TEXAS BRISKET

HOW TO CLIMB THE MOUNT EVEREST OF BARBECUE

MEATHEAD

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PART I

ABOUT DEEP DIVE GUIDES

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook – try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

JULIA CHILD

Deep Dive Guides is the ebook imprimatur of Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com. It is a growing series of ebooks in which we have attempted to share our breadth and depth of experience on a culinary topic. They are designed to give you an inexpensive deep dive into a topic so you come away knowledgeable and confident. They contain numerous links to pages on the internet and videos. You will enjoy this book best if you read it while you are connected to the internet.

Some of this content is scattered among the 2,000+ pages on Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com. Although websites are great references, they are not great learning environments, not nearly as good as books. We think that binding together carefully edited articles in an organized flow from start to finish in book format, is a far better way to learn than from articles scattered around on a website.

Some of this info appears in other Deep Dive guides because we think that it is important that they all contain foundational info on such things as meat science, safety, tools, etc. So we have included the most important info within these pages, and written new, previously unpublished, related info. Enjoy!

PART II

INTRODUCTION

“This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook – try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

JULIA CHILD

Brisket at Black’s in Lockhart, TX

Beef brisket, Texas style, is the Mt. Everest of barbecue. It is the most challenging of all meats. But, if you let us be your sherpa, we can get you to the top.

If you’ve ever wanted to create a smoked brisket at home just as good, if not better, than they do at Texas’ best BBQ joints then this BBQ beef brisket Deep Dive Guide is for you!

Texas style smoked BBQ brisket is the most difficult of meats. You just can’t throw it on the grill. It is two massive pectoral muscles, 6 to 10 pounds each, toughened from carrying the weight of the front half of the animal without the aid of a collarbone. That requires a lot of tough connective tissue that needs long, low, and slow cooking to gelatinize. If you are new to low-and-slow smoking in general, I recommend you start with pulled pork before tackling brisket. Pork butt is much more forgiving, and you can overcook it without severe consequences. Not so for beef brisket.

Once you master the basics, however, making this smoked brisket recipe is not as difficult as you might think. You just need a good recipe loaded with proven techniques and useful tips. In this book, you’ll find everything you need to cook a tender barbecue brisket, including how to season it, how long to smoke it, how to slice it, and everything in between. Like the sign says outside of House Park Bar-B-Que in Austin, Need No Teef To Eat My Beef!

When properly cooked, a whole brisket (a.k.a. packer’s cut brisket) is a huge hunk of cow, it can be as large as 20 pounds, that comes off the smoker deep ebony in color, almost black, looking more like a meteorite than a meal. But it is not burnt, and beneath the crust is the most tender, juicy, meat full of husky, beefy flavor. IF you cook it right. And that’s a BIG IF. Like a Clint Eastwood cowboy, brisket is unforgiving. Cooking it wrong can result in meat as tough as a wrangler’s leather chaps.

In these pages, I share everything I have learned over the years about making great brisket. So pull up a chair, preferably near the fire, and settle in for a deep dive into of what goes into a truly exceptional meal.

1

ABOUT MEATHEAD

Meathead is the barbecue whisperer, hedonism evangelist, and mythbuster who founded Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com, by far the world’s most popular outdoor cooking website. He is a BBQ Hall of Famer and the author of “Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling”, a New York Times Best Seller that was also named “One of the 100 Best Cookbooks of All Time” by Southern Living magazine, one of “22 Essential Cookbooks for Every Kitchen” By SeriousEats.com, and one of the “25 Favorite Cookbooks of All Time” By Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street.

He was previously a syndicated wine critic for the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. He has taught at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, NY, and Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago, and he has judged food, wine, beer, and spirits around the world. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife, a PhD microbiologist and a food safety expert, so if you dine at his house you will eat and drink well, and safely.

2

ABOUT MEATHEAD’S AMAZINGRIBS.COM

Called “By far the leading resource for BBQ and grilling information” by Forbes, Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com is all about the science and art of barbecue, grilling, and all forms of outdoor cooking. With more than 2,000 pages of free information, the site offers countless thoroughly tested recipes, tips on technique, original science research, myth-busting, and unbiased equipment reviews.

The site ranks among the most popular food websites in the US and is one of only a small number of sites in the Library of Congress’ Food and Foodways Web Archive. Other sites in the archive include the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, James Beard Foundation, Southern Foodways Alliance, Jose Andres, US Food & Drug Administration, Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, and Seafood Watch. We are in good company!

The site has numerous extraordinary features, among them the world’s largest collection of grill and smoker reviews by the world’s only full-time grill and smoker tester, the world’s largest collection of thermometer reviews and test results by an electrical engineer, a unique curing calculator, a salt conversion calculator, and it specializes in using science to bust scores of barbecue and grilling myths.

3

ABOUT THE AMAZINGRIBS.COM PITMASTER CLUB

The AmazingRibs.com Pitmaster Club is the world’s largest barbecue association with more than 17,000 paid members who enjoy a lively community forum and more than 20 cool benefits to membership including monthly drawings with prizes worth up to $2,000. You are invited to take a free 30-day trial membership. No credit card necessary. Click here https://AmazingRibs.com/pitmaster

Here are some of the 20+ benefits to membership:

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4

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Clint Cantwell, Senior VP at AmazingRibs.com

Prof. Greg Blonder, Science Editor for AmazingRibs.com

And the rest of the AmazingRibs.com team

5

STAY IN TOUCH

Have a question? Meathead and the site’s knowledgeable moderators answer reader questions promptly. Just go to Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com and post your question on any page at the bottom where it says “Click for comments…”

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PART III

SAFETY FIRST

Fire, knives, pathogens, oh my! People can die from improper cooking. But the risk is very low with a little common sense and an ounce of prevention.

6

SPOILAGE

There are two types of spoilage: Oxidation and Microbial.

Oxidation is caused by compounds in meat, especially animal fats, combining with oxygen and changing the meat’s smell, flavor, and color. Badly oxidized meat is called rancid. The good news is that oxidized meat is usually not dangerous.

Microbial spoilage is the other type of spoilage, and it is very dangerous. There are several commonly occurring bacteria and viruses in food that can spoil it. Some of these bad guys will merely have you kneeling before the porcelain god, but others can maim or kill you. The goal is to pasteurize the food, i.e. kill as many bugs as possible so that it is safe. That’s different than sterilizing which kills every single microbes. We can easily pasteurize at home. Sterilization is a method that kills or removes all microbes and their spores by using one or more of the following: Heat, irradiation, chemicals, pressure, or filtration.

You can pasteurize most meats by cooking them to 131°F interior temp and holding it for two hours. At 165°F interior, bacteria are killed instantly. For more on bacterial kill temps, click here and scroll down.

BACTERIA

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that in one recent year roughly one in six Americans got sick from food, 128,000 were hospitalized, and 3,000 died. The bad guys are certain types of bacteria, viruses, and parasites. If you don’t want the details, let’s make it easy:

Cooking kills the bad guys. Cook food properly and you have nothing to worry about. Raw food is just plain riskier. All raw food and that includes salads.

Bacteria are everywhere. There are more microbes in your body than all other cells combined and they may weigh up to three pounds. The biggest risks in food come from bacteria you ingest. Most bacteria are friendly and many, called probiotics, are beneficial. Alas, some of them, called pathogens, are not so friendly, especially Bacillus cereus, Campylobacter jejuni, Clostridium botulinum, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, STEC (Shiga toxin producing E-coli), Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus, and Vibrio. They are hard to trace because they can often take a day or more to grow in your gut before they knock you down, so figuring out what it was in the fridge or if it was the restaurant lunch is hard to do.

VIRUSES

Viruses are not a major threat in food with one notable exception: Hepatitis A virus (HAV) a.k.a. norovirus usually comes from human fecal matter, often as a result of poor hand washing.

Coronavirus/COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory virus. It mostly infects the nose, throat, and lungs. Almost all infections come by inhaling droplets of moisture from the breath of other people who have been infected. The risk is greater the more viruses you inhale. The risk can be lowered by limiting your proximity to other people and by using a mask. Normal painter’s masks can prevent you from spraying and can reduce the amount of spray you inhale, but they can’t stop all the viruses. Masks labeled N95 are much more effective. That’s what doctors prefer.

You can get sick by touching something that has the virus on it such as a grocery cart or an apple, and then transferring it to your respiratory system by touching your eye or the inside of your nose or mouth, or by eating food handled by someone who has the virus. The data says the risk of getting sick is low from touching things, especially if you wash your hands often, and keep them out of your eyes, nose, and mouth.

Food is not a likely carrier even if you eat with your hands. If the preparer is sick and washed his or her hands and didn’t sneeze or cough on the food, there is likely to be no viruses or at worst a very small load (quantity of bugs). Keep in mind that food goes down one pipe and air down another so if the food is contaminated, it is possible it could get into your lungs because you breathe when you eat, but the risk is considered to be very very low.

PARASITES

Raw food can harbor parasites, most commonly adult tapeworm, tapeworm eggs, tapeworm larvae, and toxoplasma. Tapeworms are most commonly found in seafood. Cooking to 145°F will kill adult tapeworms as well as larvae and eggs. That is hotter than most chefs like to cook fish, even with conventional cooking. Fortunately, most parasites can be killed by freezing for 7 days at -4°F or for 15 hours at -35°F. Commercially frozen fish are often taken to these low temperatures. Alas, most home freezers are set to 0°F. So if you wish to cook fish to 131°F or below, you should consider buying commercially frozen fish.

Toxoplasma is found in shellfish and some mammals as well as contaminated water and cat litter. Fortunately toxoplasma is killed by freezing or cooking.

HOW DO FOODS GET CONTAMINATED?

That’s quite a rogues gallery of potential contaminants. If you ingest enough bacteria, they can leave you sitting on the toilet for hours, plant you on your knees in front of the porcelain god, send you to bed in a sweat and writhing in pain for months, propel you to the emergency room, or even the cemetery. Children and elderly are especially at risk.

It is helpful to think of all raw food as kryptonite. Of course most is perfectly safe, but you never know, and trusting your butcher is no guarantee because most contamination happens long before it hits his loading dock. And although fruits and veggies are not as frequently contaminated, if you pay attention to the news, you will know that recalls of lettuce, spinach, chili peppers, melons, sprouts, and strawberries are frequent because we eat them raw. Contaminated meats are decontaminated when we cook them properly.

The most common source of contamination is animal waste, and that includes human animals. If the bad breeds of E-coli get into water that is used for irrigation, if organic fertilizer is not sterilized properly, if Bambi or Thumper have lunch in a field of lettuce, if a steer’s intestines are accidentally sliced open in the slaughterhouse, or if your butcher didn’t wash his hands after using the toilet, we have a problem.

If a bluebird bombs a strawberry, if the henhouse isn’t cleaned properly by a minimum wage teenager, if the water bath used to remove the feathers from chickens isn’t disinfected, we have a problem.

Egg shells may look impervious, but if the hen has salmonella, it can get into the ovum before the shell hardens.

Raw fish sushi is silky and elegant, unless tapeworm eggs from seals, walruses, or whales get into your salmon. They can grow up to 60 feet inside a human.

Raw sprouts might seem like health food, but if Tweety decides to visit the alfalfa seeds or if rodents and insects nibble through the burlap shipping bags in the hold of a ship or warehouse, when we soak and warm the seeds to sprout them, we also water and warm the pathogens. That makes sprouts the most dangerous food in the super market.

Improper food handling also makes contamination from your hands, cutting boards, and knives a major problem.

MAKING FOOD SAFE

The most effective way to make food safe is to cook it properly. Raw food, of any kind, is always a risk. In the language of food safety scientists, you need a “kill step” in the process. Lemon juice, vinegar, alcohol, salt, and freezing will not pasteurize food. They may kill a few bad guys and hamper their growth, but they absolutely positively cannot be trusted to make food safe. Sorry, but they just don’t get the job done. Acid and salt might inhibit growth, but they won’t make your food or countertop safe. Remember, when research labs want to store their microbes, they freeze them.

To cook foods properly you must use a digital thermometer. Cooking without it is like driving at night without headlights. AmazingRibs.com has an electrical engineer who tests, reviews, and rates thermometers. His database of more than 200 is a valuable shopping guide. We do not sell any.

The excellent thermometer shown here, the Thermoworks Thermopop reads accurately in 5 seconds and sells for less than $30. Click here to order it.

A hot dishwasher and its detergent will make dishes and utensils safe. For countertops, cutting boards, knives, meat grinders, and other things that can’t go in the dishwasher, chlorine bleach is your go-to sanitizer. That’s why they put it in swimming pools.

You don’t want to wash down your carrots with a poison. But chlorine is an excellent disinfectant for cutting boards, countertops, knobs, and handles. Buy an empty spray bottle at the drug store and fill it with a dilute solution of household bleach.

USDA recommends a solution of one tablespoon of 5% unscented, liquid chlorine bleach per gallon of water. After washing with warm soapy water, sanitize with bleach. Wet the surface with the bleach solution and allow it to stand for several minutes. Rinse with clear water and air or pat dry with clean paper towels. Store the solution in the bottle, tightly sealed, and use it often.

7

STORING RAW MEATS

Can you imagine life without refrigeration? We would eat only what we killed today, or we would all be vegetarians, or we would all be experts on pickling and canning.

But you cannot keep meat in the fridge or freezer forever. Even at standard refrigerator temp, 40°F, 3 to 5 days is the longest you should keep raw meat. Keep in mind, many meats you buy may have already been stored in grocery for several days. So it is best to cook meats soon after you get them home or freeze them. Meat kept in the fridge can still host and grow dangerous microbes, so just because it is chilled doesn’t mean it is safe. Cooked meats, if wrapped well, can be kept for up to a week in the fridge before they get risky.

Frozen meats stay good longer. At standard freezer temperature, 0°F, most dangerous microbes cannot grow, so frozen meat can be safe for many months. But remember, freezing does not kill microbes. Oxygen in the packaging can change the flavor and texture of the meat, and the cold can freeze dry it. When wrapping meat for the freezer, get out as much air as possible wrapping it first with form fitting plastic wrap. If you can, use a vacuum system to suck out the air.

Ground meats have more oxygen mixed in so they start tasting funny sooner than steaks. Pork gets funky faster than lamb which gets funky faster than chicken or turkey, and beef is the last to go.

In general, the bigger the hunk of meat, the longer it will keep. Here’s a rough guide that can vary depending on how well you have wrapped the meat:

Ground pork and sausage: 2 months

Ground beef or lamb: 4 months

Pork chops: 4 months

Pork roasts: 5 months

Lamb chops: 5 months

Steaks: 6 months

Beef roasts: 8 months

Why is meat in my fridge turning brown?

At first, oxygen reacts with pigments to turn meat red. After a while, the meat starts to oxidize, which turns it brown, the same way an apple or potato turn brown.

Why does my meat shine like a rainbow?

It is simply a fluke of lighting that strikes the surface just the right way when the surface has been cut on a certain angle. Strictly refraction, not bacteria or an oil slick.

Why is my meat green?

Bad bacteria. Throw it out.

Why are there are dry white spots on my meat from the freezer?

That’s freezer burn. It’s like frostbite. The meat has probably been in the freezer too long and/or it was not wrapped tight. It is still safe, but the burned parts will probably be dry and bland. Trim it off and cook it, but don’t serve it to Mom or the boss.

My meat smells funny, what should I do?

Sometimes meat will smell a bit odd when you take it out of a vacuum sealed plastic bag, but the smell should dissipate within a few minutes. If it still smells funny, then chances are it is funny. Throw it out. Remember: when in doubt, throw it out!

What are those boogers coming out of my burgers and my salmon?

According to the AmazingRibs.com meat scientist,  Dr. Antonio Mata, hamburger exudates (I call them boogers) are proteins dissolved in water, mostly myoglobin. When burgers are ground, plump muscle fibers are sheared open. As the meat begins to heat, protein and collagen shrink and squeeze out the proteinaceous fluids, which are pink at first, and then they gel and turn tan just like the meat.

In salmon, boogers consist of another group of proteins dissolved in water called albumin. The albumin is pushed to the surface by shrinkage caused by heat. Brining helps minimize it, but not always. Salmon boogers can usually be wiped off with a paper towel or a brush. Another good technique is to paint the surface with a simple wash of sweet wine, mirin, or a glaze.

8

WASHING FOOD AND CUTTING BOARDS

Rinsing meat can remove slimy fluids on the surface, but these are really nothing much to worry about. To be sure there are bacteria in them, but they will be killed instantly when heated. Rinsing is helpful to remove bone chips that might be on the surface from the butchering process because many cuts through bone are made with band saws.

Unfortunately, rinsing meat in the sink cannot remove bacteria which are embedded in the pores and cracks in the muscle surfaces. In fact, rinsing can make things worse by splattering microscopic contaminated droplets onto the sink and counters.

Jennifer Quinlan a food safety scientist at Drexel University in Philadelphia did some famous research in which she showed that rinsing meat aerosolizes tiny droplets of juices laden with bacteria all over the sink, faucet, surrounding counters, dish drains, and yourself.

Although she doesn’t discuss it, the problem also arises in washing your cutting board.

She recommends you do not wash meats. But we know you want to. The solution is to turn down the water pressure and be careful not to splash. Or submerge the meat or cutting board in water.

9

HAZARDOUS FOODS

FOOD ALLERGIES

The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act requires that food packaging must declare prominently if it contains any of the eight most common food allergens: Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat.

A good host will always ask guests in advance if they have any food allergies and either plan a menu that omits them, or plan a special dish for the guest with the allergy. Of course it is also the guest’s obligation to inform the host so when dinner is served the host doesn’t feel bad that the guest pushes away the plate.

The whole thing gets a bit complicated when people who don’t have an allergy or celiac disease, but they have decided to avoid gluten or another food that they think is bad for them.

Common sense, courtesy, tolerance, and communications need to be the watchwords.

OTHER HAZARDOUS FOODS

So a food safety expert from the FDA was giving a seminar on food safety at a culinary school. Near the end of the talk she touched on the fact that some foods have effects that are cumulative and the hazard might not be evident for decades. She asked the audience if they could think of an example. After a few moments of silence an old codger in the front row raised his hand and mumbled “wedding cake.”

10

KNIFE SAFETY

Be alert and focused when using knives and sharp objects. Beverage alcohol and knives is a dangerous combo.

Use sharp knives.

Do not gesture and waive with knives in your hands.

Always use a cutting board. Never cut anything in your hand.

A damp towel or paper towel under a cutting board can help keep it from shifting.

Make sure you have plenty of elbow room when cutting.

If you drop a knife, get your feet out of the way and don’t try to catch it! Wait for the knife to stop moving before trying to pick it up.

Never open cans with a knife. I don’t care what you saw on Iron Chef.

Never use a knife as a screwdriver.

11

GRILL, SMOKER, OVEN, AND STOVETOP SAFETY

Grills, smokers, sideburners, and indoor ovens and stovetops can do massive damage to property and life if not treated with respect

Never cook with grills or smokers indoors or in garages. They produce invisible carbon monoxide and smoke that can kill you.

Don’t keep your grill next to a furnace air inlet or even a window. The house is often under a negative pressure, and can suck in these killing gases.

Don’t keep your grill close to your house or deck railings. Beware of overhanging roof lines or trees.

Never use gas, paint thinner, solvents, or kerosene to start your charcoal. Chimneys or electric coil starters are the best way to start coals, but if you use charcoal starter fluid, once the coals are smoldering never squirt them with more fluid. The flame can climb up the stream and set you on fire.

Don’t cook near gasoline or other flammables. Keep propane tanks at least two feet from the burners unless there is shielding.

On gas grills, always lift the lid when you ignite the burners. If you have one burner lit and want to add others, it is safe, just open the lid. A gas buildup under the hood could blow it open and flash in your face.

On kamados and eggs, the lid seal is very tight so when you open it, air rushes in and it can flash flame in your face. Stand back and open the lid slowly.

Store propane cylinders outdoors in an upright position.

If you smell gas, turn off the grill immediately. On New Year’s Day 2013 ESPN host Hannah Storm returned to the air with a bandaged hand, a wig, false eyelashes and eyebrows. She was injured when trying to ignite her propane grill after the wind blew the flame out. Unbeknownst to her, the gas continued to course through the jets and pooled in the lower chamber because it is heavier than air.

Handle hot grills, coals, and hot liquids with respect. Be alert. No horseplay near cookers.

Keep children and pets away from grills and smokers, uncooked meat, hot liquids, and sharp objects.

Use potholders and/or insulated gloves.

Do not discard ash until the coals are thoroughly dead. Let them sit overnight or dump water on them before you put them in your trash can.

Bare feet, sandals, flip-flops, and loose clothes are dangerous around grills.

Don’t put small grills on flammable surfaces or glass tables.

Before you use a new grill or smoker, fire it up on high and let it run for about 30 minutes to burn off any oil or grease or packing materials from the manufacturing process or from shipping. Click here to read more about Seasoning and Calibrating a New Grill or Smoker.

Save the grill manual and remember where you put it.

If you have long hair, tie it in a pony tail. And grilling is yet another great excuse to not wear a tie.

If you pour water over hot coals, it will produce enough steam to melt your nose, and enough hot water will come out of the bottom to melt your toes.

Heat the grates to high before cooking and carbonize grease and scraps from your last cook. Then scrub them off (read more about grate cleaning). If you use a wire brush, beware that bristles can come out and people have died from wire bristles that lodge in their digestive system. Before the food goes on, use a damp cloth and tongs to wipe off the grates and visually inspect them.

Make sure handles of pots and pans are not sticking out over the edge of a table or counter where people walking by can bump them.

Do not fill pots to the brim. Liquids expand when they are heated.

If you put a wet liquid into hot oil it will spit hot oil at high velocity right at your eyes with deadly accuracy.

Keep pets away from the front of the stove.

PART IV

TOOLS

You don’t need a lot of fancy expensive tools to get started. You can accomplish wonders with a simple kettle grill or a two burner gas grill, a pair of tongs, a brush, and a digital thermometer.

That said, there are some great upgrades and enhancements that come in handy if you can afford them. Here are some of our recommendations.

At AmazingRibs.com we employ the world’s only full-time grill and smoker tester and he maintains a database of detailed reviews and ratings of hundreds of cookers.

We also have an electrical engineer outfitted with special equipment to test and rate and review thermometers, the single most important tool for making safe and tasty food.

In addition, our experienced team tests and reviews everything from pizza ovens, to tongs, to spatulas, grill grates, knives, knife sharpeners, gloves, coolers, scales, pots and pans, kitchen equipment, all manner of accessories, and every year we pull together a list of the best new products and a great gift guide.

Click here to check out our Product Reviews section.

12

3 TYPES OF ENERGY AND 2-ZONE COOKING

THE 3 TYPES OF ENERGY

Inside a grill there are three types of energy: Conduction, infrared radiation, and convection airflow. It is important to think of these as energy rather than temperature. As an example, turn your indoor oven to 200°F and stick your arm in there. You can do this. It won’t burn your hair off. Now touch the metal grates. When you get back from the hospital you will understand that, although the air and the grates were both 200°F, they held and delivered vastly different levels of energy. That’s why thermometers are important in measuring energy in a grill but they don’t tell the whole story.

Conduction is the most concentrated energy and a basic example is food in contact with hot metal. Conduction from hot metal is what creates grill marks on the food.

Infrared radiation (IR) usually comes from flame or glowing embers directly below the food. This concentrated form of energy packs a wallop and helps sear foods and get dark crusts in a hurry. When you stand in the sun, you are getting bombarded by IR. Yes, there is ultraviolet (UV) that causes sunburn, but there is much less UV that IR. When you place food directly above hot coals or gas flames, you are subjecting it to IR. It is like putting it in the sun.

Both IR and conduction produce enough energy to sear foods. Searing is when food turns brown as a result of two a chemical reactions called the Maillard reaction and caramelization. That brown is flavor.

You can put a thermometer in a grill but it can be misleading because conduction and radiant energy are best measured in calories, not degrees of temperature. That’s why we often refer to IR on as Warp 10 rather than measuring the air temp, a dumb Star Trek reference.

