Follow the TVWB Central Texas BBQ Crawl


 
Awesome! I was in Austin in August. Went to Louie Mueller, John Mueller, and La Barbecue for lunches on consecutive days. Some AMAZING eats.

I am curious about your take on reproducing the Central Texas style on a WSM. I read Franklin's book and they're all about offsets cooking on post oak with lots of airflow. I cooked a brisket following his procedure when I got home on my WSM. It was awesome. But just curious what you and other think of this.
 
We're back and I don't want to see another slice of brisket for the foreseeable future! :) Great trip, met some really nice people, and will be doing a detailed write-up of the experience soon with lots more photos!
 
David Pace said:
I am curious about your take on reproducing the Central Texas style on a WSM. I read Franklin's book and they're all about offsets cooking on post oak with lots of airflow. I cooked a brisket following his procedure when I got home on my WSM. It was awesome. But just curious what you and other think of this.
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This is a great question. It's easy to recreate the rub and perhaps the length of cook and the extraordinarily long time he holds the meat at temp before serving (about 10 hours, taking the meat off the cooker at 1am according to his book and serving when the restaurant opens at 11am) but creating that cooking environment with the airflow and the post oak is just not going to happen in the WSM. It's amazing to me that you can cook meat over just wood for so many hours and yet the smoke flavor is very subtle. We brought home some leftover brisket and the smoke aroma is subtle. All the smokiness you smell while in the restaurant is mostly in the air...the meat itself is not super smokey and it's the crust/bark that's amazingly flavored. I think I get more smoke on my meat in the WSM using just 3-4 chunks of dry wood than I experience on Franklin's brisket...probably because my wood chunks are smoldering, not burning clean like his fire does. At least that's my guess.
 
Chris Allingham said:
This is a great question. It's easy to recreate the rub and perhaps the length of cook and the extraordinarily long time he holds the meat at temp before serving (about 10 hours, taking the meat off the cooker at 1am according to his book and serving when the restaurant opens at 11am) but creating that cooking environment with the airflow and the post oak is just not going to happen in the WSM. It's amazing to me that you can cook meat over just wood for so many hours and yet the smoke flavor is very subtle. We brought home some leftover brisket and the smoke aroma is subtle. All the smokiness you smell while in the restaurant is mostly in the air...the meat itself is not super smokey and it's the crust/bark that's amazingly flavored. I think I get more smoke on my meat in the WSM using just 3-4 chunks of dry wood than I experience on Franklin's brisket...probably because my wood chunks are smoldering, not burning clean like his fire does. At least that's my guess.
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Very interesting. I noticed the same thing with the places I visited. A silly test - I burped later in the day after eating those central texas briskets and it was less smoky than my burps post some of my smokes! Regarding the bark/crust, I had some amazing tastes but I think the bark on the beef ribs at La Barbecue and the AMAZING bark on John Mueller's brisket were my favorites.

I've basically just been paying way more attention to my fires since my visit and reading so much about clean smoke. I do a Minion method but lately I've been letting my WSM heat up for about an hour or maybe a little less....just waiting for the smoke to clear. I've been making some good stuff but now I feel like I'm on a mission to replicate some of those briskets! I have been looking into offsets but I've convinced myself that I'd want something like the Yoder Cheyenne at a minimum, and with tax and shipping I think that gets you into the $1300 range. As much as I want to replicate that brisket, not sure I'm willing to spend that much....

Thanks for sharing info and pics from your trip! Looked wonderful!
 
I learned several years ago when I first got my Lang offset smoker that if done right, and by right I mean with a clean fire, the meat is less smoky then when cooking on any of my other cookers. I was amazed because I would have thought the opposite. It is quite a challenge to keep the fire burning just right and having to feed it regularly but in my opinion the final product is well worth the effort.
 
David Pace said:
I've basically just been paying way more attention to my fires since my visit and reading so much about clean smoke. I do a Minion method but lately I've been letting my WSM heat up for about an hour or maybe a little less....just waiting for the smoke to clear.
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After reading Franklin's book and some beard scratching, I'm in the same place. When doing a minion, I toss a good-sized chunk of wood into the chimney when starting 20-ish coals. I put all the other wood on top of the unlit coals and try to make sure that each piece of wood gets some lit coals to get it going. It takes about an hour for the temp to settle and the smoke to get to a nice light stream. I find that the bark is less bitter when I let the fire settle in. (I also find that spritzing with some apple cider vinegar about an hour before the brisket is done also helps the bark.)

