Hello contrarians,
Today’s idea is called The Pellet Grill Club.
Grab a pen. 🖊️
First, a wine-magazine publisher’s story. Then, the business you could build from it.
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⚡ Quick facts
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📖 How a ribs cookoff became a 15,000-member club
It started with a neighbor’s dare.
It’s 2005, and a man who goes by “Meathead” is publishing a wine magazine.
Then his neighbor challenges him to a friendly ribs cookoff.
So he goes looking for a good ribs recipe… and can’t find one.
He also has an offer to sell his magazine, and he’s looking for his next business, maybe a website.
And he wins the cookoff.
Then he starts AmazingRibs.com, to share his ribs recipe and the science behind great barbecue.
⠀Fun story: one of his articles was about “the stall.”
That’s when the meat’s temperature stops rising, often for several hours.
Ever seen a brisket stuck at one temperature for hours?
Yep, that’s the stall.
In 2011, a physics professor read his article and emailed him the science behind it.
The two worked together for years, and wrote a cookbook together.
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Readers loved trading tips, recipes, and photos by email.
But soon there were too many emails to keep up with.
So he gave them one place to gather: the Pitmaster Club.
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Then, in July 2014, the Pitmaster Club became a paid membership.
Here’s the twist: he didn’t charge for the recipes.
The site has more than 2,000 free pages.
Members pay for extras: no ads, free ebooks, monthly prizes, and a friendly members’ forum.
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The price? $34.95 a year, with a 30-day free trial.
⠀And the club has more than 15,000 paid members.
83% of them renew each year.
Meathead owns it all, and it runs from his home in Illinois.
“We don’t have a big corporation backing us,” the about page says.
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Now for our math: 15,000 members × $34.95 is $524,250 a year, from memberships alone.
It’s our estimate; the site hasn’t shared its revenue.
Holy cow. 🐄
By that math, more than half a million dollars a year, from memberships alone.
All from a club whose recipes are free.
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🔗 Same idea, new group
In the story: barbecue fans on every grill paid $34.95 a year for AmazingRibs.com’s club, even though its recipes are free.
⠀In this idea: new pellet grill owners need cook plans tested on the exact kind of grill they just bought.
⠀Why it carries over: both groups want help from people who cook like them, and new cooks arrive every grilling season.
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💡 The opportunity
AmazingRibs teaches cooking on every kind of grill. Many new owners have just one.
First, what makes a pellet grill different?
You pour wood pellets into a box on the side.
A fan and a small computer feed them to the fire, and hold the temperature you set.
Traeger and Pit Boss are two brands you’ll see in stores.
So why doesn’t a charcoal recipe fit?
Because it tells you to add coals and open or close air vents.
A pellet grill has neither… so the steps and the times don’t match.
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There are a lot of them.
Traeger alone sold about 2.7 million grills in the US from 2020 to 2025, its yearly report says.
And that’s just one brand.
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And millions of them already use a free app with their grill.
Traeger’s free app had 2.8 million active users in 2025.
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New owners arrive every season. 🔁
Every grilling season, new owners unbox a grill and wonder what to cook first.
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Here’s the key part: AmazingRibs can’t focus on one grill.
It reviews hundreds of grills and smokers, and teaches all of them.
So a pellet grill owner has to dig past the charcoal and wood-fire pages to find their own.
A club for one grill gives them only what works on theirs.
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👉 The idea: a paid club for owners of one kind of grill, like pellet grills, at $34.95 a year.
Every week, members get a cook card tested on that grill.
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🧩 What you actually need
A grill you already cook on.
Every cook card is cooked on it first (Step 2 of the build plan).
And yes, you get to eat the results.
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A cook log.
It’s just a simple sheet where you write the grill temperature, the weather, the times, and what went wrong.
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An AI app, like ChatGPT or Claude.
It turns your cook log into a clean cook card and a shopping list.
That’s the whole list.
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✅ Why this could work
Three signs the money is real.
Several paid BBQ clubs already make money.
First, AmazingRibs, from the story: more than 15,000 paid members at $34.95 a year.
