Serious Barbeque Number Three

As most of you know, I wrote these articles in 1996, but, as the Scotch advertisement says, “The good things in life stay that way.”  I don’t mind recycling them.  Toward the end of this episode, there will be some references to my friends in Wichita Falls and the planned assault on the Hotter’n Hell Hundred.  Rest assured that we did gather for those festivities and, for a bunch of old farts, did quite well.  The poem I wrote that year is included in a previous post to this blog.  The verse at the end of this installment just didn’t fit, so I just let it dangle here.  Us poets can do that stuff.

            This was to be the third and final installment of my “Serious Barbeque Trilogy”. Well, it may have to be a “Serious Barbeque Quardrupility”, or “Pentarupility” or something. I think I may just write until I run out of something to say about Barbeque.

I have been doing constant research on barbeque joints around the state, and it sure is hard to do that, and still try to get in shape for the Hotter’n Hell Hundred. To compare barbeque, we must establish some standards. I will use brisket, because most everyone this side of the Sabine River serves it, and I can easily establish standards. As with everything else I put in these letters, this is not meant to be the “only” way, or the “best” way or even an “easy” way. It is, purely and simply, the way I do it. You can do it different, and it will still be as good as mine or maybe even better. That’s great. Send me your method.

I think barbeque should be made with cheap cuts of meat. Brisket is cheap. I brought one for seventy-seven cents a pound just last week. Do not trim a brisket before it’s cooked. Do not buy a trimmed brisket. Take a whole, untrimmed brisket, about ten to twelve pounds, cover it with a good barbeque rub, and put it, fat side up, on a covered pit with a remote mesquite fire at about 200° to 225°. Let it smoke for ten to twelve hours, and control the heat. Don’t let it go above 225° or below 200°. When it’s done, wrap it in foil, put it in an insulated chest, oven, on the grill away from the fire, or otherwise keep it warm until serving time.

Slicing a brisket is as important to the finished product as cooking it. It should be sliced, across grain, and immediately served. I do it this way: Trim the fat from the top and bottom of the brisket, and around the edges. You will discover two “plates” of lean meat, with a horizontal layer of fat between them. Separate them, and trim the fat off each of them.  As they are separated, you’ll see a thick vein near one edge. Trim it out. You should now have two irregular rectangles of lean meat, about one to one and a half inches thick. Look at them and you can see the grain lines of the meat. (You will still have some fat in a few places, but that’s fine, don’t let it bother you.) Slice off a one quarter inch slice of meat from each rectangle, being careful to cut perpendicular to the grain lines. Lay the two slices flat and look at them. One will be fine grained and smooth, with almost no fat. The other will have little rivers of fat running through it, in a pattern that resembles the grain of alligator leather. Both should be very tender, but firm, with a maroon smoke ring about one eighth inch wide at the perimeter. They will be pink when sliced, but quickly turn a gray color when exposed to the air.

Line up the grain lines of each piece of meat, and put the alligatored one on top. Then slice though both pieces, staying perpendicular to the grain lines, and cutting two slices at once, from one eighth to one quarter inch thick. (Not thicker than one quarter inch, and never with grain.) Each person will be served four to six slices, half from the top cut and half from the bottom cut. Sauce can be added at serving time, or served on the side.

This method will allow each person and equal amount of moist (alligatored top cut) and dry (bottom cut) brisket. It will not give anyone too much of either. The thin slices will keep the meat from being too stringy, and sticking in between everyone’s teeth. (As will the cross grain cutting method)  It should be noted that some people prefer the top cut or the bottom cut only.  By all means, give them what they want.  That’s one of the benefits of slicing the meat as it is served.



I felt we needed a picture.  This one came from the Bob Wills Bash in Turkey.  The Wok is actually a plow blade.



The time and temperature discipline will get the meat done, but not overcooked. Too quick will make it tough, and too hot or too long will dry it out. Overcooked brisket will not slice properly, and will be stringy or tough or both. A lot of commercial barbeque will seem to “grow” as you chew it. You’ll take a bite, start to chew, and the meat will seem to swell up as you chew it. This indicates either bottom cut only cooked too much, or both cuts, cooked way too much.

As I mentioned earlier, the Hotter’n Hell Hundred is almost upon us. I am still trying to get into one hundred mile condition, and can now guarantee that I will go one mile for each year of my life, and probably one to grow on. In any case, at about three p.m. on August 24, 1996, I plan to cross the finish line in downtown Wichita Falls. Keith Cecil, Bill Hallmark, and Charles Flowers will be there, and any of the rest of you who care to show up are welcome. The distance is not important, the effort is.

Friday night at Neil and Manor McMullen’s home, we will have the annual McLaughlin Super-Carb Pasta Dinner. Later that night, or possibly Saturday night, we’ll have the “Neil and Manon McMullen National Invitational Poetry Symposium” I hear that Flowers will do, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, and due to many requests, I will not do “The Face on the Barroom Floor”. I may write an original poem for the occasion. I’ve already go one verse, and I guess I’ll share it with you.

“We took our dates to drive-ins,
  Later we met them in bars.

  We all had hot rods back then
  and some of us even had cars.”                                 

We’ll have a good time, celebrating our first sixty years. You all ought to come join us. I promise I’ll get back to serious barbeque next time, I just got carried away, thinking about the Ride.