On the other end, a long rest is important to a good result. Several months ago, guests were delayed and I ended up resting a brisket for almost 5 hours, wrapped in foil and in a cooler with towels. I couldn't believe how moist and tender it was (temp was about 145) compared to a 2-hour rest. I plan on a 4-hour rest and the results have been very good.

If you like smoky brisket, Black's Lockhart has the deepest, sweet, smoky bark I've had in these parts.
 
J Hasselberger said:
After reading Franklin's book and some beard scratching, I'm in the same place. When doing a minion, I toss a good-sized chunk of wood into the chimney when starting 20-ish coals. I put all the other wood on top of the unlit coals and try to make sure that each piece of wood gets some lit coals to get it going. It takes about an hour for the temp to settle and the smoke to get to a nice light stream. I find that the bark is less bitter when I let the fire settle in. (I also find that spritzing with some apple cider vinegar about an hour before the brisket is done also helps the bark.)

On the other end, a long rest is important to a good result. Several months ago, guests were delayed and I ended up resting a brisket for almost 5 hours, wrapped in foil and in a cooler with towels. I couldn't believe how moist and tender it was (temp was about 145) compared to a 2-hour rest. I plan on a 4-hour rest and the results have been very good.

If you like smoky brisket, Black's Lockhart has the deepest, sweet, smoky bark I've had in these parts.
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Thank you! From what I've read (some of it here!), preheating wood or charcoal can help a lot. So my thinking is once you get to that clean smoke, if you have other unlit charcoal and wood in the same WSM ready to burn over time, it is getting very well preheated as the fire spreads to it so it sort of catches on clean. This seems to be supported by the fact that once my fire gets clear, it pretty much stays clear for the duration of the cook.

I suppose you are getting a lot less aggressive airflow. But on the other hand you are certainly getting some, and the cook chamber is smaller overall than a big offset. So maybe that balances it out a little?

Regarding Black's, that was on my list but we just didn't make it there this time. Next time will check it out for sure. Thank you!

Lastly, for your long rests, did you just move the wrapped brisket from the cooker into a cooler with towels? Leaving it in the same foil in which it finished cooking? Did you vent it at all? I wondered if I took hot brisket in the same foil into a hot cooler if it might continue cooking even longer and if I might then overshoot my target temp/tenderness. Didn't know if I should vent the brisket or otherwise halt the cooking a little before putting it into a cooler.

Thanks again - great discussion and info!
 
David Pace said:
Lastly, for your long rests, did you just move the wrapped brisket from the cooker into a cooler with towels? Leaving it in the same foil in which it finished cooking? Did you vent it at all? I wondered if I took hot brisket in the same foil into a hot cooler if it might continue cooking even longer and if I might then overshoot my target temp/tenderness. Didn't know if I should vent the brisket or otherwise halt the cooking a little before putting it into a cooler.

Thanks again - great discussion and info!
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I use water in the pan and I don't wrap at all. I'll take the brisket off when it's tender and set it on foil on the kitchen counter until the internal falls into the 170s. then I wrap tightly in heavy foil and into the cooler. I have tried all sorts of techniques that work well for other guys, but this works for me.
 
J Hasselberger said:
I use water in the pan and I don't wrap at all. I'll take the brisket off when it's tender and set it on foil on the kitchen counter until the internal falls into the 170s. then I wrap tightly in heavy foil and into the cooler. I have tried all sorts of techniques that work well for other guys, but this works for me.
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Thank you! That sounds good to me, and I appreciate your sharing that. Also - apologies for drifting from the original topic....though hopefully brisket techniques are at least tangentially related to Central Texas Q :)
 
I have experienced over smoked meat one time. I always reverse sear my steaks on my WSM then propane grill. I smoke my steaks for roughly an hour at 185 degrees on my WSM then take them off and fire my gasser up to 600 degrees and sear for 2 minutes per side and then check internal temps.

I didn't really understand good/bad smoke or clean/dirty fires. I had been cooking steaks like that for a while with great results and one night was crunched for time and threw the steaks on prior to letting the thick white smoke go away. The steaks were perfectly tender but tasted so bad due to the bad smoke. It was bitter and awful.