Convection airflow is the warm air circulating inside the grill, especially when the lid is down. Convection is not very good at searing. People often brag that their Big Green Avocado can hit 600°F or more, and although that is great for cooking food, it is not as good at browning it as conduction or radiation. Cooking with convection energy is best called roasting.

Once you understand these basics of energy transference you can use them to your advantage. And you thought you left physics behind in high school.

THE IMPORTANCE OF 2-ZONE COOKING

Cooking, indoors or out, is all about controlling energy and the way to do that is with 2-zone cooking. The concept is simple. You divide your grill in half. One side has IR from glowing coals or flame, the other side has no energy source beneath it and is warmed only by convection airflow. With this setup you can move food from gentle low energy that slowly warms the food and doesn’t shrink the proteins and squeeze out juices, to rip snorting high energy that can sear the exterior.

For this reason we are not big fans of egg shaped kamados. Most of them are not easily set up in 2 zones.

13

CHARCOAL GRILLS

Charcoal grills are the most versatile all-purpose outdoor cooker. When set up properly, the good ones can do both high energy infrared searing and low energy convection air roasting, as well as smoking. Their main advantages are that charcoal generates more energy than most gas burners and you can capture more smoke because the best charcoal grills allow you to control airflow. Gas grills have large permanently open vents so you can’t easily contain the smoke, but they can do a respectable job. You just need to burn through a lot more wood.

Here is a picture of two slabs of ribs, one cooked on charcoal, one on gas. You can see the difference in color caused by the differences in the smoke. But both tasted great!

To set up your grill for 2-zone cooking, simply pile lit charcoal briquets on one side of your grill’s charcoal grate to create a hot (direct) infrared heat zone and a cool (indirect) convection airflow zone. You can also add a water/drip pan on the empty side of the charcoal grate and/or a second one directly above the charcoal on the main cooking grate if you wish. If you add water pan(s) you are adding moisture to the atmosphere, and if the water pan is above the heat source you are further protecting the meat from direct heat; the water absorbs heat, helping to keep the temperature down but does not steam the meat which will make it mushy. If you keep the oven temp at 225°F, the water should not boil because the surface area will allow evaporation that will cool the water keeping it below 212°F. Hard to believe, but true. If the water is boiling, you are running hot.

Intake dampers (on the bottom) are more effective at controlling the temperature than the exhaust dampers at the top of the grill because they reduce the supply of oxygen to the coals. So monkey with the intake dampers to control temperatures. Take your time getting the temperature right and try to maintain it throughout the cooking process.

Another reason for water pans is because water condenses on the relatively cool meat and keeps it cool, slowing the cook. Furthermore, smoke particles stick to the wet surface better than dry surfaces.

Cooking at 225°F will allow the meat to roast low and slow, liquefying the collagen in connective tissues and melting fats without getting the proteins knotted in a bunch. It's a magic temperature that creates silky texture, adds moisture, and keeps the meat tender. If you can't hit 225°F, get as close as you can. Practice without food. Click here for more about how to calibrate your grill.

While lump charcoal is an option, we prefer briquets because they give us more control and we are control freaks (read our article on charcoal to see details). Absolutely do not use the instant igniting stuff that has solvent in it.

Chimney starters are by far the best way to start charcoal, especially for long slow cooking where the smell of the solvent in charcoal starter fluid can ruin the taste of the meat. Read how to start a charcoal fire here.

If you are using a charcoal grill or smoker, wait until the coals are white. The emit less smoke and the smoke from charcoal is not as good tasting as the smoke from wood. Then add about four ounces of dry hardwood or fruitwood to the fuel for at least the first hour of cooking. Do not overdo it on the wood as too much can result in a bitter and overpowering smoke flavor in the end product. If the result isn’t smoky enough, add more the next time you cook.

If you are shopping for a grill that can also smoke, a great inexpensive solution is the good old fashioned Kettle. A stripped down model of the venerable Weber Kettle is still less than $200, and with the addition of a device called the Slow ‘N Sear (above) for about another $100, you get a system that can both grill and smoke superbly, albeit with limited capacity. On one side it corrals all the coals behind a water reservoir; the food goes on the indirect side to smoke-roast at the perfect temperature. When you want to sizzle on the sauce (or sear a steak) you place it right above the glowing coals.

Another option are the Slow ’N Sear Kettle Grills. Similar to the Weber, it has several modernizations not the least of which, the two-zone insert is included. It has four legs, a thermometer port, and a side shelf.

One of our favorite charcoal grills is the Portable Kitchen 360 (a.k.a. PK 360) for about $800 (above). Its rectangular shape makes it easy to set up in 2 zones and the coals are close to the cooking grate, making it superb for searing steaks.

Our all-time favorite is the Hasty Bake 357 (above) for about $3,600. It has all the bells and whistles and best of all, you can raise and lower the charcoal grate to control heat. Hasty Bake makes less expensive models you should consider if you fainted when you saw that number.

Click here to see our favorite charcoal grills.

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GAS GRILLS

If you are using a gas grill you can easily create a 2-zone set-up and we think 2-zone is crucial for almost anything you are grilling. Most gas grills come with more than one burner nowadays because the concept of indirect cooking is becoming better known. When shopping for a gas grill, the more burners the better. Two is the minimum, three is better, four is best. You will appreciate the real estate and the ability to control temperature. Since law requires gas grills to have open vents, none of them allow you to control airflow, so there isn’t a real significant difference between gas grills when it comes to smoking.

If you have a grill with only one burner, or if you have more meat than will fit in the indirect zone, try this technique. Put the wood as close to the flame as possible.

Regardless of how many burners you have, if you are going to smoke, put a pan of water between the burner and the food. The water absorbs heat and helps minimize fluctuations in temperature. The moisture also mixes with the smoke and propane combustion gases and creates flavors you cannot get with smoke alone. It also condenses on the meat cooling it and making a sticky surface for smoke to stick to.

The big difference among gas grills is their ability to sear at high temperatures. Unfortunately, most gassers just don’t generate enough IR to do a great job of searing. A few come with sear burner tubes, but even they are usually anemic. The best sear burners are made of ceramic honeycombs like this one:

For a propane grill, make sure you always have a spare tank. Don’t risk running out. Natural gas grills never run out because they are connected to the household gas supply.

Now that you have set up your grill for indirect cooking, throw some wood on the flames or the deflector right above the flames, place the meat as far from the heat source as possible, close the lid, and let the convection airflow, smoke, and seasoning do their jobs!

Click here for a look at our top rated gas grills.

15

SMOKERS

Steak likes a little smoke but not a lot. So usually we don’t smoke them.

But if you want to, the best way to smoke is a dedicated smoker, but it is not hard to convince a charcoal or gas grill to do it very well, thank you. There are many different types of smokers ranging from about $200 to $20,000+. Selecting one is a whole ‘nother book so let us refer you to some articles and videos on AmazingRibs.com, and our searchable database of hundreds of smokers tested by the world’s only full-time grill and smoker tester, our very own Max Good. (We don’t sell anything, but we do link you to places to buy.)

Most smokers cook food entirely with indirect convection airflow. The fire is away from the food. A few smokers use direct heat but the coals are kept at a distance.

If you are just getting started and have a limited budget, we recommend the charcoal burning Pit Barrel Cooker (above) for about $350 delivered to your door fully assembled and ready to go.

The 18 inch Weber Smokey Mountain (above) is another great choice for about $330.

An excellent choice, but a bit more expensive, would be one of the many high-tech pellet smokers with precision digital temperature controls. They burn small pure sawdust pellets about the diameter of a pencil and function as thermostatically controlled outdoor ovens with smoke. Just set the temperature and walk away.

Small portable pellet smokers start at about $400, and full-size smokers about the size of a gas grill start at about $700. We gave high marks to the Grilla Silverbac Alpha (below).

Here’s a list of all our top-rated pellet smoker models.

For the very best smoke flavor, we are partial to log burners. The good ones are not cheap. They start at about $800, so please don’t be suckered into buying the cheap offset smokers at the big box hardware stores. Beware, log burners require constant tending and skill. Beginners will make mistakes and ruin a few meals. Below is a Lang reverse-flow offset smoker which is highly recommended. Click here to learn more about offset smokers.

The odd looking thing below is a Karubecue. It employs a number of brilliant innovations that make it the best backyard log burner on the market. It costs about $1,440 at press time.

There are gas smokers and we like them because you can set em and forget em. They don’t require the vigilance that charcoal and log burners demand. And they are inexpensive. Alas, some make temp control difficult, so be sure to check our reviews before buying.

There are electric smokers, but the wood smolders and does not burn in them. Burning wood produces better tasting smoke than smoldering wood so for that reason we are not fans of electric smokers.

Looking for a new outdoor cooking rig? Here’s a web page with a lot of info, videos, and links on how to select a grill or smoker.

16

ABOUT WOOD

Then there is smoke, which we think of as a spice or flavoring element. Some of it comes from charcoal (gas has no flavor), some of it comes from vaporized drippings of juices, fat, and spices. But the best smoke flavor comes from burning wood.

Charcoal is not a very good source of smoke. When you first light charcoal it produces an acrid smoke. When it is fully ignited and has a thin coat of white ash, charcoal produces very little smoke. That is when you add real wood.

The best smoker is a dedicated smoker, but it is not hard to convince a charcoal or gas grill to do it very well, thank you. All you need to do is use a 2-zone set-up and throw hardwood, fruitwood, or nutwood on the flames and let it burn. That’s right, let it catch fire and burn. You won’t see a lot of smoke, but that’s what you want. The truth is that billowing white smoke from smoldering wood does not taste as good as “blue smoke,” smoke whose particles are so small they don’t diffract much light, so the smoke is thin, pale blue, and practically invisible. Those flames you see are combusting impurities that impart undesirable flavors. So let it burn!

Never use any kind of pine or sappy, soft wood unless you want meat that tastes like turpentine. Never use construction lumber because it is often treated with poisonous chemicals to discourage rot and termites.

Charcoal is not a good source of smoke. When you first light charcoal it produces an acrid smoke. When it is fully ignited and has a thin coat of white ash charcoal and produces little smoke. That is when you add real wood.

We don’t care what you have read, there is no need to soak wood before adding it. First of all, wood doesn’t absorb much water. That’s why they build boats from wood! We have soaked wood and cut it open and the interior is bone dry. There is only a little moisture captured on the surface. When we weigh wood soaked overnight it gains less than 5% of its original weight.

Secondly, all that billowy white smoke from smoked wood is really steam because the wood cannot combust until the water on the surface of the wood evaporates at 212°F. Then the wood can go up in temperature to 500°F+ where it can combust. At that point, it burns with a bright blue and orange flame, making clean blue smoke with few impurities.

Don’t obsess over which wood to use . The differences are subtle and you should concentrate first on getting quality meat, trimming it, salting it, rubbing it, temperature control, and sauce management. Wood theory is a book length topic unto itself, so if you want to know more and learn why we tell you not to obsess over wood types, click here to learn about combustion and the different kinds of wood and smoke.

Do not overdo it on the wood as too much can result in an overpowering ash flavor in your food. Go easy the first few cooks and add more as you gain experience.

On charcoal or gas cookers, start with 4 to 8 ounces by weight of chunks, chips, or pellets for a mild smoke flavor that complements the meat and seasoning without overwhelming. No matter how much food you are cooking, 8 ounces should be enough. You don't have to be precise, just measure it in some fashion so you have a baseline for your next cook. Then you can add or subtract if you wish.

17

THE ABCS OF FIRE EXTINGUISHERS

Always keep a fire extinguisher near your grill, smoker, and in your kitchen. Water will only spread grease fires. The best extinguisher is rated ABC.

Class A fire extinguishers are for paper, wood, cardboard, and most plastics.

Class B fire extinguishers are for flammable liquids such as gasoline, kerosene, oil, and grease.

Class C fire extinguishers are for electrical equipment and wiring.

Class D fire extinguishers are for combustible metals including magnesium, titanium, potassium, sodium, and some other chemicals.

Class ABC fire extinguishers can handle most everything except some class D materials. This is the one you want. Beware, they contain a yellow powder that can damage electrical devices.

18

COOK WITH A THERMOMETER, NOT A CLOCK

Different cuts of meat vary significantly in tenderness, fat content, and collagen content. Some are best cooked hot and fast, some better cooked low and slow, and some must be cooked with a combination of hot and slow to reach their optimal taste and texture. Click here to read an article on the subject of cooking temps and info on how to get this food temperature guide with more than 80 benchmark temperatures.

This is why cooking times in recipes are guesstimates at best. Think about the absurdity of a recipe that says, “cook the steak for six minutes on the first side and then four minutes on the second side.” How long it takes to cook depends on how hot the air is, how hot the cooking surface is, how thick the meat is, and your target temp.

Depending on the grill, cooking steaks could take twice as long or half as long. Thick steaks take more time, and if you want them rare, they’ll take less time than in if you want them well done. Click here for more on cooking times and what controls them.

You cannot tell if meat is safe or cooked to the proper temp by looking at it. When you cut into meat to look at it, it can change in a few minutes after it has been exposed to oxygen. Compounds in marinades and brines can impact color. Sometimes vegetables in the grill can produce gases that alter meat color. It has long been thought that when chicken juices run clear the meat is safe, but modern chicken farming has changed that. Click here to read how we bust the myth of clear chicken juices.

The truth is, meat can go from succulent to sucky in just a few minutes. The only way to be sure about doneness is to use a digital thermometer. Overcook meat and you’ve wasted your money. Undercook it, and you could give someone a tummy ache or much worse. That is why you ALWAYS cook with a thermometer, not a clock. This is the 21st century. The digital age. Stop using 19th century technology. Ditch your dial telephone and your dial thermometer.

And while you are at it, get a digital oven thermometer. The cheap dial thermometer that came on your grill or smoker is probably off by 25 to 50°F like the one above. I have seen them off by 100°F!

Click this link for a buying guide to thermometers with more than 150 test results from our on-staff electrical engineer.

As the internal temp of meat climbs, more water gets squeezed out, and the meat becomes drier. In general, most meats are juiciest when cooked to medium rare, 130 to 135°F internal temperature.

But that’s not hot enough for safety in some meats. Ground meats and poultry are health risks at those temps. Ground meats need to be cooked to 160°F, and poultry needs to go to 165°F to kill pathogenic bacteria. But there’s more to the story than that. You can actually serve these meats at lower temps if you know the rules. Read my article on meat temperatures.

Meats with a lot of connective tissue such as beef and pork ribs, pork shoulder, and beef brisket, are too tough at these lower temps. They need to go up to 200 to 205°F in order to gelatinize collagens and melt fats. That’s well past well done, and yes, water is lost, but the gelatin and melted fats lube the meat and make it taste tender and juicy.

Be aware that if you let meat sit around after you remove it from the heat, the heat built up in the outer layers will push down to the center and overcook the meat, a process called carryover cooking. The good news is that resting meat is probably not necessary, despite what all the TV chefs say. For more about ideal serving temps, read my detailed Food Temperature Guide, which has a handy printout for your fridge.

A good digital thermometer is the most important tool you can own. As for monitoring and maintaining the desired grill/smoker temperature, the built-in thermometers are generally worthless. They are called bi-metal thermometers and most are slow and inaccurate. To become master of your instrument, you need a good digital oven thermometer to measure the air temp.

You also want a thermometer that can measure food temperature in 5 seconds or less. Here is the Thermoworks Dot for about $40, the best all-purpose thermometer going for the price. It can be clipped to the cooking grates to measure oven air temperature, inserted into meat to provide constant readings throughout a long cook, or inserted in meat for rapid spot readings. For other options, go to AmazingRibs.com and click on Ratings & Reviews and then thermometers. We have an electrical engineer equipped with special equipment to measure accuracy and speed. He has tested and reviewed hundreds.

They range from $20 to $200 and can have as many a six probes. Several have two monitors, one attached to a probe on a cable like the Dot And the other that it talks to with wireless tech so you can carry a monitor in your pocket while you cut the lawn or watch the game. There are even thermostats that can control the temperature of your charcoal grill.

19

SOUS VIDE QUE

The ultimate solution to preventing dry meat is cooking with a technique called sous vide and then finishing it on the grill. We call this sous vide que and we discuss this marvelous method, with videos on this page on our website. For a Deep Dive on the subject, we have written an ebook called “Sous Vide Que Made Easy: How To Deliciously Marry The Grill And Smoker With Sous Vide” .

When cooking sous vide you first salt the meat then put it in a plastic bag, squeeze the air out of the bag, and submerge it in water that is heated with an “immersion circulator.” It can hold the temperature precisely and consistently at, let’s say, 131°F for red meats and 154°F for poultry. You wait for the center of the meat to reach the target temp, and hold it there long enough to make it tender and pasteurized, about two hours. It is impossible to overcook this way.

The problem with sous vide is that, although the meat comes out tender and juicy, red meat surface is ugly grey and poultry the skin is flabby and bland. That's where the "Que" comes in. You finish it by adding the rub and placing the meat over a hot grill for a few minutes to create the Maillard reaction crust and flavors of browning. Another option after the sous vide step is to put the meat in a smoker at 225-325°F for 30 minutes. The results are extremely tender and tasty.

20

ADDITIONAL TOOLS

In addition to the smoker/grill and fuel, there are a few other tools that you will want to have on hand before you start cooking, including:

TONGS

These 12-inch tongs from OXO make it simple to move chicken parts around your grill. They also lock closed for easy storage.

A SILICONE SAUCE BRUSH

When it comes to saucing, bristle brushes are really hard to clean and can harbor pathogenic bacteria. Throw them out and get a good silicone sauce brush. They are easy to clean, they’re dishwasher safe, and they load up with a lot of sauce.

A GOOD CUTTING BOARD

We are partial to plastic cutting boards because they can be cleaned in the dishwasher and if they get gouged you can sand them smooth. This double sided one from OXO has grips so it doesn’t slide around on the counter and gutters along the edges to capture juices. It is under $20.

A FILLET KNIFE

These cheapo filleting knives from Rapala are beloved by fishermen. They have thin flexible blades with a dangerously sharp edge and a wicked sharp tip and soft handle. The 9-inch model costs less than $30. It's great for separating ribs, slicing tomatoes, removing silverskin/membrane on meat, boning, slicing the ribs and seeds out of hot peppers, and, of course, filleting. It is not strong enough for cutting through bone, but there is nothing better for cutting meat off the bone. When it is dirty, it goes in the dishwasher. When it's dull, we sharpen it. When we can't get it as sharp as new, we get a new one.

A RIB HOLDER

If you are hosting Fourth of July and have a crowd coming and limited grill space, a wire rib holder like this one for less than $20 can handle five slabs. Just beware, because the slabs are close together airflow and smoke-flow are hampered, so cooking time can be significantly longer.

18-INCH WIDE HEAVY DUTY ALUMINUM FOIL

Essential if you opt for the Texas crutch. We prefer it to butcher paper because it is easier to get a good seal.

A LOUNGE CHAIR

Once you settle into a La Fuma lounge chair or one of its imitators, you will not want to get up.

A SIX-PACK OF BEER

For the cook, not the meat.

A GOOD BOOK

A darn good read, Thin Blue Smoke: A Novel About Music, Food, And Love by Doug Worgul is well worth your attention. And not just because it has barbecue at its core. Thin Blue Smoke comes to life with some fascinating characters whose stories intersect with those of the main character, LaVerne Williams, a former major league baseball player who has an attitude, a rap sheet, and a Kansas City barbecue joint called “Smoke Meat.” The writer, Doug Worgul, has a day job as marketing director for one of the nation’s best barbecue joints, Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que in KC, so this storyteller knows the turf. In Worgul's hands, the travails of a small-time black restaurateur in the barbecue capital of the world ring true. Of course, Worgul's tale also weaves in music, whiskey, religion, profanity, love, lies, and laughter.

TUNES

Start with the great Louis Armstrong’s “Struttin With Some Barbecue” (it’s not really about barbecue, click here to read the backstory). To get you in the groove, we have a playlist of our favorite food tunes.

PART V

THE MEATHEAD METHOD

Whenever you set foot in the kitchen or sidle up to the grill or smoker, you commence a chemistry and physics experiment. Food is a complex chemical compound and when you apply energy in the form of heat you are using physics to alter its chemistry. As scientific as these processes are, they are also magical!

We could just feed you a bunch of recipes and techniques, but if you understand the chemistry and physics, well, you really don’t need any recipes!

21

MEAT SCIENCE

Meat is cut from the muscles of mammals and birds. For some reason, fish muscle is not considered meat by some people, but it should be. It is fish muscle tissue.

On average, lean muscle tissue of mammals typically breaks down like this: Water (about 75%), protein (18%), fats (5%), carbohydrates, salt, vitamins, sugars, and minerals (2%).

MUSCLE CELLS

Muscle cells are more frequently called muscle fibers because they are shaped like tubes. Muscle fibers bundled together are called sheaths, and sheaths bundled together are called muscle or meat.

The fibers, about the thickness of a human hair, contain several types of protein, among them myosin and actin which bind up water and act like living motors by contracting and relaxing on command by nerves. As an animal ages, grows, and exercises, its muscle fibers get thicker and tougher.

Myoglobin is another important protein in muscle fibers. Myoglobin receives oxygen and iron from hemoglobin in blood, fuel necessary for muscles to function. Myosin and actin are not water soluble, but myoglobin is water soluble, and myoglobin is the protein in meat that makes it appear red.

That’s right, the reddish color in meat and its juices is not caused by blood. It is myoglobin dissolved in water, called myowater. Myoglobin is found only in muscle, not in the blood stream. The blood is pretty much all drained out in the slaughter house. If the stuff on your plate when you sliced a steak was blood, it would be much darker, like human blood, and it would coagulate, like human blood. If the fluids were blood, then pork and chicken would be dark red. It’s mostly just water, so let’s stop grossing out our kids, and just call it juice. OK? Every time you call meat juices blood, a bell rings and a teenager becomes a vegan.

On average, beef has 8 milligrams of myoglobin per gram of meat, according to the meat scientists at Texas A&M University’s Department of Animal Science, making it one of the darkest red meats. Lamb has about 6 milligrams per gram, pork about 2 mg/g, and chicken breast about 0.5 mg/g. If pork is the other white meat, lamb is the other red meat. When warmed, meat juices containing myoglobin lose their red color, become lighter pink, and eventually tan or gray.

Most of the liquid in meat is water. When animals are alive, the pH of the muscle fibers is about 6.8 on a scale of 14. The lower the number, the higher the acidity. The higher the number, the more alkalinity and less acidic. At 6.8, living muscle is just about neutral. When the animal dies, the pH declines to about 5.5, making it acidic. At this pH, muscle fibers form bunches and squeeze out juice, called purge, and that is the juice you see in packages of meat that is absorbed by the diapers that butchers put under the meat.

Muscle fibers also contain other proteins, notably, enzymes. Enzymes play an important role in aging meat.

CONNECTIVE TISSUE

Connective tissue is most obvious in the form of tendons that connect muscles to bones and in ligaments that connect bones to other bones. It is also visible as the thin shiny sheathing that wraps around muscles called silverskin or fascia. These tougher, chewier, rubberband-like connective tissues are mostly collagen and elastin (as opposed to the muscle, which is mostly myosin.) We call them gristle and they shrink when heated and become hard to chew. As with muscle fibers, connective tissues thicken and toughen as an animal exercises and ages.

A softer connective tissue called collagen is scattered throughout the muscle, often surrounding fibers and sheaths holding them together. And yes, this is pretty much the same stuff the Hollywood wives have injected into their faces to get rid of wrinkles.

When you cook, collagen melts and turns to a rich liquid called gelatin, similar to the stuff Jell-O is made from. Cooked muscle fibers, no longer bound together by collagen, are now uniformly coated with a soft, gelatinous lubricant. This smooth and sensual substance enrobes meat in a wonderfully silken texture and adds moisture.

Lean meats such as beef or pork tenderloin, as well as most chicken and turkey, don’t have much collagen. When cooking tough cuts of meat with lots of connective tissue, like ribs, brisket, and shoulder, it is important to liquefy the meat’s connective tissue into gelatin: that’s what makes these tough meats taste tender. This takes time. That’s why these cuts are often cooked low and slow.

