Rollin’ smoke 101

There is such a huge difference between cooking, baking, grilling,  barbecuing, and smoking meats. 

Cooking…anyone can cook if you can read a recipe, follow directions, or have a natural instinct what flavors go with what. 

Baking is a science of exact measure. That’s where baking sort of loses me, the exact measurements. I rarely measure anything unless I am writing a recipe. I can bake but quite honestly isn’t something I enjoy doing. 

Grilling is when you cook smaller cuts of meats, poultry, or vegetables fast and hot. High temperatures sear the outsides of the proteins and quickly cook the insides to your desired temperature or doneness. 

Tender cuts of meat that have been marinated, dry-rubbed, or just seasoned with salt and pepper can be cooked in minutes. Steaks, pork tenderloins, chicken breasts or parts, kebabs, or burgers are to name a few. 

Barbecuing is the opposite of grilling using tough, big cuts of meats. It is a “clear your schedule” type of cooking method or activity because it takes hours…easily 12+ hours depending on the size of meat. This is where the term; low and slow comes from.

Barbecuing is also considered by some diehards an exact science not with measurements, but with temperature, cuts of meats, what side the piece of meat is from the right or the left, rubs, injections, type of wood, type of smoker, wrapping, and cook time. 

Pitmasters keep logs of their cooks and take things very seriously. Every pitmaster has their own techniques, tricks, and secrets. Barbecuing a way of life for people and is the oldest form of cooking. 

Smoking is some serious shit. This cooking method doesn’t just take hours; it can take weeks at very low temperatures. Smoking is not for the faint of heart and is not something you can wing. 

All winter Marty and I watched different barbecue shows, tutorials, and a bunch of different series on television. We would drool while watching and couldn’t wait to get started as total beginners to the bbq world. 

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Today we are barbecuing an eight-pound brisket. We are using the simple central Texas seasoning of choice, coarsely ground black pepper, and kosher salt. 

I got up at 5:30 am on my own since I was dead asleep at 9 pm last night. I pulled the brisket out of the refrigerator, patted it dry with paper towels, and checked to see if I needed to remove any excess fat. In the photo is the meat side of the brisket, not the fat side.

I sprinkled the brisket from high above with salt and pepper using a shaker container filled with 50/50 salt and pepper. This ratio is different for everyone, but we are using BBQ guru Aaron Franklin’s method. 

High above? The higher up you season your food you can get a larger and even coating on the protein. Next,  you pat the seasoning into the meat not rub. Dry pat sounds stupid, but basically, that’s what it is.

After I dry rubbed the brisket, I made some coffee and snuggled on the couch with Klaus waiting for Marty to get up. The first thing he did when he came downstairs was light the fire in our ceramic cooker. 

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Today we are using hardwood lump charcoal. Marty got the temperature up to 225-degrees and threw the brisket on at 7:20 am. We will keep a close eye on the temperature making sure it doesn’t get too hot. We’ll check on the meat two hours into the cook time to see how things are going. 

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We checked on the brisket after 2 hours, then again at 4 hours into the cook. It needed one more hour before we wrapped it. We decided to let it go for one more hour because the bark wasn’t developed enough, and the meat was still very firm. 

We wrapped our brisket in aluminum foil 5 hours into the cook. We set the timer for two more hours. The whole time Marty has been able to keep the heat below 250 degrees. 

At 3:40 pm…7 hours into the cook, we tested the brisket’s tenderness by pressing on it. We shut down the smoker and left the brisket to cool down slowly and rest.

While the brisket was cooling, I made a scrumptious Bourbon Barbecue Sauce. I wanted to make a bbq sauce from scratch; we took so much time and care with the brisket, to use a bottled sauce just felt sacrilege.

I made corn pudding and spätzle mac and cheese as sides earlier in the day—comfort food for sure on this raw, cold, rainy day. We need food that is easy to reheat this week, so this meal fits the bill nicely. I also quick pickled some red onion to balance all the richness of the meat out.

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Ugh! Ok, so hold your horses. Before I go any further with this, I want to remind myself and you guys that I will always be honest and authentic on this blog. The brisket sucked! We ruined it, and I am so pissed!

I know all you bbq gurus out there are shaking your head at us. When you fuck up and learn something from it, it becomes a lesson. If you do the same thing again, it’s a stupid mistake. I always learn lessons the hard way. We already know almost everything that went wrong.

First off, the cut of brisket was wrong for bbq. It was only a flat cut without a lot of fat, a brisket that my Jewish friends would use to make for Rosh Hashanah or Passover. It would have been braised with veggies, succulent and juicy, just like the one on the Netflix series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Midge made.

We obviously kept the meat on the smoker too long before we wrapped it. At first, I wanted to punch out the guys in the videos I watched making their 8 lb briskets. I listened to them and watched closely while making mental notes, but those videos were wrong for our type of smoker and brisket.

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I am a perfectionist, so this makes me aggravated, but I did call this 101 in the title since it was the first time we attempted barbecuing a brisket, so I shouldn’t have gotten as mad as I did. I wanted to throw the meat out and not even bother slicing it or tasting it. Marty likes burnt ends but had to admit this was beyond dry; it was splintered in some areas. Apparently, I was being nothing but negative at the dinner table and acted like an ass, Marty pointed out to me. Imagine that? lol

I cursed while he sliced it; I cursed more when I nibbled on a piece. “It’s not that bad with the bbq sauce you made.” Oh yeah? It was drier than a buckwheat fart. I watched poor Sam try to swallow it and needed to gulp water to wash it down. I don’t eat things that aren’t good, so I picked at the corn pudding and mac and cheese; not really eating much of either. On the bright side, the bourbon bbq sauce was stellar, at least.

Next time we try, again we will look for the right cut of brisket appropriate for bbq. We know our ceramic smoker cooks much hotter than we thought, and we can’t go by the thermometer on the smoker. We also know that the heat is under the meat and not above it like other smokers; we have to cook the meat for less time. The seasoning, the 50/50 blend of kosher salt, and coarse pepper were correct.

We got an F today in barbecue brisket. Damn it! I hate really failing, but we learned a lot from today’s lesson.