After that I have been a huge clean fire proponent and was happy franklins book backed my theory. I am so anal my goal with a cook is to estimate the right number of charcoal briquettes to light so I can keep the dampers 100% open as much as possible. I have gone as far as adding water to the water pan to reduce temps as opposed to shutting dampers. max air flow makes cleaner fire.



random note:
A lot of non Texas BBQ folks do not know the difference between Central Texas BBQ vs Hill Country BBQ. True Hill Country BBQ is getting rare these days. Hill country style they burn down wood in huge burn barrels and then shovel the coals into big pits and cook the meat directly over the wood coals. Fat dripping on the coals provide a lot of flavor. Central TX style is the big offset pits and cooking meat indirect. More mild woods are prevalent such as oak.
 
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Tommy B said:
I have experienced over smoked meat one time. I always reverse sear my steaks on my WSM then propane grill. I smoke my steaks for roughly an hour at 185 degrees on my WSM then take them off and fire my gasser up to 600 degrees and sear for 2 minutes per side and then check internal temps.

I didn't really understand good/bad smoke or clean/dirty fires. I had been cooking steaks like that for a while with great results and one night was crunched for time and threw the steaks on prior to letting the thick white smoke go away. The steaks were perfectly tender but tasted so bad due to the bad smoke. It was bitter and awful.

After that I have been a huge clean fire proponent and was happy franklins book backed my theory. I am so anal my goal with a cook is to estimate the right number of charcoal briquettes to light so I can keep the dampers 100% open as much as possible. I have gone as far as adding water to the water pan to reduce temps as opposed to shutting dampers. max air flow makes cleaner fire.



random note:
A lot of non Texas BBQ folks do not know the difference between Central Texas BBQ vs Hill Country BBQ. True Hill Country BBQ is getting rare these days. Hill country style they burn down wood in huge burn barrels and then shovel the coals into big pits and cook the meat directly over the wood coals. Fat dripping on the coals provide a lot of flavor. Central TX style is the big offset pits and cooking meat indirect. More mild woods are prevalent such as oak.
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I made this mistake with some burgers. I was cooking a brisket and seared my burgers and put them on the wsm to finish cooking (I was cooking a lot). I made the mistake of opening the vents to hurry them up which ignited a bunch of charcoal at once and put a lot of bad smoke on the burgers. Surprisingly hardly anyone noticed but once you know the bad smoke, you know it. I'm not super hung up on the clean fire, but wait until I'm close to up to temp before putting food on the WSM. Mine is really hard to cook at the temps I want without closing the vents a lot. I personally like a lot of smoke flavor so if some of the time you get blue smoke (releasing small particles) and some of the time you have white smoke (larger particles) it just all adds to the flavor for me. You just don't want the bad smoke.

I think the confusion over "central tx" vs "hill country" is that geographically they overlap a lot. Also running a burn pit and shoveling coals is hugely inefficient and a PITA. In my area its all offset smokers cooking with mesquite which kind of falls somewhere in between.
 
Tommy B said:
After that I have been a huge clean fire proponent and was happy franklins book backed my theory. I am so anal my goal with a cook is to estimate the right number of charcoal briquettes to light so I can keep the dampers 100% open as much as possible. I have gone as far as adding water to the water pan to reduce temps as opposed to shutting dampers. max air flow makes cleaner fire.
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I have been doing the same lately. Since reading obsessively about clean fires, about cooking at higher temps, and I guess about serendipity in general, I've been cooking with all vents wide open lately. I'll do a very non-aggressive Minion method, lighting 10-15 coals and dumping on unlit coals. These are KBB in an old WSM 18.5 inch, and I'll foil then fill the water pan with water. I bury some wood chunks throughout (not very strategically) and put a few on top, dump the lit coals, then assemble the cooker pretty much right away.

After 45 min to an hour, I see clear smoke and my temps are in the low 200s. I'll usually put the meat on then and just slowly observe. After a few hours, the temps will have crept up to the 275 range or even closer to 300. And I'll basically just let it be. The hotter it cooks, the sooner I'll think to check. Or vice versa. But I've just been sensitive to getting a clean, consistent fire at pretty much whatever temp between 250 and 325 and just letting things be as much as possible. It's worked very well.
 
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