It is fascinating to read Aaron Franklin’s book. The guy is a brisket legend. His brick and mortar place has been open for years and still has a long, long line. His book tells you exactly how to achieve results that rival his, and those instructions are simple and easy to follow, but it’s just like the drinking game Cardinal Puff, really hard to execute successfully. In addition to the requirement of a decent stick burner, it is really challenging to have plenty of the right wood, well seasoned, to find a super high quality brisket, to trim it to perfection, and to have an unerring sixth sense on temperature, timing, the wrap, and the rest. You just cannot write a recipe that says to cook at X degrees for Y hours. As much as I have enjoyed my attempts, I’d rather go to Franklin, La BBQ, or any of the other good ones.
You didn’t even get into the science of how meat tenderizes around 160 degrees and that rushing through this ‘plateau’ negatively impacts the end product (which is why the rage with cooking hot isn’t all that it is cracked up to be) or how long the hold is before cutting the brisket and how that impacts the end product. There are so many subtle and ineffable factors that make great barbecue. It’s like baking more than most other kinds of cooking because so many factors including humidity impact the fire and make every day a different cooking experience. The experience of a pitmaster to adjust to those conditions when producing food in volume is what keeps it from being the set it and forget it project.
Their website must be broken. All you get is photos and blather, no prices.
You would be better off with one of these anyway.
My budget director is perfectly happy with an OG Weber kettle.
LOLol
Over the years and several BBQs, I have never found one I liked better. It is great for grilling, can get hot enough for Neapolitan pizza, and can even do a decent smoked brisket. Next best is an offset that you can use as God intended but can also manage a fire in the bed of the cooking chamber for grilling and for pizza. If you take a small amount of time and money to seal it, even a very cheap one does darned well (although laying out decent money for a heavy reverse flow offset is a better investment in the long run IMO. If your budget director is very tight fisted, the lowly Smokey Joe is pretty good, cheap enough to be found in lots of Texas grocery stores.
Went to reply but started a new thread somehow… lol
