The Barbecue Thread

Apologies on the image size; still tinkering with that.

Anyways, barbecue experiences, favorite kinds, favorite restaurants, post it all here.

Living in Central Texas, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to BBQ. Just south of Austin is the small town of Lockhart, and it has my favorite BBQ joints in the world. There's Kreuz Market, Black's, Chisholm Trail, but my sentimental favorite is Smitty's, which is located in a 100+ year old building, and you walk right into the blazing hot pit room to order your meat. I went there when I was a kid, when it was actually Kreuz Market, but a family feud sent one sibling down the road with the name, and the other brother got the old building. Once you have your meat (served on butcher paper), you go inside an old dining hall with long tables, folding chairs, and not much else. It's a no frills experience, and while they have begun to serve sides in recent years, they are perfunctory and unnecessary. Just grab yourself a loaf of white bread, a slab of cheese, and some pickles and onions and go to town! Sauce is for Yankees, and the meat is so moist and tender that you don't need it. All of the meats are great, but it's all about the brisket. I don't waste my time with anything else, except possibly a few pork ribs and maybe a link of sausage. Sooooooo good!

Austin claims to have the best BBQ joint in the US in Franklin's BBQ, but I have somehow still not tried it. It's the kind of place where you have to show up early in the morning and stand in line for an hour and a half to get your meat, and once it's all gone, they close up shop. My retired father in-law was supposed to go pick some brisket up last weekend because my brother in-law was in town, but he punked out for some reason, so I am still waiting. I'll get to it one day.

Other than that, I worked in two separate BBQ joints in my youth: The County Line BBQ in Austin when I was 16, and Tom's BBQ in College Station, TX when I was in college. I know my way around a pit, but I have not bothered with buying a smoker of my own since there are any number of good to great places I can hit up without having to do any of the work!

They're butter beans. In Central Market, in the produce section, they have a freezer case full of fresh shelled beans year round and they've been my go-to lately.
(Edit: So I idly just looked up butter beans. OMG they're lima beans! I had no idea. These were brown, not green.)

I was really proud of the rib. I had the opposite problem with the smoker this time: temps got north of 350 at times. But the rib took it like a champ. Definitely needed more seasoning, but it was moist and well smoked. I also bought a bunch of pork bellies from Asia World/Jusgo, rubbed them with salt, sugar, and pink salt, let them sit for a week beforehand, and smoked them up too for bacon.

Some relatives took us to that County Line in Austin a couple years back. We were there for the weekend, and I told them my only food requirement was that I wanted some good barbecue at least once. Secretly I was thinking Franklin's, but they recommended County Line. I can't say I was blown away by the barbecue, though it was better than most in Dallas, but I would still go back at the drop of hat. The fresh bread for one thing, and I absolutely loved that porch overlooking the river.

We did make a pilgrimage to Lockhart on the final day before driving back to Dallas. Enjoyed Black's and Smitty's. We wanted to make it a hat trick with Kreuz, but by the end of Smitty's we were so full and our lust for great bbq thoroughly sated.

I have done John Mueller, and it is very good.  Haven't been to La Barbecue yet.  I have a challenge in trying new BBQ joints in that my wife, originally from New York, somehow hates BBQ, mainly because she hates BBQ sauce.  She loved Smitty's, though, because no sauce required, so I'm trying to convince her to give these other places a shot.  There's always my birthday, when I can go eat whatever I want, the wife's poor tastes be damned!

Also, if you're smoking or barbecuing at home, I really can't recommend the website Amazingribs enough. It's where I learned about the weber smokey mountain being such a high-rated smoker, that most offset horizontal smokers are crap, and basically any time I venture over there I get lost in a rabbit hole of great information. I read it avidly for a few weeks to get up to speed on smoking. They take a very Alton Brown/Harold McGee approach to smoking and do scientific experiments that bolster (you need a water pan!) or disprove (filled with nothing but water!) the many myths about how best to smoke or barbecue meats.

My brother lives in Austin too and his work had Franklin catered in for lunch one day, the lucky bastard.
Up here in Dallas I'm having to fight hard to get people out of the thinking that barbecue lunch=dicky's, especially with Lockhart Smokehouse  and soon, another Hutchins nearby.

Favorite Standard Cut: Brisket

Favorite Standard Cut (Runner Up): Beef ribs

Favorite Standard Cut (Runner Runner Up): Pulled pork, my go-to when I know the brisket is no good

Favorite Non-Standard Cut: Lamb brisket, absolutely divine, now have fun finding it (try Tim Love's Woodshed in Fort Worth)

Least Favorite Cut: Smoked/BBQ chicken, just doesn't do anything for me, if I'm honest

Rub Preferences: Beef needs nothing more than salt and black pepper. For pork I do like a traditional kitchen sink rub, heavy on the brown sugar and mustard powder.

Sauce Preferences: Beef needs nothing. For pork I do like Carolina mustard-vinegar style sauce. Thin and sweet sauces are okay sometimes, but I almost never want thick tomato-y sauce

Wood Preferences: Hickory and Cherry

Smoke-Level: Low-to-medium for all cuts, I don't like a heavy smoke flavor

Favorite BBQ Restaurant: Lockhart Smokehouse in Dallas, TX (now also in Plano)

Favorite Smoker: Big Green Egg, based on limited experience with multiple smokers, including electric models

Most Rewarding Cut to Produce at Home: Brisket

Home Smoking Method: For large cuts like brisket or pork shoulder, I start the meat on the smoke for 4-6 hours, around 200 degrees, and then double-wrap in foil to stop the smoke integration and achieve that eye-rolling level of tenderness. Depending on how my grill heat is doing, I might finish there or move to the oven. I've never tested with a water pan, although I'm familiar with the method. For small stuff like pork ribs, sausage, etc., I just go 'til it's done.