Muscle fibers start seizing up around 125°F to 140°F if heated quickly. But when heated slowly, the rubber band-like connective tissues have time to relax and do not squeeze tightly. In general, we believe it is best to cook all meats at about 225°F. Slow roasting does wonders for meat. The AmazingRibs.com science advisor Prof. Greg Blonder says “Think of silly putty. Pressed hard and quickly, it acts like a rigid solid. Pressed slowly, it flows.” When heated slowly, the muscle fibers, instead of wringing out moisture, relax and simply let water linger inside until evaporation drives it out.

After it melts, as it chills, gelatin can solidify into that jiggly stuff which, with a little filtering, can then be called aspic and served at bridge clubs. Here’s a pot of the stuff made simply by boiling a couple of chicken carcasses in water after I ate the meat, discarded the bones, and chilled the liquid. The white is fat, most of which I have removed, and the tan is jiggly gelatin.

FATS

Fats (lipids) and oxygen are the main fuels that power muscles. Fats are packed with calories, which are potential energy released when the chemical bonds are broken. From a culinary standpoint, fat comes in three types:

Subcutaneous fats are the thick hard layers beneath the skin.

Intermuscular fats are layers between muscle groups.

Intramuscular fats woven amongst the muscle fibers and sheaths improve meat’s moisture, texture, and flavor when cooked. These threads of intramuscular fat are called marbling because they have a striated look similar to marble.

Large fat deposits can also be found around organs, especially kidneys. On hogs, the best fat of this type, at least from a culinary standpoint, especially if you make pie crusts, is called leaf lard, and it comes from around the kidneys.

Fats are crucial to meat texture. Waxy when cold, fats start to melt around 130°F to 140°F, lubricating muscle fibers just as they are getting tougher and drier from the heat. Fat does not evaporate like water when you are cooking.

Fat also provides much of the flavor in meat. It absorbs and stores many of the aromatic compounds in the animal’s food. As the animal ages, those flavor compounds build up and get more noticeable. After the animal is slaughtered, the fat can turn rancid if stored too warm, too long, or in contact with oxygen. So we have a tradeoff. The muscle fibers and connective tissues get tougher as the animal ages and exercises, while the fat accumulates and builds flavor.

Fats, especially animal fats, are the subject of great debate among scientists, doctors, dietitians, and health faddists. For many years, animal fats were thought to be dangerous and avoided. It is now thought that fats, even animal fats, contain many beneficial components, and current science argues that, in moderation, they are essential for health. A great deal of interesting research on the subject is going on as we write this. A great deal of research is contradictory. Read more about what we have learned about food and health in this article.

SLOW TWITCH VS. FAST TWITCH MUSCLES

Muscle fibers need fat and oxygen for fuel. Fat comes from fatty acids in the animal’s blood that were created by digestion of its food. Oxygen is carried by the protein hemoglobin in the bloodstream, and it hands the oxygen to myoglobin within the muscles.

In general, the more exercise a muscle gets, the tougher it is, and the more oxygen-laden myoglobin it needs. Myoglobin turns meat darker and makes it more flavorful. Dark meats, like beef, lamb, duck, and goose, are made of “slow twitch” muscles that have evolved to endure slow, steady movement, and they are loaded with juicy myoglobin. Dark meats also have more fat for energy.

White meats, like chicken breasts, are mostly “fast twitch” muscles, which are better suited to brief bursts of energy, and they have less myoglobin. Chicken legs are slow twitch, and even though they are not red, they are darker than breasts. When cooked, the slow twitch muscles in dark meat have more moisture and fat and are more flavorful than white meat. White meats contains less moisture and fat, and they dry out more easily when cooked. Poultry gets more exercise standing and walking than flying, so the legs and thighs have lots of slow-twitch muscles, more pigment, more juice, more fat, and more flavor. They are also slightly more forgiving when cooked. Modern chickens and turkeys have been bred for large breasts because white meat is more popular in this country (and we can’t understand why). We’ll take tough and flavorful over tender and mild any day.

Ducks and geese excel at flying and swimming, and they get more exercise than chickens and turkeys, so these birds have more dark meat. Duck and goose breasts are deep purple, almost the same color as lamb or beef.

When the conventional wisdom was that dietary fat could cause heart and arterial problems, domestic pigs were bred to have less intramuscular fat. The modern pig does not get much exercise due to its transmogrification into “the other white meat.” In recent years, research has questioned the relationship between dietary fat and health, and many experts now extol fat’s benefits.

Beef is all pretty much the same color, but slow twitch muscles like flank steak have bigger, richer flavor than some of the lesser used muscles like tenderloin.

Fish live in a practically weightless environment, so their muscles are very different. Fish muscles have very little connective tissue, and that’s one reason why fish never gets as tough as pork when cooked. But fish can dry out because there is not much collagen to moisturize the muscle fibers. The color and texture of fish varies depending on the life it leads. Small fish that swim with quick darting motions have mostly fast-twitch muscles and white meat, while flounder, which lives on the sea floor, has delicate flaky flesh. Torpedos like tuna and swordfish swim long distances with slow steady tail movements, so they have have firmer, darker, sometimes even red flesh. For these reasons and others, fish can spoil within days of being caught, while red meats keep much longer.

BROWN IS BEAUTIFUL, BLACK IS BAD

As meat cooks, the most magical transformation that occurs is the Maillard reaction. It is named for a French scientist who discovered the phenomenon in the early 1900s. The surface turns brown and crunchy and gets ambrosial in aroma. Who doesn’t love the crispy exterior of a slice of roast beef, the browned crust on freshly baked bread? We don’t think twice about it, but that brown color on the surface is the mark of hundreds of compounds created when heat starts changing the shape and chemical structure of the amino acids, carbohydrates, and sugars on the surface of the meat. If there is sugar in the rub or marinade it can undergo a flavorful transformation called caramelization. Click here to learn more about the Maillard reaction and caramelization.

What you don’t want is black meat. Let it go too far and it turns to carbon. Carbonized meat may be unhealthy.

PRETTY IN PINK

There’s another color you may notice in cooked meat: Pink. Many smoked meats turn bright pink just under the surface. Some people think that pink color means that meat is raw, but not in this case. If the meat were undercooked, the pink would be in the center, not just below the surface. Pink meat near the surface is a common phenomenon called the smoke ring and it is caused by gases in smoke preserving the color of myoglobin. Some people think the smoke ring improves taste. That’s a myth too. Click here to read more about the smoke ring and what causes it.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COOK?

Hot air cooks the surface of meat, but it cannot penetrate, so the energy built up on the outside of the meat moves slowly towards the center, eventually cooking the meat throughout. As the internal temp of your meat rises, its color is not the only thing that changes. A number of chemical and physical reactions take place, as the molecular structure of proteins and fats are altered by heat. Different reactions kick in at different temperatures.

Here’s a general guide to temperatures organized from cold to hot. The meat temps shown here are approximate because other variables come into play such as the age of the animal, acidity, salt content, type of heat, humidity, etc. This info has been gathered from multiple sources, including meat science research papers, textbooks, and Harold McGee’s important book, On Food And Cooking. Click here for a complete guide to target cooking temperatures.

25°F (-4°C). Meat freezes. Meat starts to freeze at a lower temperature than water because water in meat is combined with proteins. Water expands as it freezes and sharp-edged crystals form that can rupture cell walls, creating “purge” when the meat is thawed, which is a spilling of liquid, mostly the pink fluid protein called myoglobin. Faster freezing makes smaller crystals, resulting in less purge.

34-39°F (1-4°C). Ideal refrigerator temperature. Water is not frozen, and microbial growth is minimized. You do have a good refrigerator thermometer don’t you?

41-135°F (5-57°C). The “USDA Danger Zone,” in which many pathogenic bacteria grow, sometimes doubling in number in as little as 20 minutes. According to the USDA, cold foods must be stored below 41°F (5°C), and hot foods above 135°F (57°C). That’s why we don’t leave meats sitting around to come to room temp.

60°F (15°C). When chilling cooked meat, liquid gelatin forms a solid gel called aspic. Gelatin happens when connective tissues that wrap muscle fibers and connect them to bones, called collagen, melt. Yep, it’s the same stuff they inject under your skin to hide wrinkles.

95-130°F (35-54°C). Animal fats start to soften and melt.

114°F (46°C). Myofibrillar proteins begin to gel, changing meat texture.

120°F (49°C). Myosin, a protein involved in muscle contraction within fibers, begins to lose its natural structure. It unwinds or unfolds, a process called denaturing. It starts to clump, gets milky, and begins firming up the muscle fibers. Purple meats, called “rare,” start turning red. Fish begins to flake, and parasites begin to die.

130°F (54°C). Many pathogenic bacteria begin to die, slowly at first, but as the temp rises, they croak more rapidly. At this temp, it takes more than two hours to pasteurize meat. At 165°F (74°C), it takes just seconds.

130-135°F (54-57°C). Medium rare. Most mammal meats are at optimum tenderness, flavor, juiciness. If you eat your meat well-done, you need to snap out of it.

130-140°F (54-60°C). Fats begin to liquefy, a process called rendering. This is a slow process and can take hours if meat is held at this temp.

140°F (60°C). Connective tissues called collagens begin to contract and squeeze out pink juice from within muscle fibers into the spaces between the fibers and out to the surface. Meat begins to get dry. Myoglobin, the pink protein liquid within muscle cells, denatures rapidly and red or pink juices begin to turn clear or tan and bead up on the surface. It is not blood!

150°F (66°C). Actin, another protein important to muscle contraction in live animals, begins to denature, making meat tougher and drier still.

150-165°F (66-74°C). This is “the stall zone,” in which large cuts such as pork butt and beef brisket seem to get stuck for hours when cooked at low temperatures like 225°F (107°C). In this range, moisture evaporates and cools the meat like sweat on an athlete. Inexperienced cooks panic. Eventually, temps start rising again. Whew!

155°F (68°C). Known as “well done,” meats are overcooked at this internal temperature. Much moisture has been squeezed out, and fibers have become tough. Bacteria are killed in less than 30 seconds, but spores can survive to much higher temps.

160-165°F (71-74°C). The “instant kill zone.” Normal cooking temps kill microbes on the outside of meats rapidly, so solid muscle meats are not likely dangerous since contamination is almost always on the surface. But ground meats and poultry often have bad guys beyond the surface, so you must cook these meats beyond the instant kill zone. That’s why the recommended internal temp for ground meats is 160°F (71°C) and for poultry is 165°F (74°C). When you reheat foods, you should take them up to 165°F 75°C).

160-205°F (71-96°C). Tough collagens melt and form luscious gelatin. The process can take hours, so low and slow cooking creates the most gelatin. Dehydrated muscle fibers begin to fall apart and release from the bones. Meat becomes easy to shred. Even though the fibers have lost a lot of water, melted collagen and fat make the meat succulent.

212°F (100°C). Water boils at sea level. Boiling point declines about 2°F for every 1000′ above sea level.

225°F (107°C). Ideal air temperature for “low & slow” cooking of meats high in connective tissue. It is high enough so water evaporates from the surface to help form the desired crust called “bark,” but low enough to get the most out of enzymes, collagen melting, and fat rendering.

310°F (154°C). The Maillard reaction accelerates surface browning, which is caused by chemical changes in proteins and sugars and results in thousands of delicious new molecules. The Maillard reaction begins at lower temps, but really takes off at 310°F (154°C).

325°F (163°C). Ideal air temperature for cooking chicken and turkey so skin browns and fat renders.

361°F (183°C). Some animal fats begins to smoke.

570-750°F (299-399°C). Primary combustion temperature of hardwood, wherein it smolders and releases large quantities of unburned gases, including microscopic particles called smoke.

600-700°F (316-371°C). Flash point or fire point, the temperature at which smoke from burning fat can burst into flame. Never use water to extinguish burning fat. Smothering it works better.

22

BEEF GRADES

“The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.”

JULIA CHILD

Chefs (and engineers) have a saying: "Garbage in, garbage out." That means if you buy less expensive, lower quality ingredients, no amount of seasoning or cooking is going to elevate them to the next level on the plate. It's like polishing a turd. There's only so much you can do. Steak greatness begins with the grade and cut of meat itself. If you want to cook a great steak, start with a great steak. Get the best quality meat you can afford.

Beef comes from both steers (boys) and heifers (girls), and the best comes from mature, but not old cattle. Most steaks on the market come from cattle 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years old. The more an animal's muscle is worked, the bigger and more complex the meat's flavor becomes. Young animals (calves) are used for veal which is pale in color, and the meat tends to taste very mild. The muscles of older, tougher cattle are dark and are best used for ground beef.

MARBLING

In 1926, the USDA began grading beef. Today, inspectors grade primarily on the age of the animal and the amount of fat mixed in with the muscle as measured between the 12th and 13th rib. This intramuscular fat is called marbling because it resembles the striations in marble: thin, weblike filigrees. The more marbling, the more flavor and juiciness. Marbling can contribute a lot to the quality of a steak because fat is where the flavor's at. Subcutaneous fat on the surface of the cut and thick fat veins between muscles called intermuscular fat do not influence flavor.

According to the AmazingRibs.com beef scientist, Dr. Antonio Mata, "Marbling is the most expensive fat the animal generates. Like humans, cattle first deposit fat in the gut. Secondly they deposit subcutaneous/surface fat. Then they deposit fat between muscles, intermuscular fat. And lastly they deposit intramuscular fat, a.k.a. marbling. Marbling is a highly inefficient, slow, expensive process." And we pay for it. Highly marbled meat also shrinks more when cooked as the fat drips off. And we pay for that too.

Harold McGee, eminent food scientist and author of our kitchen Bible, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, has written that much more than marbling influences quality. "Despite the prestige of Prime beef, the current consensus among meat scientists is that fat marbling accounts for no more than a third of the variation in the overall tenderness, juiciness, and flavor of cooked beef. The other important factors include breed, exercise and feed, animal age, conditions during slaughter, extent of post-slaughter aging, and storage conditions before sale."

Carrie Oliver of the Artisan Beef Institute believes there are other criteria, including use of drugs and other husbandry conditions, transportation, as well as cutting techniques. We might add freshness, seasoning, and cooking are also highly important quality factors. Marbling impacts juiciness and mouthfeel, and if you get a good sear it can have a major impact on flavor.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a long list of standards for cattle, including many terms that appear on butcher labels. It pays to know these terms when you shop.

Above are boneless ribeye steaks. You can see how Wagyu has more marbling than Prime, which has more marbling than Choice. You can also see that the Dry Aged steak is darker and smaller because it has dehydrated.

Dr. Mata says, "There is significant variation between muscles within the same grade. The Serratus ventralis (Denver cut) and Infraspinatus (flat iron) are significantly higher in fat than the Longissimus dorsi (ribeye and strip)."

All the steaks pictured above (except the Kobe) came from Allen Brothers, a first rate Chicago butcher that supplies many top steak houses, including Morton's, Lawry's, and Delmonico's. They also sell superlative beef to consumers online, as do Porter Road, Snake River Farms, and Crowd Cow.

For reference, here’s a quick rundown of all steak grades as defined by the USDA.

USDA Utility, Cutter, Canner Beef. These are the lowest grades of beef and used primarily by processors for soups, canned chili, sloppy Joe's, etc. You will not likely see them in a grocery.

USDA Standard or Commercial Beef. Practically devoid of marbling. If it does not have a grade on the label, it is probably standard or commercial. These grades are fine for stewed or ground meat, but they are a bad choice for steaks on the grill. About 2% fat.

USDA Select Beef. Slight marbling, as shown in the photo above of strip steaks. If you know what you are doing you can make this stuff tender. Otherwise, get a higher grade. About 2 to 4% fat.

USDA Choice Beef. Noticeable marbling, but not a lot. This is a good option for backyard cooks. About half of all beef is graded USDA Choice. There are actually three numbered sublevels of USDA Choice. Certified Angus Beef (CAB) is limited to only the top two levels. Reliable sources tell us that Walmart "Choice Premium" is USDA Choice. The word "premium" is all about marketing and not to be confused with USDA Prime. Choice beef has 4 to 10% fat. A 12 ounce ribeye typically sells for about $8 to 10 retail at the time of this writing in 2020, and prices fluctuate depending on supply and demand as well as weather, which impacts the cost of feed.

USDA Prime Beef. Significant "starry night" marbling. Often from younger, more tender cattle. Prime is definitely better tasting and more tender than Choice. Only about 3% of the beef sold is prime and it is usually reserved for the restaurant trade. About 10 to 13% fat, about $20 to 30 for a 12 ounce ribeye at retail. A dry aged steak can be 15 to 18% fat and $30 to $35 or more for a 12 ounce ribeye.

Black Angus. After arriving in the US in the 1800s, Black Angus became the country’s most common cattle breed. Black Angus has a reputation for being especially well-marbled and flavorful. Alas, it is almost impossible to know if what you are buying is really Angus. Other popular US beef cattle breeds include Red Angus, Charloais and Hereford.

Certified Angus Beef. The Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brand is a trademarked brand designed to market quality beef. To wear the CAB logo, the carcass is supposed to pass 10 quality control standards and CAB must be either USDA Prime or one of the two upper sublevels of USDA Choice. Most of it is USDA Choice. CAB costs a bit more because the American Angus Association charges a fee to "certify" the cattle and higher markups take place on down the line.

Interestingly, CAB does not actually certify that the beef labeled Certified Angus Beef is from the highly regarded Angus breed. Their major control is that the cattle must have a black hide, which is a genetic indicator that there are Angus genes in the cattle, but not a guarantee.

American Wagyu Beef. American Wagyu cattle have Japanese blood lines and are raised in the US and other countries. Their genetic heritage can be any number of Japanese cattle breeds. American Wagyu does not have to adhere to the same standards as Kobe beef (below), and many of the American Wagyu are crossbred to make them better adapted to the local climates and diseases. Wagyu and Angus (Wangus) crosses are frequent, and they make mighty fine meat. American Wagyu is usually extremely marbled, more than USDA Prime, but not as much as Japanese Wagyu, and the flavor and texture is distinctive. It is also about twice the price of USDA Prime. One can only wonder how long before the cross breeding and lack of enforceable standards dilute the quality.

If you want to try some amazing real American Wagyu, we have links to top suppliers on our artisan foods page. That's a cross section of a Snake River Farms Wagyu flat iron steak above. The meat is simply remarkable, shot through with thin wisps of buttery marbling. Go for the ribeye or striploin. Do not die without having tasted great American Wagyu. Steaks can run up to 30% fat and $60 to 70 for a 12 ounce ribeye.

That said, we do not recommend buying American Wagyu hamburger which is essentially pre-chewed meat, and which might have non-Wagyu fat in the blend. But if you're after the big bucks in a barbecue or steak competition, beware, the guy next to you is using American Wagyu.

BUSTING THE KOBE BEEF MYTH

Japan is famous for highly marbled fabulously expensive beef, most notably the mythical Kobe. "Kobe Beef” is a trademarked brand name administered by the Kobe Beef Marketing & Distribution Promotion Association. They oversee producers, slaughterhouses, distributors, retailers, and restaurants who use the name in Japan. There are numerous regulations controlling when the name can be used, not the least of which is that the steer must be born, raised, and slaughtered in Hyogo prefecture (a prefecture is like a state), and fed a specified diet. A 12 ounce ribeye costs well over $150 retail. That is not a typo.

There are four bloodlines of special rare fatted Japanese beef. As a group, they are all called Wagyu (it translates roughly to mean "Japanese cow"). They have a high ratio of fat to muscle and are revered for flavor, tenderness, and most of all, the richness that comes from the chemistry of the fat, which practically melts in your mouth like butter. They are not to be confused with American Wagyu, described above.

Kuroge Washu (Japanese Black) is one of the four bloodlines and it accounts for about 90% of specialty Japanese beef. It has several sub breeds, the most important of which is Tajima. Villages that grow Tajima according to rigid regimens name their beef after their origins, like European wines. Kobe is the most famous village, Omi is another, and Matsusaka is another.

In Japan, meat is graded A1 to A5 with A5 having the most internal fat. These five grades are broken down into 12 grades with a Beef Marbling Score (BMS). USDA Prime is 4 to 5 BMS (10 to 13% fat), while American Wagyu is usually 4 to 10 BMS, and Kobe and the other Kuroge Washu steers can go up to 12 BMS (more than 50% fat) because of their genetics, feed, and handling. Mostly genetics.

Kobe are fed mostly grain and sometimes mash left over from making sake and beer. Despite what you may have read, they are not fed beer. Nor are they massaged. A few may be massaged by loving owners paying for their children's college, but it is not a normal part of their cultivation. Today, there are about 4,000 cattle slaughtered each year for Kobe beef, a pittance. 90% of all Kobe is consumed in Japan.

Until late 2012, Japanese beef was not allowed into the US. Until then, everything labeled Kobe was falsely labeled. Fake. Fraudulent. Phony. Bogus. Disgraceful. It was probably American Wagyu at best. If you think you have tasted Kobe, chances are you have not. All Kobe is sold as boneless, so if you think that T-bone you had in Vegas was Kobe, it was not. And there are no Kobe burgers being sold in the US. If you know a restaurant that advertised Kobe beef prior to mid 2012, then they are likely selling mislabeled fish, too. Run. Even today, it is highly unlikely that a restaurant in the US or Canada advertising Kobe is selling the real deal. Last we checked in November 2017, only two dozen restaurants in the US carry the real thing. And because they are less known, anything labeled Kuroge Washu, Tajima, Matsusaka, or Omi is even scarcer. But you can occasionally order Kuroge Washu in the US from select importers. We buy ours from Crowd Cow.

Some analogies. Champagne is a region in France. A "Champagne" from California is similar, could even be better, but it is not real Champagne and it is usually not even made from the same grapes. Idaho potatoes come only from Idaho, not France or Japan. Could you imagine the lawsuits if they grew potatoes in Japan and called them Idaho potatoes? Parmigiano-Reggiano is the real parmesan and it comes only from the area around Parma and Reggio Emilio in Italy, never from a green toilet paper tube. Maine lobster looks and tastes different than Florida lobster. Florida lobsters have no claws. You’d be rather upset if you ordered Maine lobster and received one without claws. In these cases, there is more to it than just a name. Real Kobe is truly different than any other meat in the world.

Here is how to cook Kobe beef. The fat content and texture is close to pork belly or bacon. It is far too rich to just choke down a whole ribeye. We plan on about 4 ounces per person. We serve it as an appetizer before a vegetarian meal. Usually a big salad. You could even serve it on top of a big salad, but you don't want to bury it with a salad dressing. After tasting this, you will not want any more meat and besides, serving more meat would be pointless. Begin by thawing it. Get a black cast iron pan or griddle screaming hot. As hot as possible. Black will sear it better than stainless but some people recommend stainless. Beware, it can make the pan very hard to clean. You do not need to oil the pan, the fat will melt rapidly. We recommend that you do not cook the whole steak at once. Cut it into 1 inch strips. Toss the meat on the heat and cook it long enough to get a dark brown surface, perhaps 3 to 4 minutes per side. You might want to cut a strip and test the timing before you start production. It is too thin to use a thermometer on. After you flip it, sprinkle some salt on the top. Sit down to eat so you don't collapse in a dead faint.

WHERE TO GET GREAT BEEF

You can buy prime beef, aged beef, or Wagyu beef, but only higher-end markets and specialty butchers have it. If you can't find it in stores, order it online. We have recommendations of suppliers on our artisan foods page.

23

OTHER BEEF TERMS

Grass Fed Beef. Until the 1950s, most US beef was grass fed right up to slaughter by being allowed to graze on open ranges. As the US population grew and demand for cheap beef grew, especially with the advent of fast food hamburger chains, corn feeding became the norm. Now there is a trend back to grass feeding because many believe it is better for the animals, for people who eat them, and the environment. When used on meat labels, the term “grass-fed” means that the animal ate only grasses and forage such as hay for its entire life after weaning. The grass-fed label is regulated by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Some people think 100% grass-fed beef tastes better than grain fed, but more think corn fed tastes best. There is a difference in taste. Grass fed beef can have a mineral quality. It can be very distinctive and have more personality than corn fed and many people, especially old timers raised on grass fed love it. Alas, many people aren't charmed by its personality.

