In 2004, Brown appeared on Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters, the second attempt to adapt the Japanese cooking show Iron Chef to American television (a previous adaptation featured William Shatner and was not well received). Brown served as the expert commentator, a modified version of the role played by Dr. Yukio Hattori in the original show. The show was extended with ten new episodes, advertised as both "New Battles" and "Season 2", which started July 10, 2005.

As the expert commentator, Brown is usually heard throughout the episode explaining to the audience what the competing chefs are doing, able to identify most cooking techniques and explain them long before anyone watching can. Occasionally, the camera will cut away from Kitchen Stadium to show Brown as he explains something about the secret ingredient, such as the different sizes and types of shrimp or clams. Brown rarely makes mistakes about his information, although he once mistook the green contents of a squeeze bottle to be a garnishing sauce when it was in fact soap.

Careful listeners might note changes in sound quality between some of Brown's comments in the show. This probably indicates dubbed comments, recorded after the conclusion of the live "battle."

Currently, Alton Brown lives in Marietta, Georg with his wife DeAnna, daughter Zoey, a basset hound dog Matilda, and an iguana. A few members of his extended family have appeared in Good Eats (such as his grandmother, Ma Mae, and daughter, Zoey), but most of his "family" portrayed on the series is made up of actors and the show's production crew.

Brown loves apples — not only the fruit, but also the computer company, Apple, as he was interviewed by Macworld magazine. Additionally, Brown frequently features Apple-branded computers on Good Eats. Although the Apple logo is usually masked, the computers' unique appearance makes them quite noticeable.

He is also a connoisseur of cheese and a motorcycling enthusiast.