Barbecue is good for us.

Don’t let the lack of postings here fool you. The winter months have only marginally slowed down the pace of our BBQ lifestyle. Someday I’ll get around to posting some pictures and thoughts from a recent trip that Tamar and I took to Dallas. But for now I’m sharing some glamor shots – meat porn, if you will – of the first brisket I cooked on the new smoker a few weeks back.

In short, I’m very pleased. It was a 9lb (give or take) beast that I cooked for about 8-8.5 hours. I dry rubbed it with a simple mix of salt, a lot of pepper, dried thyme and dried oregano. I followed a technique that lets the brisket smoke open for about 4 hours. The you wrap it in aluminum foil. It’s not air-tight, so you still get smoke penetrating, though probably less. The benefit is you get more of a roasting effect and it makes the thing darn tender. And tender it was – most, flavorful, nice smoke ring.

Unfortunately, a lot of the meaty joy was counteracted whe I committed a cardinal brisket sin. I sliced it the wrong way. I sliced with the grain instead of across the grain. It matters. A with-the-grain slice has more integrity since the fibers aren’t broken – it will seem tougher even though the meat is moist and tender. Cut across the grain (or on a diagonal) as every good BBQ place does, and all of a sudden it seems to fall apart, fork-tender. Oh well, live and learn.

Here’s the time lapse version of the cooking process.

Beginning:

Middle:

End:

Yum.

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I’m spending this holiday weekend at my in-laws in College Station, TX (home of Texas A&M University), and since for the second time we are celebrating a wedding (this time my brother-in-law’s and last time mine) with some brisket from C & J Barbecue, I thought I’d post a bit of a primer on Texas BBQ.

First, in Texas BBQ is all about the beef brisket. Compared to the brisket we’ve had around the Bay Area, Texas brisket tends to be leaner and well-trimmed. At C & J’s it has great smoke and it’s very tender. Compared to other times we’ve had it, though, this time the brisket was pretty bland, lacking in meat flavor.

The sauce was good as usual. A lot of Texas-style sauce tends to be tomato based, but I find it to be a pretty good compromise — thick, rich, but with a stronger tomato flavor and less sugar than you’ll find in a molassas-based sauce.

Another unique thing about Texas BBQ is that it is often served with a large plate full of sliced dill pickles, jalapenos, and chopped onions. Tamar says cheddar cheese hunks are also a frequent side.

When Tamar and I had brisket catered to our wedding, we figured it would be better to serve our out-of-town guests some great local fare than some mediocre baked chicken. But we went gourmet with all the other side dishes. This time we celebrated Darren & Christine’s recent wedding with the whole deal. The caterers brought beans, potato salad, and sweet tea (of course). The beans were clearly home-made, and I thought perfectly sweet. The potato salad was a little plain, but well seasoned and chunky style, not like the puree we often get in the Bay Area.

In addition to brisket there was also sausage and smoked chicken. The sausage was decent, nothing to write home about, but I thought the chicken stole the day away from the brisket. Great smoke flavor, tender and delicious.

We didn’t have any pork this time, but I’ve had their pork ribs before. I remember them as decent, but I don’t think the tomato-based sauce goes particularly well with pork.

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