Grain or Corn Finished. Most cattle are raised on grasses including hay most of their life. But for a few weeks before slaughter they are fed corn or other grains. This “finishing” of cattle on grain or corn helps them reach a marketable weight and gives the meat more marbling, a higher USDA grade, and a higher price. Most US beef is corn or grain finished, so unless you see “grass-fed” on the label, your beef has been corn fed for at least part of its life.

Organic Beef. USDA rules passed in 2002 state that certified organic beef must be produced according to strict rules that must be verified with an elaborate paper trail on every animal including its breed, feed, and medical history. To be certified organic it must eat only organic grasses and grains, have unrestricted outdoor access, must never be given antibiotics or hormones, and must be treated humanely. Some physicians and scientists think giving cattle antibiotics could be encouraging the appearance of antibiotic resistant microorganisms in humans. Organic beef is more expensive.

Natural Beef. Natural beef must not be given antibiotics or hormones, but they can be grown, fed and handled in the same way as other common cattle.

Kosher Beef and Halal Beef. These cattle are grown and slaughtered according to Jewish law (kosher) or Muslim law (Halal). Their requirements are similar. Both require that the animal be slaughtered by slitting the animal's neck veins and drained of practically all blood. Some experts believe this method is painful and inhumane, and in response some forms of stunning are currently accepted.

ABOUT THAT ROSY COLOR

If that ribeye at the grocery store is looking rosy and delicious, that's because it's really fresh, right? Well, maybe not.

It seems that Cargill and others have perfected a process for sealing meat in an airtight pack with a carbon monoxide atmosphere, and that keeps the meat from oxidizing and turning brown. For a long time. Even if it is stored improperly.

Seems that even fresh meat can brown easily, and still taste just fine, but shoppers will buy the pink meat first even if it is not fresh. So grocers, who are cutting back on their butchering staff and hate wasting unsold meat, have turned to "modified atmosphere" pre-packaged beef, lamb, and tuna.

Consumer groups are fighting to have the stuff labeled, but the industry is resisting.

So the color of steaks in a package is not a good measure of freshness anymore. Check the sell by date! Of course health inspectors can all tell you tales about butchers changing meat labels to extend the sell by date.

The solution? Get to know your butcher and stay on your toes.

BEWARE OF BLADE TENDERIZED BEEF

Some meat suppliers try to tenderize beef by using a device called a blade tenderizer. It is a series of thin sharp blades or needles that stab the meat and cut through tough fibers and connective tissues. Above is a picture of a home version called a jaccard. Commercial versions are motorized and much larger. They work, but they are also high risk.

Beef pathogens, like dangerous strains of E. coli, are common on the surface of meat, but they are killed almost instantly when cooked. But if the meat has been blade tenderized, these bacteria can be pushed down into the center of the meat which often is not cooked enough to kill them.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2003 and 2009, blade tenderized beef caused 174 illnesses that we know of, and one person died. It is estimated that for every case reported, there may be 20 or more cases unreported.

You cannot tell by looking at meat if it has been mechanically tenderized, although sometimes you will see it mentioned on the package. Most steaks sold at Costco under their Kirkland brand are "blade tenderized" and, thankfully, they say so on the label (check the picture). The USDA is trying to pass regulations requiring all meat that is blade or needle tenderized to be labeled as such, but it's being held up by the bureaucracy.

Check the label. If it doesn't say "blade tenderized" but does say to cook the meat to 160ºF, it's been needled. Of course, we do NOT recommend cooking any steaks to 160ºF, which is well past well done. You might as well serve leather shoes instead.

Incidentally, meat labeled organic is allowed to be blade tenderized.

24

AGING BEEF

“I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.”

GOLDA MEIR

Should you buy aged beef? In all likelihood, you already do. After cattle are slaughtered, a slew of chemical changes known collectively as rigor mortis makes the meat tough within the first 12 hours. This “green” beef must be chilled rapidly but not frozen, and it takes a couple of days for the muscles to relax enough to be sold. This usually happens in shipment. After that, the meat can be further aged, or ripened, to increase tenderness. Enzymes and oxygen begin to work on the meat during rigor and throughout the aging process, enhancing the flavor in most cases. Enzymes are "nanocooks" in the words of food scientist Harold McGee, and they do what a professional cook does when cooking beef: they break down the proteins, amino acids, and other compounds, creating new compounds, including glutamates, the source of the savoriness known as umami, which is the main flavor we look for when eating steak. As the beef ages, more interesting flavors emerge, and that is what all the fuss is about. But you can't age beef by just throwing it in the fridge and waiting for it to get tender. Oxygen and bacteria can mess it up.

But too much age can spoil the meat, especially if bacteria, yeasts, or molds attack it. There is a big difference between aged meat and old meat. In addition, aging does not enhance all cuts, and it is not necessary for ground beef. Pork and most poultry do not age well at all because their fats get rancid more rapidly than those in beef. Here are some quick definitions of beef terms when it comes to aging.

Fresh beef. This seemingly desirable term means the meat has not been aged at all. Unlike fresh fruit, fresh is actually not a sign of the highest quality for beef. But not to worry. By the time the meat is butchered, packed, and shipped to the warehouse and then your grocer, it is no longer fresh.

WET AGING

At the slaughterhouse, meat is usually packed in plastic "cryovac" bags that have had most of the oxygen removed. If kept this way at 34 to 38°F for about 28 days, enzymes tenderize the meat, but the flavor is not changes as much as it is in dry aging. Meat rarely stays in the bag for more than 28 days. During that time, enzymes tenderize the muscle, but they have minimal impact on the taste of the meat. If you buy cryovacked meat, check the packing date and if you wish, you can store it in the fridge for up to 28 days from the bagging date. Don't push it beyond that, though, and don't try to bag meat yourself. If there are bacteria on the meat or in the air; if there is oxygen in the bag; or if there is a leak in the bag (and there most definitely can be any or all of these), things can go south in a hurry. But just leaving the cryovacked meat in the fridge until day 28 gives enzymes more time to do their work. Brisket cooks swear that wet aging up to 28 days makes a difference in the tenderness of this tough cut. If you try it, one word of caution: when you open a cryovac bag, the meat often smells odd, some say like parmesan cheese. It is called the cryovac stink, and it usually dissipates within an hour.

DRY AGING

Dry aging beef is an expensive process for tenderizing beef and concentrating its flavor. Dry aged beef is noticeably different tasting than fresh beef because the chemistry of the fat changes drastically. Some describe it as nutty, some as gamey. Some ancient Egyptian royals were so fond of dry aged beef they were buried with it (click here to read about some dry aged beef ribs buried with the couple that loved it sooooo much).

If you haven't tried it, you need to first taste dry-aged beef and decide if you like it. Start saving now: it ain't cheap. You can occasionally buy aged beef from specialty butchers, or you can do it our favorite way: get three friends and head to a restaurant that specializes in dry aged beef and do an expensive comparison tasting.

Aging works especially well on beef and bison, less well on other meats. It is not a good idea for pork, since pork fat goes rancid rapidly. It is rare to find dry aged beef in grocery stores because most of them buy their meat in vacuum packed plastic bags. Some specialty butchers and high end restaurants offer dry aged beef. Only a few fancy steakhouses and upscale butchers have aging rooms.

We have had aged beef often but a while ago we had the opportunity to do an aged steak tasting at the now closed David Burke's Primehouse with the chef at the time, Chef Rick Gresh (above). Alas, it has since closed. They bought all their Black Angus from the same farm, and the farmer raised and fed the cattle the same way. Several team members from AmazingRibs.com attended, and together we tasted ribeyes aged 28, 45, 55, and 75 days. 

All of the aged steaks were wonderful, but all very different. After 45 days, the flavor had changed so much that it no longer tasted like beef as we know it. It was as if the meat came from a different animal. Many of the changes in taste occur in the fat rather than the muscle. As for the texture, beyond 45 days, we were unable to notice much difference in tenderness. Our favorite was the 28 day steak because it had not yet gotten funky, but the flavors were concentrated and the meat was oh so tender. Others preferred the older meats, proving once again that taste is a matter of taste.

Will you like the taste of dry aged beef? The question is similar to: Which do you prefer, Mayo or Miracle Whip? Smooth or chunky? It's a personal preference. But there's one way to find out. Find a steakhouse that ages beef and taste it.

Dry aging is often referred to as controlled rotting because enzymes, molds, bacteria, and oxygen go to work on the meat. The exterior of the muscle gets dark purple and a small amount of moisture evaporates, shrinking the meat about 5% (as Kenji Lopez-Alt explains, it is not the dramatic 20% shrinkage you may have heard about).

As water evaporates, flavors concentrate, so the meat tastes more meaty. While water evaporates, fat does not, so the ratio of muscle to marbling changes. The meat becomes fattier overall. The higher the fat ratio, the richer and juicier the meat feels in the mouth, proving once again that the juiciness sensation is caused by much more than the water content of the meat. Fat plays a significant role in juiciness.

Just before cooking dry aged beef, the outside crust is trimmed off, and the meat is sliced into steaks, so another 10 to 15% of the weight is lost. Can you see now why aged steaks are so expensive? The selling price is typically an additional $1 per aging day on top of the normal price. And that's why it pays to age beef yourself at home. You pay only for the steak, not the aging (despite some loss in the total weight).

DO IT YOURSELF

Yes, you can dry age beef at home. It is tricky, but if you master the method you can save a lot of money. First, select high quality meat, at least USDA choice or USDA prime, preferably tightly wrapped in a vacuum pack cryovac bag. Fresh meat is best, but if you have frozen, Chef Gresh says it is important that you defrost the meat slowly in the fridge, not under running water, to help preserve its integrity. Next, get the right cuts. You want to start with a prime rib roast that weighs 20 pounds. Or a strip loin. Or a sirloin. No tenderloin. It is already very tender, it is low fat, and it can get mushy with age. These are expensive meats, so don't screw around or take shortcuts with the aging process. That's a lotta meat. But what you don't use right away after aging, you can freeze. 

DON'T BOTHER AGING SINGLE STEAKS

Alton Brown of Good Eats on the Food Network likes the idea of aging single steaks and instructs us to "Wrap the steak in a single layer of paper towels and put on a cooling rack set inside a half sheet pan. Refrigerate 24 hours. Discard the paper towels, rewrap and return to the refrigerator, on the rack, for 3 days. Change the paper towels again if they become damp and stick to the steak. An hour before cooking, remove the steak from the refrigerator and remove the paper towels. Thirty minutes before cooking, sprinkle the steak on both sides with the kosher salt." We have tried it and, although we usually agree with AB, it was a heckuva lotta work for very little improvement. We're not sure there was any improvement.

HOW TO AGE BEEF AT HOME THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

There are five variables that you must control: Quality of meat, temperature, airflow, days of aging, and to a lesser extent, humidity. Some people use their kitchen fridge for aging beef. We don't recommend it. The door opens and closes, moist and warm air and microbes enter, and there are lingering smells in there that the meat will happily absorb. If there is any mold on the shelf from the time you spilled the milk or chicken juices or mold in the onion drawer, you likely will fail (remember: that meat is expensive!). It is best if you have a second fridge used just for aging meat. If you want to store some beer in there, OK, but make sure the bottles are clean. Make sure the fridge is clean. Turn it off, wipe it down with soapy water, rinse, and rinse once more with a bleach solution made with one tablespoon of 5% unscented liquid chlorine bleach per gallon of clean water. Then air it out to get rid of the chlorine smell. Some folks buy a small dorm refrigerator or a keg fridge and dedicate it to this purpose.

The fridge should be kept at 34 to 38°F. Any lower than 32°F and the enzymes will go on strike. Above 40°F spoilage microbes can grow. Even if you aren't aging meat, your fridge should be set to 38°F max. It significantly reduces spoilage, even in comparison with 40°F. And, of course, you need a reliable thermometer. A dial thermometer is not reliable. Normally we recommend digital thermometers, but a liquid bulb thermometer is accurate enough for refrigerator temps. 

Many experts believe humidity is critical with the ideal being 80 to 85%. Recent research says don't sweat it. According to a 2008 technical paper on Aging Beef by Professor Jeff W. Savell, PhD, of Texas A&M, "There are no published studies that have compared the effects of different relative humidity levels on dry-aged beef, and it appears the studies in this area have used a relative humidity of approximately 80% with a considerable range around that number."

Wash the outside of your sealed cryovac bag with soap and water before opening it. Then open it, drain off the liquid, and wearing gloves so you don't contaminate the meat, rinse off the slime and then pat the meat very dry. Leave the fat and bones in place: they will reduce evaporation during the aging process. After aging, you will want to remove them. But for now, weigh the meat so you can calculate the weight loss. 

Take a large pan wider and longer than the meat, and fill it with about 1/2 inch of salt. It doesn't matter what kind of salt. But salt is corrosive, so you do not want to use an aluminum pan. Stainless steel, glass, or porcelain pans are OK. The salt will absorb drips, moisture, and odors.

Put the meat on a wire rack, preferably stainless steel or coated with nickel or plastic, and place the racked meat on top of the salt pan so it sits above the salt. Don't use a roasting rack, which holds the meat below the walls of the pan. You want ample airflow all around the meat. If you don't have a suitable rack, you can put the meat on the (cleaned!) top rack of the fridge and put the salt pan on the rack below.

Ample airflow helps to move moisture away from the meat's surface. Professor Greg Blonder, the AmazingRibs.com science advisor, uses a fan from a dead computer and runs the cord between the door gasket and the door jamb. Meathead uses this 5 inch battery powered fan with an AC adapter. He threads the cord through the fridge door gasket on the hinge side and it does a fine job of keeping the air flowing and moving moisture off the meat. To help stabilize the fridge temp, put a few gallon jugs of water in fridge to chill. The cold jugs of water will help the fridge recover its temp after it has been opened and closed.

Some recipes call for wrapping the meat in cheesecloth, kitchen towels, or paper towels, and replacing them every day. The idea is that the wrapping pulls moisture to the surface and helps wick it away. Don't bother with these shrouds. You want the meat fully exposed to dry air, not in contact with wet cloth.

The next step is the beauty of this technique: do nothing. Just let the meat age. And let it go for at least three weeks. Taste tests show minimal flavor changes in meat aged less than two weeks, but most people can taste subtle changes after three weeks. At about 28 days, flavor changes become more obvious. You can go longer, and you might want to push the envelope to see what age is your fave.

When you are ready to eat, there are two ways to go.

1) You can trim about 1/4 inch of the black crust and the bones off the entire slab. You'll need a sharp stiff bladed knife for this because the meat has dehydrated and will feel hard. An electric knife works fine. Throw out the trim, and cut what’s left into steaks and roasts. Wrap everything in plastic. You can refrigerate the pieces you plan to eat within a day or three, and freeze the rest.

2) You can cut off only the amount you want to eat, trim that amount, and leave the rest of the slab to continue aging.

Now tuck in for a treat!

DRYBAG AGING

In recent years, a clever new product has come on the market, the UMAi Dry system. This company makes transparent bags in which you place meat and, with a vacuum sealer, draw out the air and seal the bag. The UMAi material is not a conventional plastic, as you can see here in a photo by Jaden Hair of SteamyKitchen.com. Moisture will not drip out, but it will evaporate out. Research by a team from Kansas State University and Sweden published in the journal Meat Science has shown that the bag's permeability does not create an anaerobic environment, so dangerous botulism bacteria cannot grow, and other microbes are too large to enter the bag. For this reason, the manufacturer claims, "If you want to dry age cleanly and safely in any refrigerator or cooler, excellent air flow and the application of UMAi material is the combination most likely to give you excellent results." As you can see, the process differs a bit from the old fashioned system where air and bacteria can contact the meat. Alas, not every vacuum sealer will work with the bags. The company sells its own sealers, and they are expensive. So is the bag material. We have not yet tested this product, but it's worth exploring if you plan to age beef regularly at home.

THE STEAKLOCKER

It's easiest to buy a small dorm-style fridge dedicated to the task of aging meat. Or you can invest $1,449 in the Steak Locker. It is temperature and humidity controlled with a carbon filter, a UV light to kill bacteria, and a glass door so you can watch your meat age. It even talks to your smartphone with readings of temp, humidity, and elapsed time. We have not tested it yet.

THE STEAKAGER

Another aging environment, the SteakAger, has been in development a long time through crowdfunding. We strongly recommend you wait until we have had a chance to test it. The basic model is a roughly 1 foot square plastic box that fits inside your fridge. On top, it displays temperature, humidity, and a day counter. There is a clear plastic front, a fan, and a UV light to kill bacteria. It is small with a capacity of only 22 pounds, but that could be the right size for fans of dry aging beef at home. They also sell a larger and more expensive refrigerated version that has a 40 pound capacity.

Want a quicker, easier way to improve the flavor of your steak? Try dry brining, discussed in detail below.

BUTTER AGING

There’s also an in-between type of aging that some chefs have experimented with recently. It’s not quite wet-aging and not quite dry-aging. You let trimmed beef sit in the fridge for a couple days, then submerge it in a bath of softened butter, and let the butter-enrobed beef age in the fridge (34-38°F) for at least 30 days. Although the process appears to be closer to dry aging beef, the results are more similar to wet-aged. Why? Because there is little to no moisture evaporation due to the butter casing, so you don’t get the concentration of flavor you get with dry aging. You do, however, get the tenderizing effects of enzymes working within the meat.

25

BRISKET ANATOMY

Briskets are the pectoral muscles from the chest of the steer between the forelegs. Each animal has two, and because cattle have no collarbones, these boneless muscles bear quite a load. There isn’t much fat marbling within the muscle, and there’s a lot of springy connective tissue in and around the muscle fibers. That’s why briskets are so tough.

Much of the world’s brisket is made into corned beef, pastrami, or pot roast, but it is also a fine cut for barbecue, and it is required in 500 or so cooking contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) across the nation.

TWO MUSCLES

There are two distinct muscles in a brisket that comes from the meat packer whole: a long, flat, rectangular, lean muscle that sometimes comes to a point that is called the flat (pectoralis profundus), and a narrower, thicker, fattier, oval shaped muscle called the point (pectoralis superficialis). Got it? The flat is pointy and the point is oval. Go figure.

When you buy a whole packer brisket, it usually weighs 8 to 16 pounds and comes vacuum packed in an airtight plastic bag. The meat has a cap of fat on one side that can be up to 1″ thick, and it is trimmed pretty close to fat free on the other side. There is a thick layer of fat that separates the point from the flat. Photos featured here show a whole 12-pound packer brisket as it arrived from the packer.

Below, our cutting board is 20″ x 14″.  The fat cap is 1/4″ to 1/2″ thick, and the flat is labeled A while the point rests on top of the right side of the flat in the oval marked B. As you can see, the packer trimmed it quickly and left some meat bare. Not the end of the world.

Your butcher probably offers three cuts of brisket, a whole packer brisket, a flat (sometimes called “first cut”), and a point (sometimes called “second cut” or the “deckle”). Larger briskets usually come from older steers and tend to be tougher. Most packages will show the “Packing Date.” After a steer is slaughtered, it is broken down and packed, usually within 24 hours, although if it was slaughtered late on Friday, it might not be packed til Monday.

The best briskets are wet aged 28 to 45 days in the vacuum bag. Enzymes within muscles tenderize meat as it ages, so competitors often wet age their meat in the vacuum bag in the fridge in their basement.

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

Beef is graded based on the age of the animal and the amount of fat marbling. Younger animals have smaller and more tender briskets. The more marbling the better because fat is softer, more tender, flavorful, and juicy. USDA Choice, USDA Prime, and Wagyu are the best grades, from lowest to highest.

You will be disappointed with anything less than USDA Choice. USDA Prime will be excellent and expensive. If you are competing, many of the top teams are using Wagyu.

Wagyu is well marbled and will be most juicy, so if you can find it, and afford it, go for it. Most of the top competition teams are now using Prime or Wagyu. But grade alone will not guarantee that the meat will be tender. Brisket is just an ornery piece of meat, and if you want it tender, you’ve got to work. Tasty is easy. Tender is not.

BEWARE

Corned beef is brisket that has been corned, which means it has been treated with a preservative, salt, and flavorings. It is not suitable for this Texas brisket! To make Texas brisket, you need raw beef. However, if you love corned beef, click here for a recipe showing you how to make your own corned beef, or click here to make corned beef hash, here for corned beef and cabbage, here for an amazing recipe for smoking corned beef to make pastrami, or here to see how to make Rockin' Reuben pastrami sandwiches.

26

BUY LEFT-HANDED BRISKETS?

Tom Hoefer from Allen, Texas, shared this tall tale about a barbecue contest on the net in 2001. It is reprinted here, slightly edited, with his permission. Fact or fiction? Serious or joke? You decide.

A few years back at the Texas State Finals, several of us arrived on Thursday to get in line for the best sites. Thursday night was devoted to serious drinking.

One of the better cooks, Ole Connie Baker of the team “Li’l Pit Of Heaven” was throwing back quite a few of those Mexican beers with a chunk of lime stuck in the neck. Connie had so many of them limeade beers that he was starting to smile with a pucker.

Someone asked him how come his brisket was so tender and always placed in the top three. I thought to myself, boy oh boy, if loose lips sink ships then Ole Connie is going down tonight. All got quiet as he stuffed another lime in a longneck and he said that he “only cooks left-handed briskets”.

He explained that most, but not all, steers rest on their left side, which means when they get up they have to push harder with their right legs. At this point about half the bunch mumbled something to the effect of “bull hockey” and went back to different conversations.

A few of us noticed that Ole Connie wasn’t smirking. Two or three of us moved closer and I said to him, “You can’t stop there. What does pushing up with their right legs have to do with the left brisket?”

Ole Connie stuffed another lime and told us that when they push up with the right legs, it flexes the right brisket muscle more than the left. Therefore the right-handed brisket will be tougher and less marbled than the left. Not always but usually. I asked him, “How the heck do you tell a left-handed brisket from the right?”

He stuffed another lime and told me that, with the fat side down, on a left-handed brisket, with the narrow part closest to you, the point will curve to the right.

Saturday awards time rolled around and Connie took First Brisket and Grand Champion over 180 of the best cooks in Texas. I think that I came in 19th with my right-handed brisket.

This is a concept that I just could not get this off my mind. Then I phoned the kin folk in LaGrange, Texas, and asked if they would check out their herd. Yep, you guessed it. Only three out of 37 consistently rested on their right side. Dangnation, Ole Connie has got it going big time!

I went to five different grocery stores and flexed briskets to see which sides were more limber and more marbled. There are some right-handed briskets that are more limber and marbled than the lefties, but for the most part, the majority of the best are left handed!

Welp, there it is folks. Take it or leave it. As Joe Friday on the 1950s TV show, Dragnet, used to say, “Only the facts, ma’am.”

27

SEPARATE THE POINT?

There are two muscles in a packer brisket and they one on top of the other with the grain running crosswise. Put out your left hand. Lay your right hand on top. That’s what they are like.

With the fat cap facing up, the lower muscle is the flat and the upper muscle is the point. They are separated by a layer of fat and you can actually peel them apart with your bare hands, although a knife make the work go faster.

When you separate them they are about the same weight. If you peel off all but 1/8 to 1/4” of the fat cap, and you should, the flat weights a bit more. The flat is fairly smooth on both sides and relatively lean and tough. The point is jagged on both sides and more heavily marbled. The flat makes picture perfect identical slices. The point makes better tasting meat.

A competition turn-in box with slices of flat and cubes of burnt ends from the point

And that’s just what a lot of pitmasters do. They separate the two muscles and use the flat for slicing, perfect for sandwiches, and cut the point into cubes and make “burnt ends” from them.

