Real Texas barbecue

Real Texans love their barbecue

Editor’s Note:  This is part 12 of How To Be Texan, Wherever You Are.  It’s an up and coming eBook on how to maintain your Texan ways, no matter where you live.  Some of us fortunate souls still live in the Great State and others are Ex-Pats who were forced to leave by marriage, jobs, or circumstance.  You all however, have a great heritage and you can still be Texan, Wherever You Are.  Now its time to take a good look at the intricacies of Real Texas barbecue.  Learn to master the pit, and fame and fortune will be yours for sure.

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Yes, you can be Texan Wherever You Are by barbecuing your own brisket or sausage.  There are lots of places inTexas where a man is judged by his version of brisket.  In fact whole days are set aside to barbecue a brisket and contests are held in towns large and small across the Great State for Brisket cook-offs.  They are often coupled with bean cook-offs and chili cook-offs. If you are just getting started, A good bet is to attend one of the many cook-offs held around the state and ask questions.  Barbecue lovers are everywhere in Texas and they don’t mind answering questions.  If they have a certain old family secret sauce or something, they might hem and haw some, but generally they are really helpful.

Another good bet is to attend the annual Texas Monthly Barbecue Festival.  It is held in late October or so every year.  We went last year and to my horror I heard one famous contestant state that he uses pecan wood.  I am so naive that I never heard of anyone using anything but mesquite wood for barbecue.  That is obviously because where I grew up, the only semi-resemblance to a tree was a mesquite tree.  So, as shocked as I was, I actually used pecan the next opportunity I got.  It wasn’t bad.  The good news on all that is…..here on Sherwood Ranch, I have plenty of mesquite and plenty of pecan wood readily available.    Here is a video of our trip to Austin to the festival:

Picture this:  An old medicine man is wafting smoke over the body of someone who needs a cure.

The same goes for a Texan and their barbecue.  You gotta get in there and get in the smoke.  In the summertime, cooking on your barbecue pit is kinda like going into the sweat lodge.  It’s a Texmystical experience.  Here is a photo of a good old boy who cooked up a bunch of good stuff at the annual Miles Cotton Festival.  Looks like he’s also been sampling a lot of good brisket too.

Some afternoons it’s a smoky sweaty job that requires lots of beer or ice tea to cool a Real Texan down.  You can tell when someone is barbecuing a good brisket. If they live in town, it’s the smoke coming out of the backyard that smells so good. In the country, you can easily tell the difference between a grass fire smell and a barbecue pit fire smell.  Last summer was hard on outdoor cooking because of the fire ban in large parts of the state.  We didn’t dare start a fire outside because of the dry conditions and were happy to cooperate.

You don’t just toss a hunk of meat on a fire and expect a good slice of brisket to come forth.   Your eyes have to burn a little.  You have to smell like the smoke.  I dare say you have to ‘be the brisket’.  Your spouse will be very ‘proud’ of you when you spend the afternoon by the pit.  Yes, of course you will need to stay hydrated with a good beverage.  In fact, cooking a good brisket may cause you to stagger some by the end of the day.

I love authentic looking Texas barbecue joints and have started taking pictures when I go in them.   You always find the best deer head mounts in Texas barbecue joints.  One of my favorite places has an impressive collection of license plates nailed to the wall.

Son Joe David Werst lives in Lockhart which some call Mecca in the barbecue world.  I’ve even heard of barbecue aficionados who face their pits towards Lockhart before bolting them down in the yard.  They say two of the best barbecue joints in the state are in Lockhart and they are Smitty’s Market and Kruez Market.  Neither one is my favorite, but they are very good.

I did a YouTube series of videos on barbecuing briskets because we all have to start somewhere.  Watching the videos will get you started, and then you can go it on your own.

After you get your brisket cooked, then comes the carving of the brisket.  Here’s a good explanation of that necessary task:

Start visiting some of your local better barbecue joints and form your own arrogant opinion on who serves the best brisket in the best brisket making state on the planet.  Great tasting barbecue is certainly a personal taste sort of experience.  I would rank myself as still an amateur. However, barbecue is a personal taste and I could not begin to tell you who makes the best barbecue in Texas.  I’ve tasted some very good barbecue at various cookoffs around the state and some of the worst at well-known joints.

My personal favorite is Big John’s at Fuzzy’s corner near Lake Buchanan.  I was a regular at Big John’s long before he got concrete floors.  Yes, I drove right past Cooper’s in Llano to get to Big John’s about 20 miles on down the road toward Burnet.

My Arizona raised, ex-yankee wife loves Rudy’s Barbecue.  The only thing real about Rudy’s in my arrogant barbecue opinion is their cream corn…..

I do go in Cooper’s only very occasionally because they have priced themselves way out of their league.  I also do not care for their sauce.  I can well afford it, but won’t be back for a while because they wanted over $30 for three beef ribs the last time I was there.  I politely told them ‘no thank you’, gave them back their ribs still in the package, and walked away.

Hard 8 in Brady and Stephenville, Texas is also a favorite and I used to stop there often.  Unfortunately, they have closed the Brady location.  Don’t know about Stephenville.  Pack Saddle Barbecue in San Angelo is well worth a visit.  They have a great price on a barbecue plate, the barbecue is really good, and the place is always full.

Did you notice that many of the brisket places I mention are in the Hill Country?  A lot of those folks have this very essential skill down to an art and science.  For a better description of barbecue and some more barbecue information to digest, visit my friend Dave Thomas over at his Bottlecaps blog.  He’s a pretty decent judge of barbecue and gives you some more choices.  By the way, he loves Coopers.

Wanna see some pretty fancy brisket cookers?

Go to the Miles Cotton Festival in Miles every year and see what a bunch of country boys and girls drag in there to cook brisket on.  Some of those brisket rigs make my stationary pit look pretty tame.  I would like to stop at every hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint in the Great State from Aransas pass to Amarillo.  However, I would need a note from my cardiologist to visit some of them.

If you don’t currently reside near any good barbecue joints, make your trusty old Weber do double duty and try not to burn that brisket.  Slower is better when you are cooking a big ole tasty brisket.

You can do it.  You can Be Texan Wherever You Are by learning the Texan art of barbecuing a brisket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tagged as: david werst, Real Texas Blog, Texas barbecue