Then there’s the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS), founded in 1985, which runs BBQ contests.
It charges $45 a year for one person.
And Mad Scientist BBQ, a YouTube cooking channel, had 482 paid members on Patreon in September 2025, from $5 a month.
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Every grilling season brings new owners who need help.
New grills sell every year, and each new owner starts knowing nothing.
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New owners say in public that they’re lost.
Their YouTube comments are quoted in the next section.
Fair warning: one of them is pretty funny.
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👉 Want to check these numbers? Each one has a source link in the last section, “📎 The sources.”
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📊 More proof people want this
Want more? Here you go.
People already pay for BBQ help.
AmazingRibs says 83% of its members renew, even though its 2,000+ pages are free.
Free pages… and people still pay.
The Smoke Sheet, a weekly BBQ newsletter, went paid in 2023, at $5 a month or $50 a year.
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Pellet grill owners keep spending after the grill.
Pellets and food are what Traeger calls “consumables.”
It sold $127.5 million of them in 2025, while its grill sales fell.
Why does that matter?
Owners who keep buying pellets keep cooking, and each new cook needs a plan.
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The big picture: 7 in 10 US homes own a grill or smoker. 💰
That’s from the grill industry’s own group, in 2023.
The same survey says 23% of grill owners see grilling as a hobby.
That’s almost 1 in 4.
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What new pellet grill owners say.
“i just got my first pellet smoker. I looked for ever for some good info on how to use it.”
That’s a 2025 comment under a beginner’s pellet grill video on YouTube.
Ouch.
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Another one, from a new owner: “I sure don’t want to ruin this over priced meat nowadays.”
Fair point.
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And one more: “i just bought a Treager and i’m afraid i’m gonna burn the house down LOL.”
Ha.
Every cook card in this plan points you to your grill maker’s manual for fire safety, by the way.
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👉 New owners have expensive meat on the grill and no idea who to trust.
They want a plan made for the grill they own.
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🔍 Who’s already doing it
Who’s already here, and what none of them offer.
AmazingRibs, from the story above, covers every grill.
Its tester has reviewed more than 600 grills and smokers, and its articles go deep into the science.
Great if you love the science.
But it’s not built for one grill.
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Grill makers have their own apps.
Traeger’s app is free, and it’s built around Traeger’s own grills.
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YouTube teaches one cooking session at a time.
A video shows you one brisket.
It doesn’t plan your weekend, with a shopping list and a start time.
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KCBS is for contest cooks and judges.
Its member perks are judging classes and BBQ contests, not backyard Saturdays.
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Still missing when we checked:
A weekly cook card tested on one kind of grill, with the real times and temperatures from that cook.
A members’ Q&A where everyone owns the same kind of grill.
A club that covers all the pellet grill brands, not just one.
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🔎 Check the market yourself in 2 minutes: run Part 0 of the prompt in the build plan below.
Your AI searches Substack, Patreon, YouTube, and grill makers’ apps that day, and tells you: early, growing, or crowded.
Early? Start now.
Crowded? Good news: it means people pay. Pick one narrower kind of grill (Step 1 of the build plan).
A crowded market is still OK. You win by serving one kind of grill better, not by being first.
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👉 That missing part can be your business: a club for one kind of grill, where every cook card was cooked on that grill first.
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🤖 Why AI won’t replace it
AI knows the science of smoke. What it can’t know is how last Saturday’s brisket went on a real pellet grill.
So could ChatGPT just do this?
Sort of… if someone tells it how the cook really went.
🔮 Honest note: an AI agent can find a thousand pellet grill recipes in seconds.
So the recipes alone aren’t the product.
The product is a real cooking session on that grill, with the real times, and what you’d change.
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1. Cooked on the grill first.Even a grill that holds its heat cooks slower on a cold, windy day.
Your cook card says what happened on your grill, so the times are real.
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2. You choose what’s right for them.A new owner doesn’t know which meals are easy wins, and which ones fail on a pellet grill.