Burnt ends is a misnomer in this case. True burnt ends were made from the thin edges of the packer that overcooked. They were cubed and soaked with sauce in order to bring back some moisture and they were a delicacy, the subject of rhapsodies by no less than Calvin Trillin, a native of Kansas City, brilliant author, essayist, and humorist. Three of his books, American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings, were published in a compendium called The Tummy Trilogy in 1994. He called Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue in KC the best restaurant in the world. “The main course at Bryant’s, as far as I'm concerned, is something that is given away free – the burned edges of the brisket. The counterman just pushes them over to the side and anyone who wants them helps himself. I dream of those burned edges.”

Nowadays, if the pitman handles his fire well, the edges won’t burn. They likely will overcook, and then they cleaver comes out and they are chopped, doused with sauce, and sold as chopped brisket. Never order chopped brisket.

Competition cooks struggled with making the point pretty when someone had the great idea to cut it into cubes and douse the, and now this is the new breed of “burnt ends.” Neither burnt, nor ends, but, oh my gawd good.

There is another advantage to separating the two muscles. Whe left intact the whole thing is kinda pear shaped and cooks unevently. When sliced there is a vein of fat between the two. Separating them allows you to cook each muscle to its optimum. I do this often.

28

TRIM

“Are you gonna eat your fat?”

SPAULDING, IN THE CLASSIC 1980 MOVIE, CADDYSHACK

No aspect of food is more misunderstood than fat. All mammals have it, and many vegetables do too. It is essential to human life. Cut it out of your diet and you die. Eat too much and you die.

There are many different kinds of fat: Saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, trans fat, vegetable oils, fish oils, nut oils, olive oils, omega 3, 6, 9, hike. Here, we focus on solid animal fat, and what it does from a culinary standpoint, and try to settle the argument once and for all: Fat cap, on or off?

As far as the health aspects, suffice it to say: We have digested plenty of authoritative research and learned that there is a huge amount of conflicting data, so much so that one might conclude that the only ones who really know the answers with any certainty are the food fascists who want you to eat like a horse: Only hay. The scientific community is still seeking facts. We are not qualified to form a conclusion other than to say that fat makes many foods taste better and it holds lots of calories.

Fat serves many functions. Most importantly, it stores energy for the animal. It also insulates it and helps keep it warm. And because fat is a decent solvent, it dissolves and stores many of the flavor compounds in the foods the animal eats. That's why steaks from corn-fed cattle taste different than those from grass fed. If a sheep has grazed on wild rosemary, you'll taste it, and Spanish Iberico hogs fed acorns taste very different from any others. As animals age, more of these flavors build up in the fat. That's why mutton has a stronger taste than lamb.

MELTING SURFACE FAT DOES NOT PENETRATE MUSCLE

It is important to differentiate between different types of fat:

1) Subcutaneous fat, the thick hard fat layer right under the skin of many animals, also called the fat cap. Most of the fat on steaks and chops are wrapped around the edge, called edge fat, and it can cause nasty flareups. It often covers silverskin, tough connective tissue that shrinks under heat and causes steaks and chops to cup. It should be removed.

2) Intermuscular fat, the fat that lays in thick layers on top of muscles as well as between muscle groups.

3) Intramuscular fat, the thin whisps of fat that thread their way between fibers within the muscle. Also called marbling, it is the fat that gives meat its rich texture and much of its flavor.

4) Intercostal fat that is found between ribs.

THE PENETRATION MYTH

So let's say that you have a hungry crowd of rowdies to feed and this big ole honkin' pork shoulder, beef brisket, leg of lamb, or prime rib. Or a giant, 3 inch thick, 3 pound cowboy ribeye steak. The meat has a thick layer of fat on top (of the roasts) or around the edge (of the steak). The question is, leave it on or trim it off? Most books, TV cooks, and websites say that you should leave it on because it will melt and percolate into the meat making it juicier.

Nonsense.

The fat cap on a roast is usually white, fairly hard, and can be as much as two inches thick. Meat scientist, Dr. Tony Mata explains, "Fat will not migrate into the muscle as it is cooked. First of all, the molecules are too large to squeeze in. Second, fat is mostly oil. Meat is muscle and it is mostly water. Oil and water don't mix. Protein in muscle is also immiscible in fat because of its chemical configuration. Third, in most cases there is an anatomical barrier between muscle and fat cap, namely, a layer of connective tissue holding muscle groups together. It too is water based."

The AmazingRibs.com science advisor Prof. Greg Blonder adds a fourth reason: "Raw meat is like a protein sponge. Before it is cooked it is fully saturated with water. There's no room for the fat to go in. As the meat cooks, water-based juices are being expelled from the interior. No way fat can swim upstream."

Although this is not the best example of our photography skills, you can see the point made here. Meathead dug a hole in a piece of beef and filled it with olive oil. As you can see, even after 3 hours plus, none of the oil penetrated the meat. BTW, there is an interesting additional phenomenon on display here: The meat got pinker after the myoglobin combined with oxygen. Consider this myth busted.

THE BASTING MYTH

People who defend the fat cap claim that it bastes the meat. So let's think about that for a second. What does melting fat do on the surface of protein? At high temps lipid's molecular structure can be altered and create great flavors. That's why we recommend painting a steak with beef fat during the sear phase. But at low or even medium temps, when the meat roasts, the fat just melts and drips off. It does not enhance the flavor of the meat like a paintbrush full of a flavorful basting liquid. Water based bastes cool the meat and slow the cooking which can improve tenderness. They can also to a small degree replace water that evaporates. But oil? Not so much. There are two possible benefit: (1) Dripping fat that hits hot coals or metal below can vaporize and impart flavor on the meat. It can also cause nasty flareups. How much flavor or flareup depends on how long you cook. (2) If fat covers or coats muscle, it can inhibit water loss. But it will also inhibit browning. Here is an article about the pros and cons of basting.

FAT CAP ON OR OFF?

So if the fat does not penetrate the muscle, should you leave it on or off? Here is a summary of the pros and cons:

When you cook meat with the fat cap on it softens, some of it browns, some melts and lightly coats exposed muscle groups, and some of it drips off into the fire where it is vaporized and can settle on the meat adding flavor. Some of the fat will drip off and can be collected for use in making gravy or stored for use in frying later.

If you leave the fat cap on, it can slow salt penetration and salt is very effective at helping the muscle retain moisture. Salt also burrows down into the muscle and amplifies its flavor. If you leave the fat cap on a brisket, you should consider injecting brine.

Spices do not penetrate muscle more than a fraction of an inch, but they do flavor the surface and help form the crust. If you coated your steak or roast with a wonderful spice rub, it will remain on top of the fat and not get onto the meat. Much of that flavor and expense will drip off.

If you leave on a thick layer of fat, most people are going to trim it off at the dinner table. If you have used a spice rub, all your expensive spices will be removed along with the wonderful browning flavors created by the Maillard reaction and caramelization.

Here you can see where the fat has blocked the penetration of smoke evidenced by the missing smoke ring

Most of the flavor from smoke comes from microscopic particles and gases, and, although the gases can penetrate, they rarely penetrate more than 1/4 inch so if there is 1/4 inch of fat it will absorb much of the smoke flavor and block the formation of a smoke ring. Click the link above to learn more about smoke, and click here to learn more about the smoke ring.

But fat does help prevent water from evaporating. Evaporative cooling is what causes the stall, a frustrating phenomenon where the meat, when cooked at a low temp like 225°F, stops rising in temperature for hours because moisture evaporates and cools the surface. Hypothetically, if the entire piece of meat was covered in a thick layer of fat, no water would evaporate, there would be no stall, and there would be more water in the final product. But water is just a part of the feeling of moisture in meat. Much of it comes from intramuscular fat and melting collagen from connective tissue. And the drying of the surface is part of the formation of the tasty crust called bark.

Finally, fat is full of flavor, often tastier than the meat itself, and the best tasting meats are those with small fat deposits strewn throughout the muscles, marbling.

WHEN TO LEAVE A FAT CAP ON

There are some good arguments for leaving on a fat cap.

If your cooker has the meat sitting directly above the heat, putting the fat cap down creates a heat shield protecting the meat surface from drying heat.

On the other hand, if you like a crunchy crust, a thin layer of fat coated with salt, spices, and herbs, can combine to create something that barbecue lovers lust for on pork butt for pulled pork, a jerky-like dried surface packed with flavor called bark.

On the other hand, dripping fat vaporizes and transmits flavor to food above.

On the other hand, dripping fat can flare up and if too much fat hits the flame it can produce nasty black soot.

On the other hand, the fat layer will trap evaporating moisture and produce juicier meat, but not a hard bark. Also, after a long cook, such as the 12 hours or more a whole brisket needs, the meat dries a bit from evaporation, drip loss, and breakdown of collagen holding the muscle fibers together, leaving perhaps 5 to 10% airspace within the cut. It is a good practice to rest briskets for an hour or so in an insulated box, a faux cambro, so that liquid can fill the gaps. Dr. Blonder says he likes to rest the meat in a vacuum bag to maximize this.

THE MIDDLE FAT LAYER

If you are not going to separate the point and flat, dig out as much of the thick hard fat layer between the two muscles like this.

BOTTOM LINE ON FAT

Conclusion? For big roasts with a thick fat cap, remove all but a thin layer, 1/8 inch or less. Much of that fat will melt away, but if you leave a little people can eat mostly muscle and still get a taste of flavorful fat, as well as the spices and herbs you lovingly blended and rubbed all over. For steaks (except picanha), remove the edge fat and silverskin to help avoid flareups and curl ups, and to increase browning and flavor.

29

SALT: THE MAGIC ROCK!

“One thing I like about Argentina, they only cook with salt. That's it.”

ROBERT DUVALL

If you like your meat juicy, tender, and flavorful, (and who doesn’t?) salting, also called brining, before you cook can improve it on all three fronts.

Salt does several things to the food. First of all, it amps up the taste because salt is a flavor enhancer. It does this without altering the flavor. Sugar, pepper, garlic, all the other spices and herbs change the flavor. But not salt. Salt turns the amp up to 11. And if you do it properly, it doesn't make the food taste salty.

First, it is important to know that all salt is not the same. The below quantities by volume have the same salinity because the grain sizes are different.

1 part Table Salt

1 part Morton's Picking Salt

1.3 parts Morton's Coarse Kosher Salt

1.3 parts Windsor Kosher Salt

2.1 parts Maldon Sea Salt

2.3 parts Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

For more on the subject of how salt impacts food, read Meathead's article on The Science of Salt. It contains an interactive salt calculator and much more info about the different kinds of salt.

Something else happens because of salt. When meat cooks, a significant amount of water evaporates from the surface and some gets squeezed out from muscle fibers that contract when exposed to heat. This water is called drip loss or purge. Lean cuts like chicken breasts can dry out easily. How do you cook these cuts to safe temperatures without turning them into shoe leather? Surprisingly, salt can help because it helps protein glom onto water.

Salt (NaCl) is made of sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) ions that carry electrical charges. These ions attack the proteins, causing them to unwind a bit, a process called denaturing. These altered proteins have a greater ability to retain water, so meats that have been pre-salted remain moister throughout the cooking process.

Researchers at Cooks Illustrated discovered that a chicken soaked in plain water and another soaked in a brine, a mix of salt and water, each gained about 6% by weight. They cooked both birds, as well as an unsoaked bird straight from the packaging. Weighed after cooking, the unsoaked chicken lost 18% of its original weight, while the chicken soaked it water lost 12% of its original weight, and the brined chicken lost 7% of its weight. Thus, brining counteracts one of the biggest problems of grilling by helping hold moisture that is near the surface, which almost always dries out by the time the center is properly cooked.

So salting before cooking, brining, has real benefits. And you need less than if you salt after cooking. And the amount of salt is small, not likely a risk to people on salt restricted diets.

There are four ways to brine: Wet brine, dry brine, brinerade, and injection. Here they all are defined.

30

WET BRINE

This is the traditional method of salting meat, submerging it in a solution of 5 to 10% salinity (the ocean is about 3.5% salinity). To wet-brine, you need to calculate the amount of water and the amount of salt, and after that you have a potentially large container that must be fit into the fridge. It is not very practical for brisket.

Cookbooks tell us that salt is pulled out of the brine and into the meat by osmosis. Not true. The process is actually called diffusion. Take a look at this illustration.

When salt is added to a solution, like a piece of chicken which is about 75% water, the salt diffuses or spreads out and seeks equilibrium. Osmosis is when the water moves into salty places through semi-permeable membranes in an attempt to achieve equilibrium.

The problem with wet brining poultry is that it can make the skin soggy and harder to crisp. That's why wet brining works best on boneless, skinless breasts—food that cooks so quickly that the absorbed moisture doesn’t have time to drip out. Chicken thighs, on the other hand, are moist enough from fat that they really don’t need wet brines.

If you decide to wet brine, the brine should contain 5 to 10% salt by weight. Here's a simple formula. Add one cup of hot water to a two-cup measuring cup. Then pour in salt, any salt, until the water line reaches 1 ½ cups. That will be about 1/2 pound of salt by weight. Stir to dissolve then dump the solution into 1 gallon of cold water. This recipe results in a 6.4% brine regardless of the grain size of the salt.

How do we know? Because a unit of salt by weight delivers the same salinity regardless of the grain size. A unit of salt by volume delivers different salinity because large grains have more air between them. In this recipe, the water infiltrates the voids between the grains of salt, compensating for the lower density.

Making brines is also easy with metric weight measurements, which are simple to scale up or down. Since 1 liter water = 1000 grams:

6% brine = 1 liter water with 60 grams any salt

5% brine = 1 liter water with 50 grams any salt

4% brine = 1 liter water with 40 grams any salt

What's the right ratio of meat to brine? In general, soak 1 part meat in 2.5 parts brine. So for a 3 pound chicken (about 1.4 kg) use 3.5 kg of wet brine.

31

DRY BRINE

Dry brining is simpler and equally effective, plus it takes up less fridge space. It is much better for brisket than wet brining. Just skip the water. The late, great chef Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe. in San Francisco brought the technique of dry-brining into the mainstream, and since discovering her process, which Meathead named dry brining, we almost never wet brine anymore.

To dry brine, you simply salt the meat before cooking. How much salt? Salt tolerance is so personal that it’s nearly impossible to give an exact amount.

A good rule of thumb is ½ teaspoon of Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of trimmed meat.

Please note that the saltiness of different types of salt varies significantly due to the size and shape of the grains. Our standard is Morton kosher salt, but if you want to use table salt instead, use half as much. Click here to learn more about salt.

If dry-brining a whole bird or a roast, concentrate more salt on the thicker parts, like the breasts. Bonus: Dry-brining helps poultry skin crisp.

How long do you need to brine? Salt is a slow poke and creeps slowly through the thicket of muscle fibers. How long should the meat be in the brine? Here are some rules of thumb, not precise. Use them for wet or dry brining, and always brine in the refrigerator.

½ inch thick meat: about ½ hour

1 inch thick meat: about 1 hour

2 inch thick meat: about 4 hours

3 inch thick meat: about 12 hours

You want to salt your foods early. If you only have 30 minutes, fine. If you have 2 hours, that's even better. Got 24 hours? That's better still. The good news is that salt continues to migrate throughout the meat during cooking and does so slightly faster due to the heat.

Leave the meat uncovered on a rack in a pan. This is especially important for poultry because we want the skin to dry out a bit. Just be careful that vegetables and other raw foods do not come in contact with raw meat. And don't rinse it off before cooking. After a few hours most of it has gone in and is well past the surface anyhow.

Whether it's for 30 minutes or 24 hours, pre-salting gives you a better tasting, juicier meat because salt penetrates and helps meat hold onto its juices. Just sprinkle a generous amount of salt all over, about 1/2 teaspoon Morton kosher salt per pound of meat. What about marinating? Forget it. Marinating steaks is a useless technique because marinades don't penetrate the meat much and you end up throwing away most of the flavor when you throw away the marinade. 

With dry brining we simply sprinkle plain old salt on the meat a few hours before cooking. No more than you would use at the table.

Sounds simple, but something complex and wonderful happens. You can see it working in the pictures here. In the first picture above the meat has been sprinkled with Morton Coarse Kosher Salt. The salt draws water out of the meat. The water dissolves the salt. See how the meat has become shiny with moisture and the fat has become splotchy?

Then, in the next picture, the meat re-absorbs the moisture (and much of the juices that have leaked out) bringing the salt in with it. Notice how the color of the fat has changed where the salt has soaked in. Here’s a slo-mo video of the process.

When it is time to cook there is no need to rinse off the salt. It should all be inside the meat.

Once inside the meat, it doesn't go far. As with wet brining, it stays near the surface, but that's where the moisture is needed because that's where we apply the most heat.

How does this work? The AmazingRibs.com Science Advisor, Prof. Greg Blonder, explains: "Salt is hygroscopic, which is a fancy way to say it absorbs moisture from the environment. Water is a 'V' shaped molecule. It has two positively charged hydrogen atoms on one tip of the V and one negatively charged oxygen on the other making H₂O. This asymmetry creates an electric field, kind of like a small magnet. The polar nature of water is why it's practically a universal solvent.

"When water in the air stumbles in very close to the NaCl crystal, the salt feels the attraction of the water's weak electric field, grabs it, and then breaks apart into a positively charged sodium ion and a negatively charged chloride ion. When we sprinkle salt on a steak, water molecules, some from the air, but most from the meat, are captured on the surface of the salt crystal, and eventually, accumulate into a pool of briny liquid. Then, as the salty slurry diffuses into the meat, there is less salt on the surface to attract moisture, and the juices return to whence they came. Contrary to popular myth, there is no osmosis or cells breaking."

32

INJECTING

“I think everybody should have a great Wonderbra. There's so many ways to enhance.”

CHRISTINA AGUILERA

You don’t need a Wonderbra to enhance beef pectorals. The truth is that rubs, mops, marinating, brining, and sauces can deliver a lot of flavor to the surface of meat, but if you really want to get salt or flavor deep into meat, the solution is injecting and that is why so many pitmasters inject briskets.

Having an injector also opens up other fun possibilities: stuffing jam into donuts, syrup into ice-cream, and melted butter into squash.

Many meat processors routinely inject meats like turkey, chicken, and pork at the factory. Injecting, or enhancing as food processors call it, is a sure fire way to get the flavor and juiciness down deep. And it is the only way to get fats, herbs, spices and other large molecules deep into meat. You don’t have to worry about oversalting, there’s no waiting — you can do it at the last minute, you have less waste, no huge containers are needed, there are no refrigerator space problems, and there are few safety issues.

The secret to injecting is to go easy. A good guideline is to shoot for 1 to 2% salt. It is like brining and the salt helps retain moisture as well as enhances flavor. I skip the big flavors like garlic, pepper, and herbs that mask the natural flavor of the meat. I have judged pulled pork and brisket at barbecue competitions where the meat was gushing juice, but it didn’t taste like meat. It tasted like apple juice and garlic. I want pork that tastes like pork, beef that tastes like beef, and turkey that tastes like turkey.

The best solutions are salt water, salted butter, or stock. And you don’t need much. Muscle is 75% water and it is saturated. There isn’t much room in there for more liquid. Your injection will go in between the muscle fibers and bundles, not within the fibers, so you won’t need much. Check out my recipes here.

Many competition cooks like to inject with a product called Fab B Light or Butcher BBQ Brisket Marinade, both moisturizers, tenderizers, and flavor enhancers. Fab B contains hydrolyzed soy protein, vegetable oil, sodium phosphates, monosodium glutamate, autolyzed yeast extract, xanthan gum, disodium inosinate, and guanylate. Butcher contains hydrolyzed vegetable protein (hydrolyzed soy and corn protein and salt, with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil [cottonseed, soybean] added), monosodium glutamate, sodium phosphate, and xanthan gum. Some traditionalists think this is way too Barry Bonds and are repulsed by the idea. The results speak for themselves. They are winning. A lot.

To inject, you need a gizmo, and something to put in it. Click here for our reviews of injection gizmos. 

33

RUBS

Meats are blank canvases to be painted with herbs, spices, and flavorful liquids. Rubs are simply spice blends that are sprinkled or rubbed onto meat before cooking. The rub should fuse onto the meat's surface and enhance the meat, but not overwhelm it.

It is helpful to think of salt as a treatment for the interior of a food, and herbs and spices, as a treatment for the exterior.

Many purists in Texas like it simple, just salt and pepper before the cook. They call it dalmatian rub. If you are not injecting salt, get the salt on a few hours before cooking to let it penetrate. It doesn’t matter when you add the pepper. If you've got a super-expensive piece of Wagyu, then yes, that is really all you need. Let the muscle and fat sing.

For more flavor and complexity, in the recipe section of this book there are a few rubs to get you started, then you can start riffing and invent your own. Scatter a rub on the meat liberally before you cook. The juices of the meat mix with the herbs and spices and they develop flavor during chemical reactions catalyzed by the heat of the fire. They form the flavorful crust called bark.

Once you find a rub you like, make a batch and put it in a large spice shaker with a lid. If it clumps or cakes, take a tip from diner waitresses: Take some uncooked rice, place it in the oven at the lowest temperature to dry it out, and add it to the jar to absorb excess moisture.

Or you can buy one like Meathead’s Amazing Smoked Red Meat Seasoning & Dry Brine. Beware: Some commercial rubs can be half salt. That’s some expensive salt! But salt and spices are best applied differently. Because salt penetrates the meat, you need to apply it based on the weight of the meat. Because spices sit on the surface you apply them based on the surface area. For example: A slab of beef ribs and a brisket flat might have the same amount of surface area but the brisket can weigh 2 to 3 times the ribs and be three times thicker. So you need more salt on the brisket but the same amount of spices. For this reason (and others) you should consider making your own rubs sans salt. We have rub recipes on AmazingRibs.com for pork, poultry, beef, lamb, seafood, and more. But if you don’t want to bother, we have bottled rubs with salt for sale on our site. And yes, there is salt in them. Consumers expect rubs to contain salt and there just isn’t room on the label to explain why it should be applied separately. Besides, if we left out the salt we would be priced out of the market.

Before sprinkling on the rub, many cooks like to coat the meat with a layer of mustard, ketchup, mayo, or water as a glue to hold onto the rub. These “slathers” have almost zero impact on flavor because they drip off and dry up during the cook. But they do work as a glue. I just wet my hands and pat the meat to moisten it.

Don’t be stingy with the rub. With a spice shaker with large holes, sprinkle on enough to coat the surface but not so much that you can’t see the meat below. About 1 teaspoon for every 4 x 4-inch square is a good rule of thumb to start.

34

DON'T TRY TO BRING IT TO ROOM TEMPERATURE

A lot of recipes, including steak recipes, say that you should take the meat out of the fridge an hour or two before cooking and "let it come up to room temp."

Here's the theory: Say you want a steak to be served medium rare, about 130°F. If your fridge is 38°F, then the meat must climb 92°F. But if it is room temp, 72°F, then it needs to climb only 58°F. It will cook faster and there will be less overcooked meat just below the surface.

Here's a picture of a page from a cookbook by Wolfgang Puck, a brilliant and famous TV chef with many restaurants. He says a big old roast should come to room temp in about an hour.

We tried it with a 3/4 inch steak and a really accurate thermocouple. It took just over an hour for the center to come to room temp. A 1 1/2 inch steak took just over two hours for the center to come to room temp. A 4 1/2 pound pork shoulder 3 1/2 inches thick took, are you ready for this, 10 hours! After two hours, the pork shoulder was only 49°F in the center, and after four hours it was only 56°F. Just a bit longer than Chef Puck thinks. Worse, after five hours it began to smell funny.

Why so long? Remember, meat is about 75% water, and most of it is trapped in cell fibers. This makes it a great insulator. So even though the center of a pork butt is only 1 3/4 inches from the surface, it takes 10 hours for the 72°F heat to penetrate. A mere 30 minutes in the oven at 225 to 325°F will warm the meat as much as an hour at a room temp of 72°F.

Now we know that, in theory, all contamination on whole muscle meats like steaks and roasts will be on the surface and not deep into the meat. We understand that within a minute on a hot grill all of the surface microbes will be dead. But we also know that the population can double in 20 minutes at room temp. So the idea of leaving a steak at room temp for more than 30 minutes or so gives us the creeps, especially if there are cracks and pits in which microbes can hide. Especially knowing that some processors use blade tenderizers, tiny knives that cut into the muscle to soften it, but in the process push surface contamination deep into the center. This is a practice that should be banned. Especially since we will be cooking the steak to only 130°F, a temp that can kill microbes, but it can take hours to kill them all. But more important, over extended periods of time, putrefaction and rancidity set in, the meat starts to smell bad, and the entire flavor profile can change.

