirect heat for seared steaks and charred broccolini in a meal quick enough to make any night of the week.

Is grass-fed beef superior to grain-fed? Fresh better than frozen? Aaron shares his tips for assessing beef quality and how to buy the best meat for your needs.

In the first of our five-chapter series on the Texas barbecue staple, Aaron shares his signature method for shaving and shaping briskets for an even and consistent cook.

In the second phase of our 12-hour brisket smoke, Aaron shares his techniques for spritzing, getting a derailed cook back on track, and pushing through the stall while maintaining a clean and steady fire.

Learn Aaron’s technique for wrapping brisket, checking for tenderness, and assessing when to pull and rest your meat in the final phase of our brisket cook.

Aaron walks you through his detailed, cut-by-cut process for slicing your brisket to minimize waste and maximize balance and flavor.

Years of working exclusively on offset smokers has given Aaron a sense of what to look for—and avoid—when buying and modifying the cookers. Learn Aaron’s tips so your smoker functions at its peak.

Advertising is more than billboards and TV ads. With the Tostitos DUI Breathalyzer bag, the gay pride Doritos rainbow bag, and the Cheetos Museum, learn how advertising can break down boundaries.

Aaron’s journey began with a botched brisket cooked on a $99 smoker. Follow the unlikely path Aaron took to become a pitmaster, and learn what sparked the birth of the most famous barbecue joint in the country.

In this bonus chapter, Aaron traces the roots of barbecue culture in Texas from European immigrants to World War II vets, highlighting how brisket—a tough, difficult-to-cook cut of beef—became the region’s signature smoked meat.