You pick each week’s meal, and skip the ones that don’t work.
One less choice for them to make.
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3. Ready to use.Sure, ChatGPT can plan a brisket, if someone gives it the grill, the weight, the weather, and when they want to eat.
But how many new owners know to give it all that?
Not many.
Your cook card arrives with the shopping list, the start time, and the temperatures, already worked out.
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4. Other people with the same grill.In your members’ Q&A, every answer comes from someone who owns the same kind of grill.
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5. Proof they pay for the club, even when the facts are free.Remember those 2,000+ free pages at AmazingRibs?
More than 15,000 people still pay $34.95 a year.
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👉 The facts are free. People pay for the finished cook card.
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💵 How much you can make
Quick math time. 🧮
3,434 members is under a quarter of AmazingRibs’ 15,000-plus.
So you don’t need to get as big as they are.
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It’s about 1 in every 790 Traeger grills sold in the US from 2020 to 2025.
And that’s one brand, before counting the other pellet grill brands.
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The $34.95 is AmazingRibs’ price, so you’re not guessing what members will pay.
⠀If it doesn’t work out, here’s all you lose:
Substack’s cut: it keeps 10% of what readers pay, plus card fees, so it costs you only when someone pays.
One month’s subscription to an AI app, like ChatGPT or Claude.
Meat you’d cook on the weekend anyway.
A few weekends.
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👉 Three ideas like this at $10,000 a month each make $360,000 a year, and pass a million in three years.
This club could be the first of those three.
Already picturing your first sale?
Keep going. The how-to is just below. 👇
Not this one? Next week brings a new one.
That’s it, my fellow contrarians! 🙌
Yours ‘showing you where the money already is’ Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️
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🧰 Want to build it? Here’s everything else.
AI does the planning and the writing. You do the cooking. 🔥
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Step 1: 🎯 Pick one grill and one promise
You don’t need to be a BBQ expert. You need one grill and one clear promise.
Pick one kind of grill.
Pellet grills, if you own one.
Or flat-top griddles, the big outdoor hot plates.
Or kamado grills, the egg-shaped ceramic ones.
Write your promise in one line.
For example: “One weekend cook a week, tested on a pellet grill, with the real times.”
Keep it plain enough that a stranger knows who it’s for.
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Step 2: 🍖 Cook it and log it
AI drafts the plan. You cook it on your own grill and write down what really happened.
Let AI draft the weekend cook, with a shopping list and a blank cook log.
Cook it on your grill, and fill in the log as you go.
The grill temperature you set, the outside temperature, and the wind.
The meat’s weight, the start time, and the meat’s temperature every hour.
When it stalled, when you wrapped it in foil or butcher paper to push past the stall, and what went wrong.
Take photos on your phone at each big moment.
When the meat goes on, when you wrap it, when it comes off, and when you slice it.
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Step 3: 🔍 Check every cook card
Your members cook expensive meat from your cards, so each one goes through three passes.
Your AI does all three passes for you: it writes in Part 3, and checks in Parts 4 and 5 of the prompt.
🖊️ The AI writer. It turns your cook log into a one-page cook card, in your words.
🔍 The AI checker. A second pass checks every safe temperature against the government’s official chart, and checks that the times match your log.
🧐 The AI critic. A third pass reads it like a nervous first-time owner, and flags anything confusing.
⠀👉 The prompt already follows three safety rules:
Safe temperatures come only from the official FoodSafety.gov chart.
Every card says to follow your grill maker’s manual for startup, cleaning, and fire safety.
Recipes are in your own words, never copied from a book or a site.
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Step 4: 🏪 Open your club
Copy AmazingRibs: give some away free, and charge for the club.
Start a free Substack.
Set your price.
$35 a year, close to AmazingRibs’ $34.95.
Add a 30-day free trial, like theirs.
Decide what’s free and what’s paid.
Free: one cook card a month.
Paid: the weekly cook card, the full archive, and the members’ Q&A thread.
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Step 5: 📣 Get your first members
Show up where new owners search, and team up with the brands they already buy.