And it should go without saying, never leave poultry, burgers, or ground meat at room temp for more than a few minutes. They are susceptible to contamination within the meat and sitting around can really mess up these meats.

Think of letting cold meat sit at room temp as cooking it in a 72°F oven and then moving it to a hotter oven. It will take much longer than if you just put it in the hotter oven to begin with. But the reverse sear theory comes into play. Gentle heating helps ensure that the meat's internal temperature is more even from top to bottom than if it is exposed to high heat right away. But the microbial danger zone is in play as well. At 72°F, microbes are very happy and reproduce with abandon.

Also, we now know thanks to the AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Prof. Greg Blonder, smoke sticks better to cold surfaces. So if you want a smokier tasting steak, take it straight from the fridge to the grill.

Here are three beer cans. The one on the right sat on a desk during Blonder's experiment. The one on the left was filled with ice water and placed in a smoker. The one in the middle was empty and placed in the smoker. You can see that the cold wet surface of the one on the left attracted more smoke and thus more flavor.

So in our homes, it's out of the fridge and onto the cooker.

35

LOW & SLOW

“Speed kills, but beauty lives forever. Speed thrills, but beauty knows your name.”

SMASHING PUMPKINS

Hot and fast will carbonize (burn) thick cuts like brisket and turn tough cuts like brisket into jawbreakers.

Remember, water is a good insulator so heat slogs slowly through the watery interior of meats, which can be up to 75% water. Large foods more than 1 inch thick, like thick steaks, beef brisket, prime rib, turkey breast, and baked potatoes need a lot of time to get warm in the center. Turning up the heat loads up the outer layers with heat before it can be transmitted to the center and as a result you get a rainbow of temperatures. On the outside edges, the meat may be more than 200°F, just below the surface 180°F, just below that 170°F, and so on.

Look at the table below and drawing above based on an experiment by the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Prof. Greg Blonder. He took two pork loin roasts about 4 inches wide and 3 inches tall and roasted one at 325°F and the other at 225°F. By the time the center of the meat hit the desired temp of 145°F, the outer layer of the one cooked at the higher temp was a parched 170°F while the one cooked at the lower temp was a still moist about 160°F. That means that the one cooked at the higher temp had a lot more overcooked dry meat in the outer layers of the meat. Now imagine what would happen to a thick prime rib?

But if you lower the temp and lower the lid, the heat has time to move to the center of something like a thick ribeye steak, less heat builds up on the exterior, and more of the meat is cooked to the target temp.

Low and slow is also essential for tough cuts like beef brisket, pork shoulder, and ribs. These cuts are too tough to eat at medium rare, 130 to 135°F, the optimum temp for most other cuts of beef and pork. These tough cuts have lots of tough connective tissue. But if they are cooked long enough to a mind boggling 203°F or so, magic happens. Fats melt and the tough stuff softens up like Marshall Dillon in Miss Kitty's arms (and with that reference, now you know how old I am).

There is another very good reason to cook low and slow. It is easier to hit the bullseye of a slow moving target. You stand a better chance of getting the food done to the proper temp without overshooting the mark. You widen the window on perfection. Thick steaks can go from succulent to sucky in a hurry at high heat.

Also, when you cook low and slow, you give salt time to migrate towards the center, seasoning the meat throughout. That's because if you salt or brine meat, even if it sits in a brine overnight, the salt takes its time moving towards the center and stays mostly at or near the surface. But when meat heats up, the salt moves faster as demonstrated in this original research for AmazingRibs.com by Dr. Blonder. You also give the food more time to bathe in smoke.

SO HOW DO YOU COOK LOW AND SLOW ON A GRILL?

You cook low and slow with warm convection air instead of cooking directly over radiant heat. To do this, you need a cooker like a smoker or you need to master the 2-zone setup on a grill.

A quick review of the 2-zone setup for a grill: You need a hot IR radiant "direct zone" where you can put the food directly above the heat, and a warm convection "indirect zone" off to the side where the warm air circulates around the food in a convection flow. The illustration above is for a gas grill. On a charcoal grill you push the coals to one side. Your exact setup will differ if you have a different type of grill.

You need to experiment with your grill so you can stabilize the indirect zone at about 225°F for brisket with the lid down. I recommend that temp for most indirect cooking. Yes, I know some competitors and restaurant cook at higher temps, but they often compensate by using wagyu and special injections. At 225°F you can slowly and gently raise the interior temp, maintaining their moisture, and maximizing tenderness.

36

SMOKING

Most smokers are designed so that they cook with indirect heat so low and slow is easy. The question is, how much smoke do you like? It’s like black pepper. Say when! It is easy to over smoke meat. You can smoke on a smoker or a grill, and there are a few tricks that ease the way.

Preheat and get the indirect convection side to 225°F. I recommend wood chunks or small logs since the burn slowly and give you a steady long smoke. Measure how much you use. Start with a pound and add it a little at a time. Throw wood on the flame or coals and when there’s a good cloud of smoke rolling, put the meat on the indirect convection side. Use a mild wood like oak or apple. When the smoke stops, resist the temptation to add more. Taste the finished meat first. If you think it is not smoky enough, next time add more wood when the first pieces die out. Don’t just add more at the start.

37

THE STALL

The Stall. The Zone. The Plateau. It has many names and has freaked out many a would-be pitmaster. You get a big hunk of meat, like a pork shoulder or a beef brisket (two of the best meats for low-and-slow smoke roasting) and put it on the smoker with dreams of succulence and glory dancing in your head. You insert a digital thermometer probe in the meat and another in the smoker next to the meat, stabilize the smoker at about 225°F, and go cut the lawn. Then you take a nap. The meat temperature rises steadily for a couple of hours but then, to your chagrin, it stops. It stalls for four or more hours, barely rising a notch. Sometimes it even drops a few degrees. You tap on the thermometer. You check the batteries. Meanwhile, the guests are arriving, and the meat is nowhere near the 203°F mark at which it is most tender and luscious. Your mate is tapping a foot sternly, and you’re pulling your hair out.

WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING?

Pitmasters long believed that the stall is caused by collagen in the meat converting to gelatin. Others speculated that the stall is caused by fat rendering. Still others think it is caused by protein denaturing. In 2010, the AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Professor Greg Blonder of Boston University, set out to determine the cause of the stall. First he did some calculations that proved there isn’t enough connective tissue to suck up all the energy necessary to prevent a large hunk of meat from increasing in temperature. He then cooked a large lump of pure fat. No stall. Next he cooked a sponge saturated with water. It climbed at about the same rate as the fat for the first hour to about 140°F, and then it put on the brakes. In fact, it even went down in temperature! When it dried out after more than 4 hours, it took off again.

He repeated his tests, tried some others, did more calculations, and the conclusion was inescapable: The barbecue stall is caused by evaporative cooling. The meat, which is about 75% water, is sweating, and as the moisture evaporates it cools the meat just like sweat cools you while you are cutting the lawn on a hot day.

In 2011, Nathan Myhrvold, author of the revolutionary cookbook Modernist Cuisine, published the results of an experiment. He put two halves of a brisket in a convection oven at about 190°F with one half wrapped in aluminum foil. The wrapped brisket did not stall. Myhrvold also concluded that the stall was caused by evaporative cooling.

Why does this happen at low cooking temps? At 190°F, as in Myhrvold's test, or at 225°F (the temperature I recommend for a lot of my smoking recipes), the evaporation rate can be so great that the meat cools off as fast as it heats. That causes the internal meat temp to get stuck—usually in the 150 to 170°F range—and it can remain pretty much unchanged for hours, driving the novice cook nuts. That's the stall.

The meat temp will stall until much of available moisture on the surface is gone and the surface is dry like jerky. That’s bark formation. Yes, bark, that delightful, crunchy crust loaded with spices, is a sort of jerky.

Generally, the higher the cooking temperature, the shorter the stall, and in some cases, as you approach a cooking temperature of 300°F, there may be no stall at all. Humidity is also a factor because higher humidity means less evaporative cooling. Some electric smokers are so tight and high in humidity that they may experience no stall whatsoever. However, the high humidity may also mean less bark. One workaround for this problem is to crank up the heat near the end to crisp the surface.

Airflow is another major factor. The greater the airflow, the shorter the stall. For example, pellet smokers, which include a fan, create an efficient convection environment that speeds evaporation and shortens the stall.

Why doesn’t the meat just stay in the stall until it completely dries out? Because much of the water in meat is bound to other molecules, especially collagen and protein. Even after meat breaks out of the stall, there is still plenty of moisture left behind. Let's say your pork butt or brisket loses 25% of its weight during cooking, and it easily can. Much of that is water evaporating and dripping off, and some is fat dripping off. Even so, there is still plenty of water left. That juicy taste also gets a boost from melted fat and gelatinized collagen in the meat not to mention saliva.

BENEFITS OF THE STALL

The stall can be aggravating, but it has four benefits for barbecue:

It helps create the bark, which can be very tasty.

It holds the meat at a moderate temperature long enough for fats and connective tissues to liquefy, significantly improving texture, juiciness, and flavor.

It gives naturally occurring enzymes time to tenderize the meat.

It heats the meat evenly so the center and exterior are similar in temperature.

HOW TO BEAT THE STALL

There are three ways to beat the stall.

One is to cook at a high temperature. Many BBQ competitors now roast pork shoulder and brisket in the 300°F range and up. Cook at too high a temp, though, and you get tough dry meat because the proteins shrink.

Another technique is use the Texas crutch, a method of wrapping the meat in butcher paper or aluminum foil and adding a splash of liquid like beer or apple juice. Competition cooks have employed this trick for years. Typically, they wrap the meat when it hits 170°F or so, or when they like the color. The conventional wisdom was that the added liquid creates a bit of steam that tenderizes the meat, and since steam conducts heat faster than air, it speeds cooking. The truth is that the paper or foil prevents evaporative cooling. If the wrapper is tight it prevents evaporation altogether. It’s like running a marathon in a rain coat: You’ll sweat, but it won’t cool you down. Over a period of hours, the temperature inside the wrapper slowly approaches a low simmer. Any moisture that comes out of the meat just pools in the wrapper along with the liquid the cook adds.

Practically all the top competitive barbecue teams use the Texas crutch for brisket, ribs, and pork shoulder (butt). It prevents the stall, speeds up cooking, and retains moisture. And it wins trophies. Based on winning results and Blonder’s data, you may want to wrap pork shoulders and beef briskets in heavy duty foil or butcher paper at about 150 to 170°F. By then, the meat has absorbed as much smoke as it can (cold meat attracts more smoke than warm meat). If you wrap the meat then, it powers right through the stall on a steady curve and takes much less time. It also retains more juice. And you’ll get it done in time for dinner. But wrap it tight! If there are leaks, it might still stall.

Keep in mind: Once you remove wrapped meat from the foil and place it back on the cooker, the meat temp will drop. Out of the wrapper, the moist surface will begin evaporating and cooling almost immediately. That's why it's best to take your meat up to its target temp, about 203°F, before you unwrap it. Otherwise, it could drop to as low as 175°F after unwrapping.

There is another advantage to the crutch. If you did not use too much salt, the liquid “purge” or “drip loss” from the crutch can be used in a sauce or as a jus.

Why did I say you "may" want to wrap the meat? For some cooks, there is a problem with the crutch. The meat does not develop a hard chewy bark on the exterior. A lot of us love those crunchy shards of flavor (yes, please!). If you want a hard bark, the solution is to pull the meat out of the foil when it hits 203°F or so, and hit it with direct heat on a hot grill to dry the exterior.

THERE IS ALSO A THIRD WAY

The old fashioned way. Skip the foil and the high cooking temps. Just grab a beer and wait it out. Either way, the results will be superb.

38

CARRYOVER COOKING

Carryover is simple physics. Here’s how it works: In a 225°F indirect zone, the surface of the meat will slowly warm. This warming is the process of exciting the molecules so they move faster. It takes time because the meat is a combination of water, fat, and protein, and they are good insulators.

As the surface warms it conducts its heat slowly inward to the cooler cells beneath, passing it along like a bucket brigade. Excited molecules get their neighbors excited by bouncing off them like billiard balls. Slowly the heat marches towards the center.

As the exterior passes the heat along, it loses heat, so the bucket brigade prevents the surface from zooming up to 225°F. Also, moisture on the surface evaporates, cooling the surface in the same way sweat cools you off on a hot day. Not to mention that, because meat is mostly water, it can’t get much above 212°F. If the meat is thin, the heat builds up rapidly. If it is thick, it takes much longer to get to the desired temp in the center. The trick is to get the center to the target/safe temp without overcooking the exterior.

Interestingly, the meat keeps cooking after you take it out of the heat. The hot outer parts continue to pass their heat inward and in 15 to 30 minutes after coming out of the oven, the center of the muscle can rise another 5 to 10°F. Some heat also escapes into the air, so we don't want to leave the meat sitting around too long or it gets cold.

In the illustration above, on the left we have a piece of meat cooking at 325°F. It is absorbing heat from all sides, the outer surfaces are hottest, and the heat is passed to the center by conduction. In the center picture, the meat has been removed from the oven. Heat continues to be passed towards the center, even though it is sitting at room temp, and some of the heat is escaping into the surrounding air. On the right, the meat has come close to an even temp throughout and now it is cooling as more heat escapes.

To be absolutely safe and still have moist and tender whole birds, you should serve turkey at a minimum of 160°F measured in the deepest part of the meat and test it in multiple locations with a good digital thermometer.

39

RESTING VS.HOLDING

"Every time someone calls it blood, a bell rings and somewhere a teenager somewhere becomes a vegan."

MEATHEAD

When it comes to steaks, interior doneness is a matter of personal preference. But most sensory scientists and chefs agree that medium-rare, 130-135°F is the sweet spot. Steakhouse chefs know that if they had to cook it to 145°F, medium-well, as the USDA recommends, they would go out of business in a hurry. They also know that they would go out of business even faster if a customer died from eating one of their steaks. The good news is that the risk of bacteria surviving on the interior of solid beef muscle at 130-135°F is extremely low.

Likewise, it is widely preached that we must let meat "rest" after it is cooked for fear that we might drown in all the escaping fluids when we cut it. Let's define some terms:

Resting meats cooked to 165°F or below, we are told, makes meat more juicy. Steaks and chops are said to need 15 minutes, thicker roasts and turkey breasts are said to need up to 30 minutes.

Holding some meats like brisket cooked up to 203°F or so is very different from resting meats cooked to less than 165°F. Let's start by focusing on resting meat cooked to 165°F or below. Is it necessary? Hint: Much of the answer lies in the photo of the plates above. To get the whole answer, we need to look at:

What causes juiciness

What happens to meat when it leaves the heat

How we eat in the real world

Some of the experiments people have done to test the theory

SOME FACTS ABOUT MEAT

Think of meat as a protein sponge. Raw muscle is about 70% liquid. This liquid is not blood, which is dark red, almost black, thick, and it clots. There is no measurable blood in a properly slaughtered and butchered animal. Most of the liquids in muscle are myowater, water laden with the protein called myoglobin.

Myowater is thin and usually pink, and it doesn't coagulate like blood. It is what you see on your plate when you cut into a piece of meat fresh from the heat. Remember, Zuzu, everytime someone calls it "blood", a bell rings and somewhere a teenager becomes a vegan.

What we call juiciness is not just a matter of how much water is in the meat we are eating. There are many factors.

SOME FACTS ABOUT JUICINESS

Food scientists tell us that when we taste meat, the most important measures of quality that we look for are

Tenderness,

Flavor, and then

Juiciness.

What we perceive as juiciness is complicated. In the 2011 journal Meat Science, Pearce, et al, surveyed the literature to present a summary of what is known of water in meat and they say "Total water content of the meat and cooking loss cannot explain juiciness of the cooked meat product."

Scientists have machines that can measure tenderness by the amount of pressure needed to pierce a piece of meat, but there is no machine that can measure juiciness. Although a typical steak is about 70% water, juiciness is a human perception, not a subjective measurement. The AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Prof. Greg Blonder explains "In a steak, going from 65 to 60% water might be unnoticeable, but 45 to 40% might take you from edible to a cardboard. Beef jerky is still 25% water by weight, but most people would say it was juiceless."

So what influences juiciness?

Free water in the raw meat.

Water bound with proteins.

Where the water is located within the architecture of the muscles.

Melted and softened fats, especially marbling.

Gelatinized collagen.

Saliva which is activated by seeing and hearing sizzle, as well as seasonings, especially salt.

So some juiciness has nothing to do with water. Some meats like pork ribs, pork butt, and beef brisket are often smoked low and slow up to about 203°F, waaaaaay past well done, well into the zone where water is supposed to disappear, and much of it does, especially on the surface as the "bark" is formed. But these cuts get their juiciness from rendered fat, melted connective tissue, and salty rubs that force you to salivate (see my article on meat science).

There are other factors that impact juiciness in steaks:

Drip loss in the package.

Cooking method.

Cooking temperature.

Meat temperature when removed.

Breed of the animal.

Age of the animal.

Aging of the meat.

How was it packaged?

Was it frozen and how it was frozen?

How was it stored?

What was it fed?

How was it slaughtered?

Was it mechanically or enzyme tenderized?

Was it cooked with the fat on or off?

Was the meat brined, salted, or injected?

What seasonings, spices, herbs, tenderizers, and especially salt (all of which encourage saliva flow) are used?

Wine!

When you cut into raw meat there is practically zero loss of liquid. Even if you grind meat for burgers there is no real liquid loss. That's because the liquids are bound by proteins and held by capillary action in the thin spaces in the muscle. Raw meat in the grocery display case might have 1 to 3% "drip loss" which is why they put that little absorbent pad under it. Much of this drip loss is due to the rupturing of cell walls while the carcass goes through rigor mortis, a shrinking and stiffening of the muscles after slaughter. Within a day, enzymes kick in and begin the tenderizing and aging process and the muscles relax. This is why freshly killed meat can be tough. It is usually best to let it rest a day or three.

If your steaks were frozen, water expands and ice crystals form. Remember the last time you stuck a beer in the freezer and forgot about it? These ice crystals puncture the cell walls and, depending on how the meat was frozen and thawed, another 3 to 5% of "purge" can emerge when your steak is defrosted.

During cooking, according to Prof. Blonder, "The first 'sweat' occurs with water that is very loosely contained between fibers oozing out through relatively wide channels in the meat. Some of it drips off and some evaporates. As the heat increases, more tightly bound water is freed. Then, around 135 to 145°F, the collagen in the connective tissues that sheath muscle fibers and hold together bundles of fibers begin to shrink and eventually soften into gelatin. This squeezes on the muscle fibers, wringing out additional liquid, some myowater, and some myoglobin from burst cells. So the amount of released juices rises as you pass through 140°F. This is why meat cooked to higher temps gets dry."

Depending on how hot and how long you cook a steak, there might be 10 to 25% water loss, mostly due to evaporation and dripping. Let's call it 15%. So a properly cooked steak is down to about 60% water, but most of it cannot escape when the meat is cut because it is bound by proteins and held by capillary action.

SOUS VIDE SUCKS OUT A LOT OF WATER BUT THE MEAT IS STILL JUICY

If you have ever played with sous vide, a very gentle method of precise temp control cooking (click here to learn more), you know the meat is drowning in water in the bag. The low slow gentle process can pull out a lot of juice. But the meat is exquisitely tender and juicy. So clearly meat can lose a lot of water and not taste dry.

DRY AGED STEAKS DON'T EXUDE ANYTHING BUT FLAVOR

A while back, Meathead had dinner with three friends at David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago (alas, now closed). Chef Rick Gresh served a vertical tasting of 28, 40, 55, and 72 day aged ribeyes. He says they rest for about six to nine minutes in the process of being plated and brought to the dining room under lids. The waiter sliced each steak into 3/4 inch strips so they could all taste each steak. Despite all the cuts, there was no juice lost. Zero. Zilch. Zip. The group asked Chef Gresh why and he said "that's dry aging".

Dry aging dehydrates the meat and enzymes change the molecular structure, but even though there was significant water loss due to aging, the meat was tender and juicy. Clearly juiciness is not all about water.

WHY ALL THE BOOKS SAY WE SHOULD REST OUR MEAT

There are several theories for why we should rest steaks and other cooked meats. Let's look at the most popular:

The pressure theory. The most widely repeated theory says that during cooking, muscle fibers, which fans of resting say are like tiny skinny balloons, shrink along their length and expand across their width. Just like when you see meat "pulling back" along the bone. This puts pressure on the juices between the balloons and at the same time these juices expand pushing even harder on the balloons. If you cut into the meat when it is fresh off the heat, they say the juices come gushing out of the sliced balloons. If you let meat rest and cool, say the resting advocates, water pressure drops, fibers relax, and fewer juices escape. A variation on the theme says that the juices run away from the heat on the side facing the flame.

Not so, says the AmazingRibs.com meat scientist, Dr. Mata, "Water moves back and forth between compartments. It is not trapped in the fibers. Fibers are not balloons." So the pressure equalizes quickly. And at cooking temperatures, water does not expand much inside the muscle. Meat shrinks during cooking mostly because of dripping and evaporation. If the water was somehow pushed into and trapped inside expanding balloons, then, when the fibers cool during resting, they would shrink and would expel more liquid, not less as a result of resting. Furthermore, water cannot be compressed by pressure. In other words, this theory just doesn't hold water.

The reabsorption theory. Another theory holds that the outer parts of the meat, which are much hotter than the centers, dry out during cooking making the beloved crust. The hotter you cook, the more gray dried out meat forms directly below the surface. This is less lovable. This is overcooked meat with less flavor, juice, and tenderness. By allowing the meat to rest, says the theory, these hot dry fibers can absorb some of the liquid from the center, so less liquid will spill out when you cut the meat.

This may be true because systems do seek equilibrium. But the goal of cooking properly is to have a good dark crust and minimize the gray area beneath it. So reabsorption might hold onto a little liquid, but it's not relevant with properly cooked meat with minimal overcooked meat below the surface.

The viscosity theory. This theory is that when the meat is hot the juices are runny and as they cool they get thicker and more viscous. Sounds plausible, but we have never seen any real research to demonstrate this.

WHY WE THINK RESTING IS A MISTAKE

But resting has other impacts, many detrimental.

Cold steak! A very important thing happens during resting: The meat gets cold. There's a reason the serving plates are hot in steakhouses. We like our meat hot. It will cool off fast enough. Why give it a running start?

Overcooked meat! Another thing happens when the meat is resting: Carryover. Depending on the thickness and the amount of energy stored in the outer layer, the center can rise 5 to 10°F or more. That can take your perfectly cooked prime cowboy ribeye to particle board before you know it. And the hotter the center, the less moisture.

Waxy fat! When a steak is hot, the fats are soft, sometimes even runny. They give the meat a rich unctuous mouthfeel and a lot of flavor. Let the meat cool and the fat starts to harden and get waxy. Do you like eating wax?

Soft surface! While resting, the crust of a steak or chop gets soft and wet, especially on the side that is in contact with the plate or cutting board. Spice rubs get muddy. Adam Perry Lang is a classically trained chef and owner of APL steakhouse and barbecue in Los Angeles as well as Perry Lang's in Yountville, CA. We asked him to weigh in on this issue and he points out that the juiciness sensation also depends a lot on the crust, especially its saltiness. "In the early crust stage (fresh off the grill), fat, collagen, and salt will cause a unique flood of saliva in your mouth. Meathead refers to this type of crust stage as 'alive and snappy'. It is the type of crust that can cause you to eat clumps of fat and chewy sinew with joy that you would not normally eat. We are convinced it is another dimension, or the epitome of umami (savoriness). It rarely comes the same way from a rested piece of meat. Finishing salt is also important for this juiciness sensation."

