Myths and fall of great barbe ue
Higher-quality meats, equipment and the greater talents of pitmasters render old ‘facts’ false
There’s an old saying that you should never discuss religion or politics in polite company, and the equivalent in Texas would be discussing football or barbecue among folks you don’t know very well. Want to stir things up at a Texas A&M get-together? Casually mention that Johnny Manziel was never very talented in the first place.
Barbecue is an even hotter topic. Taste in barbecue is, of course, highly subjective, and any discussion of smoked meats will often veer from pompous pronouncements about which joints are undeniably the best to outright falsehoods about why the brisket from one place is better than the next.
As someone who has researched barbecue quite a bit, I’m often the guy at the party who corrects these wild pronouncements about how great barbecue is made. I don’t get invited back to a lot of parties.
So in the spirit of educating barbecue fanatics in the facts of great barbecue, here are some of the whoppers you’ll hear in discussions about what makes great barbecue.
The most stubborn myth is the smoke ring. This is the pink strip around the outside of a slice of brisket. For many years, the depth, color and definition of the smoke ring was a significant factor in judging competitive barbecue. A smoke ring with a redpink color and a depth of about ¼ of an inch signified great brisket, even though you may not have even tasted it.
That myth has been mostly debunked. On the contrary, a perfectly defined smoke ring is often a red flag that the meat has been manipulated — chemical additives can be sprayed or rubbed on the surface of the brisket to get the smoke-ring effect, even though it doesn’t add to the taste or quality of the finished product. Most of the great brisket I have nowadays has an ill-defined and irregular smoke ring.
Another fallacy is that smoke “penetrates” the meat to give it a “barbecue flavor.”
In fact, the physical composition of beef is such that smoke cannot penetrate very deeply, if at all. The smoke flavor that is the essence of great barbecue is mostly contained on the outside of the brisket, specifically within the “fat cap.” The fat on the outside of the brisket, along with the rough surface created by adding salt, pepper and other spices, absorbs and traps the flavor of smoke.
That’s why many pitmasters cringe when a customer asks for “extra lean” brisket, essentially asking to have all the outside smoky bits — the “bark” in barbecue parlance — to be stripped off so only the meat is left. Though you’ll often get some smoky flavor, the result is akin to roast beef. In my experience, the best bite of brisket combines the beefy flavor of the actual meat mixed up with some of the smoke, spice and fat of the outside bark.
Another myth is that “low and slow” is the only way to produce great barbecue. “You don’t need no teeth to eat our beef!” and “Falling- off-the-bone ribs” were characterizations used to describe barbecue of the past when lowquality meat (think tough and stringy) required pitmasters to cook it until it was almost mush.
Although “low and slow” is still the preferred method of most pitmasters — specifically, cooking brisket at about 225 degrees for eight to 12 hours — the technique of “hot and fast” is gaining popularity. In this case, brisket is cooked at 350 degrees for about 6 hours to produce great barbecue.
The adoption of the “hot and fast” method is a result of higher-quality meat and more reliable barbecue pits, as well as the greater talents and training of contemporary pitmasters.
Finally, some say you can’t make truly great barbecue with a smoker that uses natural gas to assist in the cooking. Purists insist only pits that use wood are acceptable.
I can say with certainty that these “gas-assist” pits that cook predominantly with burning wood and use gas only to help regulate the temperature can, indeed, produce great barbecue. In the hands of a skilled pitmaster, gas-assisted pits produce consistent, smoky barbecue.
Armed with these facts, you, too, can shut down the inaccurate arguments of your neighborhood barbecue “expert.”
Just don’t expect to be invited back to any backyard barbecue parties.