Make one full-length YouTube video for each thing new owners search for, titled like “pellet grill brisket for beginners.”
One problem per video, filmed during your real cook.
Put the link to your free cook card in the description.
Swap mentions with a small rub or pellet maker.
A rub is a dry spice mix you pat onto meat before cooking.
It tells its buyers about your club, and you tell your members about its rub.
Pick a maker that sells to backyard cooks, but doesn’t sell recipes.
Answer questions quickly in online groups for pellet grill owners.
When someone asks “why did my brisket stop climbing?”, answer with what happened in your own log.
Keep your club’s name in your profile, not in the reply.
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Step 6: 🏃 Eliminate competitors
If ten competitors copy you, here’s how yours stays ahead.
Make one claim nobody else can make: “Every cook card was cooked on a pellet grill first, with the real log.”
Put it on your sales page, at the top of every card, and in your profile.
A club that copies recipes from the internet can’t say it.
Email a “First Brisket Finished” certificate.
When a member sends a photo of their first brisket, send back a simple PDF with their name printed big.
People share it, and it reminds them who helped.
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Step 7: 🎲 Make it bigger
Every kind of grill can have its own club.
Open a second club for another grill: flat-top griddles, kamado grills, or one big brand.
Turn your best cook cards into a printed set of cards for a grill owner’s first summer.
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🗓️ Your first week
Phew. That was a lot. 😅
Steps 1 to 5 fit into seven days. 🚀
By day 7, you have a club, one tested cook card, and your first video.
Quick heads-up: the prompt below has seven Parts, and they’re not the same as the Steps above.
Day 1 (Step 1): Run Part 0 of the prompt (it’s below), then pick your grill and your promise with Part 1.
Day 2 (Step 2): Plan the weekend cook with Part 2, and buy the meat.
Days 3–4 (Step 2): Cook it on your grill, and fill in the cook log.
Day 5 (Step 3): Turn the log into a cook card with Part 3, then check it with Parts 4 and 5.
Day 6 (Step 4): Write your first issue and welcome post with Part 6, and open your Substack.
Day 7 (Step 5): Get your video plan, swap note, and group answers with Part 7, and film the video.
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🏄 How to use the prompt
One prompt does all the AI work, in seven parts, plus a quick market check (Part 0).
Part 1 — Pick the grill. Helps you choose one kind of grill, and write your promise.
Part 2 — Plan the cook. Drafts the next cook, a shopping list, and a blank cook log.
Part 3 — Write the cook card. Turns your filled-in cook log into a one-page cook card.
Part 4 — Check the card. Checks safe temperatures against the official chart, and checks the times against your log.
Part 5 — Find the problems. Reads it like a nervous first-time owner, and gives the final card.
Part 6 — Write the issue. Turns the card into a newsletter issue, plus your welcome post.
Part 7 — Find your first members. Writes a YouTube video plan, a swap note to a rub or pellet maker, and answers for owner groups.
Run it your way:
Part by part (the default): it pauses after each part, and you type “next” to go on.
All at once: say “run all seven parts.”
Just one part: say “only do Part 3,” or any part you need.
The full prompt is just below, under “📋 The prompt.”
🎙️ Talk to your AI sidekick, don’t type.
Turn on voice mode, or use a dictation app like Wispr Flow.
Say it messy, even with smoke in your eyes. The AI sorts it out.
Turn it into a skill, so you never paste it again.
Paste the prompt into Claude or ChatGPT, and say: “Turn this into a skill I can save.”
Install once, use forever.
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📋 The prompt
The prompt (copy it into Claude or ChatGPT, fill in the INPUTS part, and run it your way)
CONTEXT:
- You're my BBQ club partner. Together we'll build a paid club for owners of one kind of grill: a weekly cook card, tested on that grill, plus a members' Q&A.
- This prompt has a quick market check (Part 0), then seven parts, in order.
- Run it the way I ask:
- If I say nothing, go one part at a time. After each part, show me the result, then stop and wait. Move on only when I type "next."
- If I say "run all seven parts," do them all without stopping.