So resting cools the meat, softens the crust, overcooks the center, muddies the spices and herbs, and reduces moisture of steaks and chops, and its impact on the perception of juiciness is probably nil.

FOIL MAKES IT WORSE

A loose tent of foil is often suggested during resting. Not only does it not help, it hurts! It does prevent a little heat from escaping, but not much. Foil is a lousy insulator. If you take a dish that has been cooked under foil off the heat, in seconds that foil is cool enough to handle. The problem with foil is it traps steam and softens the crusty surface of the steak that you worked so hard to created. And never wrap cooked meat tightly in foil. Juices really come gushing out then.

ATTEMPTS TO PROVE THE IMPORTANCE OF RESTING

To get a handle on how much leakage occurs with and without resting, one would have to do carefully controlled lab experiments and repeat them multiple times on different cuts from different animals. But remember, that is only a measure of water loss, not juiciness!

Food scientists use centrifuges, nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry, and other high tech tests. But that hasn't stopped cooks from attempting to get a measurement.

PROF. BLONDER'S EXPERIMENTS ON STEAKS

We asked Prof. Blonder to look into the matter

He started by taking two 13 1/2 ounce ribeyes, each 1 1/2 inches thick, salted them with 1/3 teaspoon of table salt per pound, and let them sit for an hour or so in the fridge. This technique is called dry brining and is known to help the proteins retain moisture as well as improve flavor. He then cooked them to 125°F, medium rare, using the reverse sear method we recommend because it produces more tender and less overcooked meat.

He immediately cut one steak into strips, collected the juices in a paper towel from the cutting board and the meat surfaces, weighed the towel on a sensitive scale, and subtracted the towel's dry weight. The "not rested" steak expelled about one ounce by weight through the whole process, most of it on the cutting board. Remember, the raw steak weighed 13.5 ounces.

Within five minutes juices started emerging from the "rested steak" which sat for 30 minutes before Blonder cut it up. After he cut the meat up, he collected the juices, most of which were on the meat surface not the board, and weighed them. The total was about 85% of the one ounce collected from the not rested steak. An insignificant difference. Also, the meat temp rose to 145°F from carryover cooking, well past medium rare. Carryover could explain the fewer juices since the warmer meat is, the fewer juices it discharges. Not much juice left in a well done steak. Is this the reason people think resting meat preserves juices?

To make sure his data was correct Blonder repeated his tests. Same results. And remember, Blonder did something most adults don't do. He sliced up the meat all at once. So by this measure alone, resting meat has no significant benefit.

J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT'S EXPERIMENTS ON STEAK

At SeriousEats.com, the brilliant chef J. Kenji López-Alt took a serious stab at testing the resting theory. He took six steaks, raw weight of about 17.6 ounces, pan seared and oven finished and cut one in half immediately, and others at 2.5 minute intervals. There was no carryover cooking. Below are an unrested steak, and one rested for 10 minutes. You can clearly see the rested steak has spilled less liquid.

He then dried the surfaces of the cut steaks, and weighed the meat. The weight loss from an unrested steak was 6% greater than a steak rested for 5 minutes, just less than 2.5 tablespoons, or less than 1/10 teaspoon per bite.

Of course much of the juice on the surface of the meat is ingested, and most of us don't begin eating a large steak by cutting it in half. The amount of area exposed by the cut is vital to determining how much spill there is. Most of us cut off a bite sized chunk from an edge, exposing much less surface area which is cooked more and will spill less. If you think about the time lapse between moving the steak from cooker to table, and from first cut to the second, five minutes can easily pass. If you mop up the juice with meat on your fork, in the real world, there is little to be concerned about and nothing is really lost.

HELEN RENNIE'S EXPERIMENTS ON STEAK

A computer scientist and food blogger from Boston, Helen Rennie, ran a test similar to Lopez-Alt's. She also cut the steaks in half but she measured the juices by pouring them off the plate. She found little difference in juices lost. Pouring juices off the plate is probably not the best method to assay juice spillage since there is inevitably juice left clinging to the plate.

HESTON BLUMENTHAL'S EXPERIMENTS ON STEAK

The great English Chef Heston Blumenthal attempted to demonstrate the necessity of resting steaks by cooking two steaks in a pan. He immediately placed one on a plate, covered it with a sheet of Plexiglas, and had his very large assistant, Otto, smash it under foot. He poured the liquid off the plate into a shot glass. He got about two tablespoons. He let the other steak rest for five minutes and then gave it the Otto treatment. Only a few drops emerge.

So the difference was a 1/2 an ounce by volume (also about 1/2 ounce by weight) from a whole steak that probably weighs 10 to 12 ounces total. If you cut this steak into bites, failure to rest might cost you one or two drops of juice per bite compared to a steak stomped on by Otto. Blonder points out that, as steaks rest, the juices get slightly more viscous, so perhaps the amount of juices recovered by Blumenthal is simply a matter of fluid dynamics. The thicker juices are just sticking to the meat. Maybe the real message is to keep Otto out of your dining room. You can watch his demonstration at about 2 minutes 50 seconds into this video.

WHAT DOES HAROLD SAY?

Here is what the eminent food scientist Harold McGee says in his foundational book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen: "Large oven roasts should be allowed to rest on the countertop for at least half an hour before carving, not only to allow the 'afterheat' to finish cooking the center, but also to allow the meat to cool down, ideally to 120°F/50°C or so... As the temperature drops, the meat structure becomes firmer and more resistant to deformation and its water holding capacity increases. Cooling therefore makes the meat easier to carve and reduces the amount of fluid lost during carving."

He makes no mention of steaks, only large roasts. And, while much of the book is footnoted with references to research, there are no footnotes on this passage. Blonder has proven that a slightly greater amount of liquid may come out of a roast, but it is a small percentage of the total liquid, and it is not "lost". It is reabsorbed when poured over the meat. And remember, juiciness is only partially dependent on the myowater and in the meat. So now we know that the only remaining reason for resting is to make a large roast easier to carve. But what about steaks?

LET'S GET REAL: HOW DO YOU EAT?

Let's forget all the science now and just think about how we eat. Let's be conservative and say a finished steak is about 60% water after drip loss, purge, and cooking. That means that, in a 12 ounce steak, seven ounces are liquid. That's almost a cup. So let's say we pull our nice big thick juicy medium rare steak off the grill and cut into it. Out come some juices. At most a teaspoon out of 12 ounces of steak that is seven ounces of water.

Do you let those juices sit on the plate and waste away? Heck no. You mop them up with the meat on your fork! The meat is absorbent now that it is no longer saturated with water. Nothing is lost!

Do you inhale the whole steak immediately? Heck no.

It takes a few minutes to get it off the heat and to the table. Then it takes at least 15 minutes to eat it. The fact is, by the time the steak comes off the heat til you get two or three bites in, have a bit of potato, a bit of the green beans, a sip of wine, a little conversation, the meat has had plenty of time to rest, and not a drop of fluid is wasted because when you are done, your plate is clean. And the steak was hot and crisp when you cut into it.

Look at the two plates at the top of this section. No juices left behind! The plate on the left shows juices from a steak that did not rest. The plate on the right held a steak that rested 15 minutes. Not much waste is there? That's because Meathead and his wife mopped up all the juice they could with the meat on their forks. (The slight color difference is because one steak had a tiny bit of char on some of the fat and it colored the juice.)

Thick, dry-aged porterhouse is the specialty of the house at one of the most beloved beef emporia in the nation, Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn. It is cooked under a screaming hot gas broiler to medium rare, and then, to halt the carryover cooking, the two sections are sliced from the bone, and sliced again into hunks so several people can share it. It is served swimming in its juices and clarified butter. See those spoons in the picture above? They are for saucing the meat on your plate with the buttery juices in the platter. We sincerely doubt any steak has been sent back to the Peter Luger kitchen for being too dry.

WHAT ABOUT ROASTS AND LARGE CUTS?

Because a beef rib roast, pork loin, or turkey breast can be so much thicker than a steak, when you slice them there is much more surface area to leak juice. So the amount of juice exuded from a roast can look alarming.

Will more liquid flow without resting? Blonder says "no". By slicing right away we get to serve perfectly cooked hot meat. We collect the juices from the cutting board and pour them over the meat on the serving platter. Most of the juices are re-absorbed. Or we make a board sauce (especially on leg of lamb). This is a great way to use the juices and add some excitement. Trust us, we never serve improperly cooked or dry roasts.

The best reason Blonder sees for resting a big roast like a prime rib is that it stiffens slightly and is easier to carve, as described by Harold McGee. A sharp knife solves any cutting issues.

HOLDING MEAT LIKE BRISKET IS NOT THE SAME AS RESTING MEAT

Remember:

Resting is the term for letting hot meat cooked to normal temperatures cool as discussed above. Typically these are meats cooked to 165°F or below.

Holding is the technique of letting meat cooked well past well done stay warm for a while after cooking. Typically these are meats cooked in the 195 to 205°F range, like beef brisket, pork butt, and ribs.

In restaurants brisket, pork butt, and ribs are often removed from the 225°F oven, wrapped in foil or plastic wrap, and placed in a warming oven to hold for a few hours at 170 to 180°F. Some of these ovens even have humidity control. In competitions the meats are often wrapped in foil and then towels and placed in an insulated box like a Cambro or faux Cambro.

These are very different meats than steaks and chops. They are really tough cuts with lots of fat and connective tissues that need to be cooked to a high temp to make them chewable. A steak cooked to 203°F would be inedible, but a brisket is at its best at about that temp. Rendered fat and gelatin from connective tissues provide most of the juiciness. In fact they often can lose up to 30% of their weight during cooking, most of that "drip loss" is water that has evaporated from the surface.

During the holding period, very gentle slow carryover cooking continues to cook the meat and tenderize it as it cools slowly, and it rarely is allowed to cool to less than 180°F, much hotter than a medium rare steak or even a turkey.

Because these meats have been cooking for 8 to 12 hours, the surface has become dry, forming a jerky-like bark. What water is left is in the center. By wrapping it so no more water will evaporate, and cooling it slightly, that water can move back into the parched areas.

The problem is that holding softens the bark too much. Some pitmasters will take it from the hot box and put it back on the smoker for 30 minutes or so to dry out the surface. Others will put it on a frill over direct heat or under a broiler to dry and firm up the bark. It is a balancing act, and that is why top cooks are called pitmasters.

THE BOTTOM LINE

1) The difference between the amount of juice spilled with resting and without resting is insignificant especially when one considers that juiciness depends on many other factors such as water that remains bound with proteins, melted fat, collagen converted to gelatin, and even saliva.

2) Far more important than resting the meat is cooking it to the right temperature. Once you get beyond 140°F, the moisture from water in any meat drops precipitously. The ultimate folly is the diner who orders a medium steak (140°F) and insists that it rest for 20 minutes. As meat sits around it can easily overcook from carryover. The best way to make sure you cook it properly is to use a quality digital thermometer. We cannot stress this enough. Follow the link and buy one that we have tested and recommended.

3) Season your meat properly with adequate salt, then, when the meat hits the proper temp, dive in while it is hot and crisp! Sizzling crisp crust is a major pleasure factor, perhaps more important than the small amount of water spilled. Chef Dave Arnold, author of the blog Cooking Issues, The International Culinary Center's Tech 'N Stuff Blog, says "Extra juice makes meat taste watery and bland. Moisture isn't necessarily your friend; delicious is your friend."

4) Juices lost in the grocery case, after thawing, and during cooking are far greater than those spilled after cooking.

5) In tests like Kenji's, five minutes rest was all that was needed to stanch most of the flow. In Blonder's tests, resting made no significant difference. If you still think resting matters, be assured your meat will rest enough while you move it from cooker to the table, while you wait for everyone to be seated, while you taste all the other foods and drinks, and by the time you're into it more than a slice.

After this article was published, Kenji proposed a very clever compromise: "I cook the meat, then let it rest. Just before serving, I flash it on the hottest fire I can muster for about 15 seconds per side. If I'm cooking indoors, I sear the steak in hot fat, then let the meat rest on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Then, just before serving, I reheat the fat and juices left over in the skillet until they're smoking-hot and pour them right over the steaks—you'll see them sizzle and sputter as they crisp up. This is similar to the restaurant hot-oven flash, but it works even better: Hot fat is a more efficient means of heat transfer than hot air, which means faster crisping with less chance of overcooking. It also adds a final shot of flavor to the surface of the steak." Click here to read the rest of this thoughtful article.

6) But most important, leave no juices behind! Blonder proved that meat will soak up almost all the juices spilled, rested or not. Pour the juices over the steak, and mop the rest up with the meat on your fork, with potatoes, rice, bread, or make a board sauce with it. Look at the picture at the top of this section. That should end the debate.

This myth is busted. Like the other myth that won't die, resting before swimming, when it comes to all this talk about resting meat, We say give it a rest, stop crying over spilled juice, and clean your plate like Momma told you. About that, she was right!

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HOW TO SLICE BRISKET

Don't slice until the last possible minute. Brisket dries out very very quickly once it is cut.

Important: Turn the meat fat side up so the melted fat will run onto the meat as you slice.

Slicing is a bit of a challenge because there are two muscles (the point and the flat) and the grain flows in different directions.

In this photo you can see the grain in the meat. The point muscle sits on top of the flat muscle. The point is thin on one end (A) and thick on the other (B). The thickness of the slab varies significantly, from 1" at the left and right edge to 4" or more at the crown of the point.

Here are three methods for carving. (1) the easy method, (2) the Sorkin method, and (3) the competition method.

1) THE EASY METHOD

Lop off about 1" from the thick end and about 2" from the thin end, which is the tip of the flat. These ends are likely overcooked and dry. Set them aside for a minute.

Then find the fat layer between the point and flat and slide your blade between the two muscles. Separate them, and trim off most of the excess fat. Chop up some of that fat and chop up the ends you cut off and mix them together.

Find the grain of the flat and slice across the grain making beautiful uniform slices. You can also slice against the grain of the point. Offer your guests "lean" or "fatty." Most will choose the lean, which will leave the better, fattier, point cut for you (turn it into burnt ends!).

2) THE SORKIN SLICING METHOD

I learned this method from Barry Sorkin of Chicago's Smoque BBQ. He makes my favorite brisket in the world. In the photos below, Sorkin demonstrates how he slices a whole packer brisket.

Start by lopping off the drier thin part of the flat, and set it aside for chopping, not slicing.

Then find the place about halfway up where the point starts to overlap the flat and remove the flat. Slice the flat across the grain about 1/4-inch thick making beautiful sandwich slices. These center cut slices are the ones that most competitors use because they produce a visually pleasing presentation of nearly identical slabs of meat.

Sorkin then goes into the layer of fat between the point and flat at the thick butt end, and he removes much of the fat. It can be 1/2" thick or more in there, and that makes the slices inedible

The remaining hunk has both muscles, the point sitting on top of the flat, with the grain going in different directions. He slices this hunk in half, below.

Here, the section on the right is a butt end with one cut edge. The left section, from the center the brisket, has two cut edges.

Slice the remaining butt end of the point in the same direction as you cut the flat, continuing to cut parallel to the cut end. Slice the center section as shown, from the outer edge in.

Sorkin then fans the slices on a bun. Notice the line separating flat and point.

Thin parts of the flat are chopped and some of the fat from between the point and flat is mixed in for moisture. The results are crunchy, heavily seasoned, and juicy. These bits can also be splashed with sauce and served on a bun.

3) COMPETITION BRISKET SLICING METHOD

Some competitors prefer this method of slicing. Run a knife between the flat and the point and separate the two muscles. Trim off excess fat.

Wrap the flat and put it in the hot box to hold. Take the point and sprinkle rub on the bare surface and put it back on the smoker, crank the heat a bit. It can take it because there is more fat in the point. When the bare surface starts to firm and get some color cut it into cubes about 3/4-inches on all sides, dump them in a pan, put some fat in there, put it on top of direct heat to gently fry the cubes, add some sauce, and select the best looking “burnt ends” and add them to your turn-in box.

Now slice the flat across the grain about 1/4" thick. The meat should hold together, not fall apart or crumble. It should only pull apart with a gentle tug. If the first slice falls apart, cut thicker slices. Add them to the turn-in box.

Here is a picture of a competition brisket entry. Notice the nice even slices of flat with the smoke ring on top with a row of burnt ends. Learn more about how to cook competition brisket here.

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GILDING THE LILY

Most folks serve brisket unadorned in all its simple glory. Others like to amp it up.

Sauce. It is rare to see brisketeers use classic Kansas City sweet sauces on sliced brisket, but that is the condiment of choice for burnt ends. Heat up my Texas Barbecue Mop Sauce or heat up the jus in the foil and bring it to the table.

Jus. If you did a Texas crutch there will be plenty of meaty juice in the foil. Taste it. If it is not too salty you can anoint the meat with some. A lot of competitors do this. You can dilute it warm water or unsalted beef broth if necessary.

Toppings. Caramelized onions, grilled onions, mushrooms, grilled red peppers, or a sauce can add fun to brisket, especially on a sandwich.

Board sauce. Chop up some herbs, crush some spices, mince some garlic and chiles, and mix them with olive oil, melted butter, or melted beef fat, and dump them on the cutting board. When the meat comes off the smoker just plop it on top and slice away. The meat juices mix with the flavored oil and shockingly, one does not overwhelm the other.

Chimichurri. Argentinian chimichurri is a bold green paste of herbs, usually parsley and cilantro. That brings bright flavors to the plate.

Horseradish cream sauce. The classic sauce for steak and roast beef sandwiches. Just ask Arbys.

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COOKING MORE THAN ONE

I frequently get asked how to handle cooking two briskets (or more) or a shoulder and a brisket, or a shoulder, brisket, ribs, and a muskrat. The answer is here, in my article on Cooking More Than One Large Hunk ‘O Meat.

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COOK TODAY, SERVE TOMORROW

I often get asked what’s the best way to cook brisket Saturday and serve it on Sunday. My answer is “don’t do it”. That’s called serving leftovers.

These meats are best fresh off the smoker. If you have to serve it at noon on Sunday, then start cooking before you go to bed.

If you don’t want to cook this smoked brisket recipe overnight then consider serving something that doesn’t take so long, like smoked turkey or baby back ribs.

Now if you absolutely positively must cook it Saturday to serve Sunday, there is a technique I describe in this article.

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CONTROVERSY

As with anything barbecue, there is controversy surrounding brisket. Pitmasters disagree on several major scores:

MEAT GRADE?

Beef is graded based on the age of the animal and the amount of fat marbling. Click here for more about beef grades. The more marbling the better because fat makes the meat taste more tender, flavorful, and juicy. USDA Select, USDA Choice, USDA Prime, and Wagyu are the most common grades, from lowest to highest. Choice or Prime are my favorite grades.

Wagyu is well marbled and will be more juicy, so if you can find it, and afford it, go for it. Most of the top competition teams are now using prime or Wagyu. But it is very expensive. And grade alone will not guarantee that the meat will be tender. Brisket is just an ornery piece of meat, and if you want it tender, you’ve got to work. Tasty is easy. Tender is not.

TRIM?

Let’s get this straight: the thick fat cap does not penetrate the meat when it melts. Some cooks like to leave the entire fat cap on the meat as insulation, trimming what remains before serving. This helps moderate the heat during cooking. Others trim most of it off before cooking, leaving a layer of 1/8″ to 1/4″, reasoning that if you leave the fat cap on, spices and seasoning will never penetrate to the meat, and then the seasoning is wasted when you trim off the fat at the table.

Some cooks also remove much of the fat layer between the two muscles, the flat and point. I trim the cap to 1/4″ or less. A little fat helps retain some moisture in the meat, after the fat shrinks to about 1/8″ during cooking, most people will not trim it off, so the seasoning remains. Also, while slicing, some of the melted fat will run down across the meat, making it shiny and juicy.

RUB?

Before it is cooked, many of the best Texas barbecue joints simply use “Dalmatian rub” for their authentic Texas brisket recipe: liberal amounts of Morton’s Coarse Kosher Salt and coarsely cracked black pepper. For them, stylin’ is to add some cayenne and garlic powder to the rub. Some leave the rub on the meat overnight in the fridge, but others just season the meat and toss it on the pit. Leaving salt on the meat overnight is a good technique because the salt will start to penetrate. The other spices won’t, but you want that NaCl flavor amplifier down in the meat where it can also help the proteins retain moisture, the basic result of dry brining.

On the competition circuit, many cooks use a complex secret concoction of herbs and spices that give a little spark to the bark, the flavorful crust that forms after all that cooking. For this smoked brisket recipe, I salt it the night before with 1/2 teaspoon of Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of meat, thicker on the point than the flat. Next I apply my Big Bad Beef Rub while the smoker is heating up, about an hour before cooking.

SLATHER?

You can put a rub right on bare meat, or you can help it stick by moistening the meat with a little water, or you can put down a slather of mustard or ketchup, or you can use cooking oil. Our SVP, Clint Cantwell, uses mayonnaise because, as he says “mayo is fat, and fat is flavor!”

Don’t get too bogged down in this detail. My experience is that slathers make little or no difference in the final outcome so I tend to skip it with my smoked brisket recipe. Mustard is water, vinegar, and maybe white wine with mustard powder mixed in. The amount of mustard powder is so small that by the time the water steams off and drips away, the mustard powder remaining is miniscule. If you want a mustard flavor, you will do much better by simply sprinkling mustard powder on the meat. I usually use water because spice rubs dissolve better in water than oil. Far more important than what’s under the rub is what is in the rub itself. So use whatever liquid or fat you want for a slather.

PUMP?

Countless competition cooks like to inject brisket with an internal marinade by using large hypodermics and other gimcracks. These “pumps” add moisture, break down tough fibers, and add flavor. Many of the champs have been injecting the meat with a product called Fab B Light or Butcher BBQ Brisket Marinade, both of which are moisturizers, tenderizers, and flavor enhancers.

Fab B contains hydrolyzed soy protein, vegetable oil, sodium phosphates, monosodium glutamate, autolyzed yeast extract, xanthan gum, disodium inosinate, and guanylate. Butcher BBQ products contain hydrolyzed vegetable protein (hydrolyzed soy and corn protein and salt, with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil [cottonseed, soybean] added), monosodium glutamate, sodium phosphate, and xanthan gum.

Some traditionalists think this is way too Barry Bonds and are repulsed by the idea. The results speak for themselves. They are winning. A lot. If you choose to inject and don’t want all the chemicals, don’t use anything that tastes very different from beef. Just use plain beef broth. In most recipes, I specify low sodium broth, but actually the saltier version is better in this case. This is like brining, and the salt helps retain moisture as well as enhance flavor. Insert the needle parallel to the grain so it doesn’t leave tracks in the finished meat. If you inject salt, however, do not dry brine. 

FAT CAP UP OR DOWN, ON OR OFF?

This argument is as old as Texas. I asked my beef consultant, Dr. Antonio Mata, a meat scientist and a former Consulting Technical Coordinator to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, if fat will melt and penetrate the muscle fibers. His reply was simple and unequivocal. “No way.” I asked him to elaborate. “The fibers are packed too close for large fat molecules to squeeze in. Since about 75% of the muscle is made of water, and oil and water don’t mix, it is just going to melt and run off.”

This melting of fat is called rendering. We know that rendered fat can run over bare muscle, basting it, but very little will go to the underside of the meat. Most of it will just run down the sides and drip off. So the only basting occurs on the sides. We know that:

All the fat does not render during cooking;

Rub applied to a thick fat cap will not contact the meat because the fat is a barrier. If the fat cap is very thin, some spices might get through;

Warm fat with spice rub is yummy;

Fat can inhibit moisture loss from evaporation, and since the stall is caused by evaporation, a fat cap can slow the onset of the stall and help you speed through it;

Bark will not form on fat because bark is mostly dried surface meat;

When cooking with heat directly below, as with a Weber Smokey Mountain or a kamado, the fat can absorb heat and protect meat from drying out;

Diet conscious diners will trim off thick layers of fat if the meat is served on a plate and not on a sandwich. That means the flavorful rub will be removed;

When cooking two meats, one above the other, the fat can drip down and baste the meat below; 

Beans that sit below melting fat are magical; and

That a small fat cap will run down over the meat as it is cut, adding flavor.