Trimming: Never before the cook. Post-cook, trimming to the eater's taste is fine, but obviously I keep it fatty for myself.

Tips/Tricks: One thing I like about the foil method for something like brisket is that you collect a lot (literally cups) of highly flavored beef drippings. Basically beef broth on crack. That's another benefit of the simple salt-pepper rub. The drippings are highly seasoned, but not skewed by spice flavors. You can degrease and make soup, use as a base for gravy (Shepherd's pie says hello) and keep the fat for Yorkshire pudding or something like that. This is why you cry.

Liquid Smoke?: I don't think it's evil, but I never use it in anything

Awesome idea, Snape.

Favorite Standard Cut: Spareribs, because no matter how bad the barbecue joint is, the ribs are always at least edible. (Except for one scarring experience at Rudy's).

Favorite Standard Cut: (Runner Up): Brisket, if it's great. The only reason it's not my favorite is that it's so hard to get right. It is a great test of any Texas place's mettle. But only a fraction of a fraction of places do brisket right. (Also, order "Fatty Brisket", ya wimp!)
Favorite Standard Cut (Runner Runner Up): Sausage. (These three answers are the "Texas Trinity": Ribs, Brisket, Sausage. You always want to try a place out by ordering these three wherever possible).

Favorite Non-Standard Cut: Anything unconventional: lamb, goat, quail, duck, etc. I had lamb ribs at Fiorella Jack Stax in Kansas City several years ago, and I still dream about them to this day.

Least Favorite Cut: "Barbecue Chicken": Chicken glooped with KC Masterpiece and thrown on a grill to burn.
Rub Preferences: Salt and pepper only for beef. Pork, I'm still figuring out.

Sauce Preferences: None, or something with a mustardy, vinegary bite to it.

Wood Preferences: Mesquite is the most distinctively Texan, but you have to be careful with it.
Smoke-Level: Medium to high

Favorite BBQ Restaurant: Pecan Lodge is the best barbecue I've ever had. It was eyes-roll-back-in-your-head, I-saw-God, good. But it's also an hour and some change wait in line to get it. Runners up are Hutchins and Lockhart Smokehous (All in DFW area)
Favorite Smoker: NA

Most Rewarding Cut to Produce at Home: Pork shoulder is almost bulletproof. For minimal effort you get maximum flavor. Just throw that fucker on a gas grill with a couple chunks of wood tucked into the very back of the grill to smolder and flavor it for an hour or so, then wrap it in foil and put it in the oven at 225 for three hours or so until it collapses when you tap it with a fork. But the longer you smoke it, the better it gets.

Home Smoking Method: None yet. I haven't reached the enviable, vaunted "set it and forget it" stage of smoking when you put a piece of meat on your smoker, go attend a repertoiry showing of Shoah, then come back to find pristine perfection waiting for you.

Trimming: Minimal to None. Fat=flavor, kids. (I trimmed that beef rib above, only to discover to my horror that it was fat, not silverskin, as I had been led to believe on various recipes).

Tips/Tricks: Gas, electric, hardwood, or briquette: I don't care, as long as you're out there trying to do it yourself. A big, fatty cut of meat, lots of smoke, and time. Just, please don't invite me over for "barbecue" and serve hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken breasts with KC Masterpiece on them.

Liquid Smoke?: The fuck outta here.

BONUS ROUND!!!!

Favorite Regional Barbecue Style: Central Texas, the most unique kind in Texas, based on German and Czech traditions, not the African American traditions of the rest of the south. (In fact, aficionados of barbecue in other parts of the country argue that this style isn't even barbecue at all, since it comes from a completely different tradition). This is the smoked kind of barbecue served on butcher paper with no sauce and minimal seasoning. But I'm not slavish about it and certainly won't turn up my nose at a whole hog from the Carolinas or fine KC Ribs.

Sentimental Favorite BBQ Joint: 1) The late great Joe Cotten's in Robstown, burned down in 2010. Haven't eaten there in decades, but would love to have had one last meal.
2) Goode Co. In Houston: Last time I ate there, I had had the knowledge of the great Central Texas places under my belt, and this fell far short. But back in the day, it really opened my eyes to what a barbecue place could be, with its spicy sausge studded with chunks of jalapeno, and weird offerings on the menu like a half a smoked duck, plus its spicy, robust barbecue sauce.

Pareista, sometimes it helps to finish in a 250 oven.

Get a rope!

Yes, I'll go with Brisket as the barbecued meat of choice. When I barbecue I like to use a Jack Daniels honey barbecue sauce (usually just on chicken--I don't do ribs nearly enough but I'm thinking about it for this weekend). The best barbecue restaurant I know is Slow's in or near the Corktown neighborhood in Detroit (they're that good, but the place is packed unless you pick a really off-hour). There's also a Lockhart's in one of the suburbs but I don't believe there's a direct connection to the Texas Lockharts beyond naming homage (it's not a bad place, just way too light on portion size).

I think you're right on. Even worse than shaving the fat or bark just before service, some places get ahead of the game by trimming the meat aggressively before hitting the fire. That brisket never even had a chance. It's not even just about fattiness or juiciness, which of course we want. It's that fat carries flavor. All those spices from your rub, all that rich smokiness from the wood, it's the FAT that delivers it to the palate, not the protein.