- If I say "only do Part 3" (or any part), do just that part.
- If a part needs something from me, ask for it before you start that part.
- Write every recipe in my own words, from my notes and my cook log. Never copy a recipe from a book, a site, or another club.
- For safe cooking temperatures, use only the US government's safe minimum temperature chart, on FoodSafety.gov. Never guess a temperature.
- Every cook card ends with this line: "Follow your grill maker's manual for startup, cleaning, and fire safety."
- Never invent a cooking time. Times on a cook card come from my cook log. If a time isn't in my log, say "your grill may vary" instead of guessing.
- Never invent a fact or a number. If you're not sure, leave it out. If you can't open a page, say so.
- Keep web search on for the whole prompt (turn on search in ChatGPT or Claude), so you can open any page you need to check.
=============== INPUTS — edit these, or just run as is ===============
My grill:
{e.g. a pellet grill, a Pit Boss 850}
Who it's for:
{e.g. people in their first year with a pellet grill}
My promise:
{e.g. one weekend cook a week, tested on a pellet grill, with the real times}
What I like to cook (paste notes, or just talk):
{e.g. brisket, pork shoulder, ribs, whole chicken, salmon}
My prices:
{e.g. $35 a year, with a 30-day free trial}
======================== END OF INPUTS ========================
THE PARTS:
Part 0 — Check the market today.
This part needs web search (turn on search in ChatGPT or Claude). Search for paid help for owners of my kind of grill and, for each place, give the count, the three biggest with links, and their prices:
1. Substack newsletters about this kind of grill (include Substack's paid label, like "Thousands of paid subscribers," and explain it's a minimum, not a count).
2. Patreon pages and paid memberships for BBQ or this kind of grill, with paid member counts if shown.
3. YouTube channels that teach this kind of grill, with subscriber counts.
4. Grill makers' own apps and recipe sites for this kind of grill, and whether they're free.
Then tell me: early (few sellers), growing, or crowded, and which kind of grill or which group of owners looks least served (for example: griddle owners, kamado owners, first-year pellet owners). Give a link for every number. If you can't open a page, say so. Never guess a number.
Part 1 — Pick the grill.
Ask me five questions about my grill, how often I cook, and who I know. Then suggest three kinds of grill or groups of owners I could serve, and say why for each. Say clearly which reasons are your guess. Help me pick one, and write my promise in one plain line.
Part 2 — Plan the cook.
Plan my next cook for my grill:
1. One main cook, picked for a first-year owner of my kind of grill. Say why it's a good pick.
2. The ingredients and a shopping list, in amounts stores actually sell.
3. The steps, with the grill temperature to set and the meat's target temperature. Mark every time as a first guess, to be replaced by my log.
4. A blank cook log I can print, with spaces for: grill temperature set, outside temperature, wind, meat weight, start time, the meat's temperature every hour, when it stalled, when I wrapped it, when it came off, and what went wrong.
Part 3 — Write the cook card.
Ask me to paste my filled-in cook log and tell you how it tasted. Then turn it into one cook card:
1. A short title that names the cook and the grill.
2. The shopping list.
3. A timeline that starts from when to eat and works back to when to light the grill, using the times from my log.
4. The steps, each one short, with the temperatures.
5. "What I'd change next time," from my notes.
6. The line from CONTEXT at the end.
Part 4 — Check the card.
Now act as a separate checker who didn't write this card. Check every meat, fish, and poultry step against the FoodSafety.gov safe minimum temperature chart, and fix any that are off. Check every time on the card against my cook log, and flag any time that isn't in my log. Check that every shopping-list item is used. Then give a fixed version.
Part 5 — Find the problems.
Now act as a nervous first-time owner of my kind of grill. Read the card and flag anything confusing, any word a beginner wouldn't know, and any step that could ruin the meat. Then give the final card, with every fix made.
Part 6 — Write the issue.
Turn the final cook card into one newsletter issue:
1. A short, friendly opening in my voice, with one thing that went wrong in my cook.
2. The cook card.
3. A question for the members' Q&A thread.
4. A one-line teaser for next week.
Also write my welcome post: who it's for, my promise, what's free, what's paid, my prices, and the free trial. Never promise that every cook will turn out perfect.
Part 7 — Find your first members.
Write:
1. A plan for one longer YouTube video, filmed during my real cook: a title the way people search, like "pellet grill brisket for beginners," five short sections, and a description that points to my free cook card.
2. A short note to a small rub or pellet maker, offering to swap mentions with my club. Keep it under 100 words.
3. Five short answers to common owner questions, like "why did my brisket stop climbing?", each based on my own cook log. Never link to my club in the answer.
When all seven parts are done, ask if I want to plan next weekend's cook.⠀
📎 The sources
Every number above, with where it came from.
How AmazingRibs started · Number: 2005; a neighbor’s ribs cookoff; “can’t find anything good”; publishing a wine magazine, “has an offer to sell it”; the stall, “often for several hours”; a physics professor emailed in 2011 and co-wrote the cookbook; email chains became “overwhelming,” so he opened the Pitmaster Club (the timeline dates this 2009, as a gathering place; the about page dates the paid membership July 2014) · Source: AmazingRibs, “20+ Years of AmazingRibs.com” (Wayback, May 22, 2026)
The paid club · Number: “In July 2014 we launched the Pitmaster Club, a membership program”; “more than 15,000 paid members”; “an unheard-of renewal rate of 83%”; “more than 2,000 pages”; “We don’t have a big corporation backing us”; “owned entirely by Meathead and operates from his home in Brookfield, IL”; a grill tester with “more than 600 cookers rated and reviewed”; members get no third-party ads, ebooks, and prizes · Source: AmazingRibs, “How AmazingRibs.com Operates” (Wayback, May 6, 2026)
The price · Number: “Become a full-time member for only $34.95 annually”; 30-day free trial · Source: AmazingRibs, Pitmaster Club page (Wayback, May 21, 2026)
Our revenue math · Number: 15,000 × $34.95 = $524,250 a year, memberships only; our estimate, not a number the site has shared · Source: Our math, from the two pages above
Traeger grills and app · Number: “approximately 2.7 million Traeger grills sold in the United States from 2020 to 2025”; the app “engaged 2.8 million active users” in fiscal 2025; the app “is free to download” · Source: Traeger, Form 10-K for 2025 (filed March 6, 2026)
Traeger consumables · Number: “Consumables revenues increased 6.9% to $127.5 million”; grill revenue fell 8.2% · Source: Traeger, full year 2025 results, March 5, 2026
KCBS · Number: Founded in 1985 · Source: Wikipedia (Wayback, March 30, 2026)
KCBS dues · Number: Individual $45 yearly; judge classes and contests listed as member benefits · Source: KCBS, Join page (Wayback, April 15, 2026)
Mad Scientist BBQ · Number: 482 paid members on Patreon; “Starting at $5/month” · Source: Patreon (Wayback, September 20, 2025)
The Smoke Sheet · Number: Went paid at “$5/month or $50/year”; weekly for “nearly five years” · Source: The Smoke Sheet, August 16, 2023
Grill owners · Number: “70% of all households in the U.S. own at least a grill or smoker”; “23% see it as a hobby” · Source: Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, March 12, 2023
Comment: good info · Number: “i just got my first pellet smoker. I looked for ever for some good info on how to use it.” · Source: YouTube comment, August 3, 2025
Comment: pricey meat · Number: “I sure don’t want to ruin this over priced meat nowadays” · Source: YouTube comment, March 25, 2025
Comment: the house · Number: “i just bought a Treager and i’m afraid i’m gonna burn the house down LOL” · Source: YouTube comment, September 5, 2025
Safe cooking temperatures · Number: The official chart the prompt checks against · Source: FoodSafety.gov: Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures (Wayback, May 31, 2026)
Substack’s cut · Number: “Writers keep 90% of their revenue minus credit card fees” · Source: Substack: Going paid (Wayback, May 29, 2026)