So what’s the right thing to do? In this smoked brisket recipe I say trim most of the fat but leave a thin layer, less than 1/4″, so that diners will not remove it and the rub. I put the fat between the heat and the meat, often with beans underneath. Sometimes I even flip the meat midway through the cook just so nobody can win the argument.

SEPARATE THE TWO MUSCLES?

There is a lot of sense in separating the two muscles. When they are together a packer is tear-drop shaped and so the thin end cooks faster than the thick end and tends to dry out. If you separate the two muscles they are more uniform in thickness.

Some cooks remove the point layer by working a knife through the fat layer that runs between the flat and point. They cook both muscles side by side rather than one on top of the other. Since the flat is a pretty evenly thick, it cooks more evenly with only a little bit on the ends overcooking. The overcooked parts can be chopped and mixed with sauce for chopped brisket sandwiches, fajitas, mixed with beans, etc. By cooking the flat separately, you get beautiful symmetrical sandwich slices with a smoke ring all around them.

The point end is usually a bit thinner, but more marbled. Depending on thickness you might want to put it on an hour or two after the flat.

Separating the muscles also doubles the surface area and creates more bark. It speeds up cooking, knocking off about 1/3 of the time for cooking a whole packer. If you separate the muscles and remove most of the fat from on a 13 pound packer, you can expect about 5 pounds of flat, 4 pounds of point, and 4 pounds of trim.

COOKING TEMP?

Many competitors swear that low and slow, around 225°F for 18 to 20 hours for a whole packer, is necessary to make the meat tender and juicy. Legendary “Barbecue King” Walter Jetton, Lyndon Johnson’s caterer, advocated cooking brisket at 275°F and up. John Fullilove of Smitty’s Market confesses that he cranks the heat over 300°F and knocks out his briskets in as little as 8 hours.

I have seen competitors take home big prize checks with brisket cooked at 350°F. The bottom line is that cooking temp seems to be less important than other factors. But because it is difficult to make brisket tender, I advocate for low and slow until you have mastered the techniques and are certain that your meat source and methods are superior. I cook at 225°F for this smoked brisket recipe.

MOP?

A lot of cooks like to keep their meat wet by mopping it with a baste. They say the mop replaces moisture that evaporates. Others say mops cool the meat and slow the cooking. The AmazingRibs.com science advisor, Prof. Greg Blonder has proven that wet meat holds more smoke, so mopping or spritzing with water, beef broth, or apple juice will yield a smokier brisket. It also cools the meat and slows cooking, which allows more time for connective tissues to melt. Mopping with flavored liquids has no significant impact on taste. There just aren’t enough taste molecules in apple juice or beer to change the taste of brisket. Not like a sprinkle of a spice. Click here to read my article on basting.

CRUTCH?

The Texas Crutch is a technique for speeding the cooking and moisturizing the meat. The concept is that you smoke for a few hours, and when the meat hits about 150°F, wrap it tightly in heavy-duty foil or untreated butcher paper (never plastic wrap) and let it braise and steam in its own juices in the crutch in the cooker. Some folks wrap at 150°F, others at whatever temp the meat is at when the stall kicks in, others when the color looks right to them.

If you don’t wrap, when the meat hits about 150°F, moisture rises to the surface and cools the meat by evaporation, like sweat on an athlete. The meat then sits there stuck at an internal temp of 150 to 160°F for up to 5 hours. This stall is a maddening point in the process when it seems like something is wrong. Its temperature just doesn’t rise for hours at a time. This is freaky and a lot of novices panic when it happens. Many people think the stall is caused by melting fat or collagen. It is not. The stall is caused by evaporative cooling.

THE NEGATIVES OF THE CRUTCH

The down side of wrapping is that the foil softens the crusty bark. You can overcome that by placing the meat over high heat for about 10 minutes per side just before slicing. I think wrapping in foil and holding in a faux cambro is essential for tender, juicy brisket. Brisket is the only meat I crutch. In competitions, virtually all the teams crutch their brisket as well as pork shoulder and ribs. I think the impact of wrapping is major on brisket, minor on the other meats. But you do not absolutely need to crutch. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a firmer crust, but you risk slightly drier and tougher meat.

Purists say wrapping is not traditional. Spare me. Cooking with charcoal in a steel tube is not traditional either. You want tradition? Go dig a pit in the dirt.

The next controversy over the crutch is whether you should wrap in butcher paper or foil. Brisket master Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue in Austin uses untreated pink butcher paper like this. Click here to order some from Amazon if you want to try it.

My experience is that without wrapping you get the best bark, most smoke, and most intense flavors. Wrapping in foil makes moister meat with a hint of pot roast and a soft bark, but it can cut 2 hours off the cooking time. Wrapping in paper cuts about 1 hour off cooking time, lets some moisture escape but traps most of the rendered fat, and tastes very much like the foil wrapped version. Bottom line, the differences are very subtle. And fears of destroying the bark are overblown. If you have a good bark when you wrap, most of it will survive.

WHEN IS IT DONE?

Steaks from along the back of the animal are done at 130 to 135°F, at which point they are the most tender and juicy. But that muscle is more tender and juicy because it doesn’t get much of a workout on the animal. The brisket, the pectorals, get a lot more work and have a lot more tough connective tissue that needs to be softened, so you just can’t take briskets off the heat at the same temp as steaks.

Old time pitmasters say brisket is done when it is done. These folks say you really can’t tell by temperature. Each brisket is different. They can tell when it is ready by feel. Some talk about a gelatinous bounce it has when they poke it because the connective tissues have melted. This is referred to as the “wabba wabba” point. Others stick a fork in the side of the flat and twist. If it turns easily, it is ready. Yes, that’s where the expression “stick a fork in it” came from. “Fast Eddy” Maurin says he waits until it is “as soft as buttah.”

The rest of us have to rely on temperature, and despite their bravado, the top pitmasters on the competition circuit all use digital thermometers to help them. A lot will depend on the quality of the meat, how moist the air is in the cooker, if you injected, and how long you crutched. I’ve heard skilled cooks tell me every number from 195 to 205°F. A lot of top competitors swear by 203°F, and I have noticed that something magical does seem to happen at around this number. At this temp, the thermometer probe glides in effortlessly, like buttah (once it gets through the bark). If, despite your efforts, your brisket never gets tender, pull it off before it goes above 205°F because it will only continue to dry out.

HOLDING?

Then it comes off the cooker and it gets wrapped in foil and sits in a faux cambro, an insulated box like a beer cooler, for 1 to 4 hours. Holding helps tenderize by allowing some carryover cooking which helps melt tough connective tissue. The foil also captures natural jus for use in a sauce, and holding the meat allows the surface parts that have dried out during cooking to re-absorb some of the juices. This is not the same as resting a steak or other meats, which I do not recommend. Holding is also a great fudge factor that lets you take the meat off when it is ready and hold it for hours until the guests are ready.

SLICING?

Controversy also reigns over slicing. The target temp used by many pitmasters is about 140°F before they slice. Once it’s ready to slice, brisket is easier to chew if you cut it perpendicular to the grain. If you cut with the grain, it can taste stringy and chewy. You’ve come this far, so make sure you slice brisket correctly!

The problem is that there are two muscles, the flat and the point, and the grains run in different directions on them. Most folks slice from the thicker, point end in about 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick slices. Some folks run a knife through the fat layer between the point and flat, separating them, and then slice each separately.

Meanwhile, other folks cut off the flat where the point meets it, and then they rotate it so the cut is on the side and they slice through the point and flat from the side. That’s the way I like to do it.

SAUCE?

To some people, it’s not barbecue unless it has a sweet red sauce on it. Not to Texans. “In Texas, we celebrate great brisket by not messing with it,” says Daniel Vaughn, the barbecue critic for Texas Monthly. “If it’s done right, then you slice it pencil thick and slap it on a piece of butcher paper. It’s naked, quivering and vulnerable, so it has to stand on its own.” In some places, a thin decidedly not-sweet, tomato-y gravy-like jus is tolerated.

45

SUMMARY: SECRETS OF SUCCESS WITH THIS SMOKED BEEF BRISKET RECIPE

How do I pick the right brisket? Do not just pick up whatever your butcher has on display. Get USDA Choice grade meat or higher. If you have to special order it, then order it. If you start with USDA Select or below, you will have a hard time elevating it beyond shoe leather.

How do I know when brisket is done? Use a good digital thermometer to monitor your cooker and another to monitor the meat. Your smoker’s dial thermometer is wrong. Don’t trust it. Step into the digital age. As a general rule of thumb, aim for a finished temperature around 203°F, though seasoned professional depend on both temp and feel as each brisket cooks differently. You want the meat to be wubba wubba.

What size brisket should I buy? Use a smallish whole packer if you can. I like 12 pounds. Small pieces, like a four pound hunk o’ flat (HOF) or hunk o’ point (HOP) shed a lot of moisture, shrink a lot, and get tough.

Should I separate the two muscles of a packer? This topic in a Texas bar will usually end in gunplay. Lately, I have been doing it and I like the results.

Should I inject a brisket? Yes. Injecting with beef broth, brine, or specially formulated injection helps combat dehydration, and the salt enhances flavor.

Why has the temperature of my brisket stopped rising, and why should I wrap the brisket? Wrap the meat in foil or butcher paper when it hits 150°F internal temp. The method tenderizes and moisturizes, but most importantly it powers through the stall, a long delay during which the meat temp stops rising. The stall can last up to 5 hours. This is caused by the meat sweating and cooling from evaporation. Wrapping the meat powers through the stall and delivers moister meat.

Can I cook brisket in the oven? True BBQ brisket is smoked low and slow on a smoker or grill, so skip the oven if you can and opt for this authentic smoked brisket recipe. Finishing indoors after it has absorbed plenty of smoky flavor is cheating, but nobody will arrest you. If you’re having trouble controlling the temperature of your outdoor cooker, and most charcoal cookers are hard to control for long sessions, cook outdoors until the meat hits 150°F, wrap it in foil, and then move it indoors. It still may stall for an hour or 2 at about 170°F. Wait it out.

How do I keep brisket warm after cooking? When the meat in this smoked brisket recipe hits an internal temperature of 200 or 205°F in the flat, hold the wrapped brisket in a 170°F oven or wrap it with towels or a blanket and let it rest in a beer cooler for 2 to 3 hours. The internal temp slowly drops. This helps tenderize the meat but also gives you leeway before serving if the cooking takes longer than anticipated.

When should I start cooking a brisket? When it comes to this smoked brisket recipe, start earlier than you think you should. If the meat is ready before the guests, fine. It will be stay moist and juicy wrapped in foil in a beer cooler or a holding oven. Better the meat should wait than the guests. Exact timing is impossible to predict.

How long does brisket take? The most important determinants of total cooking time for a smoked brisket recipe are how thick the meat is and what temp your cooker is averaging. But humidity, ambient air temp, wind, rain, and grade of meat can all play a role. Click here for more about what determines cooking time. There is no precise formula. That said, plan on 12 to 18 hours for a whole packer brisket if you wrap it in foil at 150°F, plus two hours holding time. If you don’t wrap in foil, 16 to 20 hours plus two hours rest is a good estimate. For flats, 10 to 12 hours with foil, 12 to 14 hours without foil.

PART VI

RECIPES

“I adapted your brisket rub recipe this summer and my customers love it (8,000 pounds served in the past 6 months)! My brisket even won ‘best beef’ in the Sonoma County Harvest Fair this year (2010).”

LARRY VITO OF BBQ SMOKEHOUSE IN SEBASTAPOL, CA

Now that you have the concepts down, here are some of our favorite recipes. But first a few tips.

Tinkering. We know you like to tinker. Do us and yourself a favor, try our recipes our way with no changes the first time. You will then have a memory of what the recipe is supposed to taste like.

If the recipe calls for regular old fashioned granulated white sugar, don’t use brown sugar. If it calls for boring old distilled white vinegar, don’t reach for the cider vinegar. We worked very hard to perfect and test these recipes and some substitutions just don’t work. After you’ve tasted the dish the way we intended it to taste, then the next time you make it, riff on it however you want.

Timing. Prep times include all the washing, measuring, chopping, and peeling. Cooking times are our best guesstimates based on our tests, but keep in mind, this is food, not a widget, and two seemingly identical chickens may cook at different rates. No two cookers are exactly alike. Weather, humidity, and wind also impact outdoor cooking times. Click here to read more about what influences cooking time.

Wood. We have not specified precisely how much wood you will need or what type of wood to use for smoking because the strength and flavor of wood depends on many variables, including the nature of your cooker and your preferences. Go easy at first. A meal is never ruined by too little smoke. Measure wood and keep records with a cooking diary (you can download one here).

2-zone almost everything. For most recipes on a grill, we recommend 2-zone cooking. The indirect convection heat zone is for slow roasting and smoking. It is cooler and acts as your safe zone for when pieces finish early or if they are cooking too fast. Whenever cooking over indirect heat, we always specify an air temperature, usually 225°F or 325°F. You need a good digital oven thermometer with a probe placed on the cooking surface near the food. A thermometer in the dome cannot be trusted.

Over the direct infrared radiant energy zone, we want lots of fire power for searing. “Give ‘er all she’s got, Scottie.” For searing, we usually do not specify the temperature because most cooking thermometers cannot go high enough and infrared radiant energy is best measured in calories rather than temperature. Moreover, the direct radiant heat side is usually only being used for searing and browning the surface. The food isn’t there for long. We sometimes call cooking by direct infrared radiant heat Warp 10, Warp 9, Warp 8, etc. in homage to Star Trek.

Lid position. Almost all the recipes in this book require you to cook, roast, bake, and smoke with indirect convection heat with the lid down. In most cases when we ask you to sear, the food is over direct infrared radiant heat, and the lid is up.

Some recipes call for cooking in a pan or pot. You can do that on the direct heat side or on your side burner, or, horrors, indoors. We strongly recommend that you have a frying pan and a sauce pan set aside just for outdoor cooking. You can cook with your best expensive pots and pans, but sometimes they fall, or get scorched, and we don’t want to risk the wrath of a spouse by ruining a wedding gift.

Salt. We use Morton Coarse Kosher Salt. No Morton did not pay us. Different salts have different grain size and that can influence salinity when measured by volume (teaspoons, tablespoons, cups) rather than weight. We wanted to standardize on one salt, and the grain size of Morton Coarse Kosher Salt makes it easy to pinch and scatter. If you substitute table salt, cut the quantity in half since it is more concentrated. Click here to learn more about the science of salt and see a conversion calculator for different salt types.

Black pepper is always best when ground fresh. Ditto for other spices that start out as seeds.

Butter is usually unsalted in our recipes. We prefer to control the salt content precisely without the wild card of an unknown quantity coming from the butter. That said, if you use salted butter, there is so little that the recipe will probably turn out fine, especially if you cut back a tad on other salt.

Eggs are large.

Flour is all-purpose flour.

Fruits and vegetables are medium size, and they should always be fresh and scrubbed with cool water.

Garlic powder is pure garlic powder, never garlic salt, which has salt in it. You should control salt separately.

Mayonnaise. Never substitute Miracle Whip or light mayonnaise for mayonnaise. The chemistry is very different. Among other things, Miracle Whip has two kinds of sugars, mayo has none.

Milk is whole milk. You can get away with 2% in many cases, but not skim milk, soy milk, almond milk or any other substitutes. If we call for half-and-half or cream, it is because we think the fat is important to the chemistry. You can probably substitute one for the other, but don’t use milk.

Oil is usually olive oil unless otherwise noted and is usually extra-virgin olive oil if it is not being heated. If it is being heated, use inexpensive olive oil or vegetable oil.

Sugar is granulated white sugar. Sugar is a common ingredient in spice blends and sauces because it is a flavor enhancer, it helps browning, and it encourages crust formation. When we want brown sugar, we will call for it.

Ingredients are listed in the order in which the recipe calls for them. If you see the term “divided” it means that the ingredient will not be used all at once.

Mise en place. Always practice mise en place (i.e. putting everything in its place). Gather all your ingredients and chop, slice, and dice before you apply heat to anything. You don’t want to be scrambling to chop an onion while things are cooking in the pan. This is a vital foundation level concept.

46

BIG BAD BEEF RUB

This is a simple beef rub recipe, creating a rich, flavorful, crunchy crust on steaks, also called the “bark” or Mrs. Brown on brisket and beef ribs.

This rub is quite different from a pork rub. Pork loves sweetness, and the best pork rubs have a fair amount of sugar in them, like Meathead's Memphis Dust. Beef doesn't take as kindly to sugar, so there is less here. Black pepper, on the other hand, works wonders when seasoning beef.

You can make this dry rub recipe days or weeks in advance. It makes plenty, and you can just put any extra in a clean jar or zipper bag for use at a later date.

Makes. About 1/2 cup

Takes. About 10 minutes

3 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper

1 tablespoon granulated white sugar

1 tablespoon onion powder

2 teaspoons mustard powder

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons American chili or ancho powder

1 teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder

About the black pepper. Lately we've been grinding our black pepper and then sifting it. We use the coarse stuff, and put the fine stuff in a pepper shaker.

About the chile powders. We're looking for complexity with two different flavors and two different levels of heat. Most American chili powders and ancho powders do not have a lot of heat, but good flavor. In fact, ancho is usually in a lot of American chili powders. Go with ancho if you can find it. It has a nice raisiny character. With chipotle or cayenne we're after a kiss of heat. Chipotle has better flavor though.

Optional. If you’d rather not make this rub from scratch you can click this link and buy Meathead’s Amazing Smoked Red Meat Seasoning & Dry Brine instead. Keep in mind that our bottled rubs have salt in them. When using the bottled rub with this recipe, you do not need to add the salt that is called for in the recipe.

1| Stir it up. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. Store the rub in a tightly sealed bottle in a dark place. It will slowly start to decline in quality after a few months but should be fine up to a year later. Taste it first.

2| Salt the meat. If your meat has not already been pre-salted, shoot for about 1/2 teaspoon of Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of meat and apply it heavier on thick spots. When possible, apply the salt the day before, but even an hour or two is enough to get it moving inward, and the AmazingRibs.com science advisor Prof. Greg Blonder has shown that when the meat heats, the salt moves deeper and faster.

3| Apply rub. You can apply the rub in advance, some people like to apply it the night before, but the fact is, most molecules in the rub are too large to penetrate more than a fraction of an inch, just like marinades. And they don't have the electrical properties that salt has. The rub is mostly a surface treatment for flavor and bark. So you can apply the rub just before cooking if you wish. Moisture and oils will mix with the spices and herbs, heat will work its magic on them, and all will be wonderful. We like to lightly wet the surface with water before the rub because many of the flavors in the rub are water soluble. Spread the rub generously on thick beef steaks and brisket, using a bit less on thinner cuts.

47

MRS. O’LEARY’S COW CRUST

Catherine O’Leary was a humble Irish immigrant living on Chicago’s near Southside. Late in the night of October 8, 1871 her barn caught on fire, and the conflagration spread on the wings of high winds through thousands of wooden structures. More than 300 people died, 90,000 were left homeless, and 2,000 acres were destroyed. The Chicago Tribune reported that the cause of The Great Chicago Fire was Catherine’s cow Daisy kicking over a lantern.

Years later the story’s author admitted he made it up, but Mrs. O’Leary’s continues to take the rap. So we have named this rub after her to help rehabilitate her reputation. 

Most rubs are a mix of herbs and spices and we rub them into the meat before grilling (Click here for The Science of Rubs). This beef rub starts out that way, but then we transform it into a thick paste. The idea is, by mixing spices in water we can extract more flavors and get them into the little pits and cracks on the surface of the meat. Normally marinades and rubs don’t go very deep into the meat, but they can seriously change the composition of the surface, and the use of water fills the microscopic gaps on the surface with flavor, and enhances browning and crust formation.

Since there is no salt in this recipe, (click here to read why our rub recipes do not have salt), salting the meat first is a must. Salt will penetrate deep into meat so you should get it on in advance, perhaps overnight. The rest of the spices and herbs cannot penetrate very deep, so the rub can go on anytime, even just before you start cooking. The general rule of thumb is 1/2 teaspoon Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of meat (don’t include bone if you are doing beef ribs).

Makes: About 1/4 cup

Takes: 15 minutes

2 tablespoons ground black pepper

2 teaspoons dried rosemary leaves

2 teaspoons dried thyme or oregano

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon American paprika

½ teaspoon chipotle or cayenne powder

About the rosemary. You can leave the leaves whole or break them a bit with your hands. I throw them into a mortar and pestle and crush them just a bit to release their flavors. If you have fresh, double the quantity and coarsely chop it.

About the chipotle. Don't be a wuss. This is only 1/2 teaspoon for 10 pounds of meat, and it is all on the surface, not the interior. Like a viola, you don't notice it, but take it out of the orchestra and something is missing.

Optional. Add 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder to the dry mix and/or 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish to the paste.

Optional. If you’d rather not make this rub from scratch you can click this link and buy Meathead’s Amazing Smoked Red Meat Seasoning & Dry Brine instead. It is similar. Keep in mind that our bottled rubs have salt in them. When using the bottled rub with this recipe, you do not need to add the salt that is called for in the recipe.

1| Prep. Mix everything together in a bowl.

2| Storing the rub. If you are not using immediately, store in a jar for use later or proceed to the next step if you plan to use it now.

3| To use. Dry brine the meat hours in advance. When it is time to use the rub, you can use it straight, or mix 1 part of the dry rub with 1 part water to make a paste. (Note: You can use oil, but the herbs dissolve better in water). Pat the meat dry with paper towels, pour the paste on and rub it in. You can cook right away.

48

COWBOY JAVA RUB

Legend has it that cowboys on the trail would rub their steaks with coffee grounds for added flavor. It works!

Makes. About 5 tablespoons, enough for about 1 brisket

Takes. About 2 minutes

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground coffee

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons crushed black peppercorns

1| Dry brine. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of meat a day in advance if time permits. Apply more on thicker parts.

2| Stir it up. Mix all the above ingredients together in a bowl and apply them anytime prior to cooking.

49

HORSERADISH CREAM SAUCE

Horseradish puts a real giddyup in dishes like brisket, roast beef sandwiches, smoked salmon, and baked potatoes. You can also use it on corned beef and cabbage and its cousin, New England Boiled Dinner. Try it on Baltimore Pit Beef. I love it as a dip for carrots, celery, and potato chips.

Horseradish, has nothing to do with horses, happily, but it puts a real kick in other dishes. It is a white root that looks like a crooked white carrot and has lovely white flowers in spring that smell like, you guessed it, horseradish! Farmers dig it up, clean off the dirt, peel it, and grate it. It has a kick when raw, and my wife’s Uncle Carmen, whose family is from Southern Italy, was known to grate it raw on pasta with tomato sauce instead of using hot pepper flakes. It is not at full strength raw, but mix it with a little distilled white vinegar and a pinch of salt and you have the same sinus opening stuff that you can find in the chill chest of the grocery store, all three alarms ringing.

Makes. 8 sandwich portions

Takes. 5 minutes

1/4 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish in vinegar

2 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1/4 teaspoon Morton Coarse Kosher Salt

2 pinches ground white pepper

About the salt. Remember, Morton Coarse Kosher Salt is half the concentration of table salt so if you use table salt, use half as much.

About the white pepper. The sauce looks prettier without black flecks, so that's why I recommend white pepper, but if you don't have it, black pepper works fine.

Optional mix-ins. Roast garlic. For serving with fish, add 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill. For serving with beef add 4 tablespoons chopped chives or green onions.

1| Prep. If you have raw horseradish root, wash it thoroughly and with a peeler, scrape it until only milky while shows. Then grate it fine or beat the heck out of it in a processor or blender. Add just enough distilled white vinegar to make it slushy and spreadable, and then a pinch of salt to taste. I've tried it with other vinegars and the results are very good, but not as versatile. Let it age a few hours to reach a full gallop.

2| Mix all the ingredients and taste. Add more of whatever you want. Try to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to allow them to mingle properly.

3| Serve. Enjoy the horseradish cream sauce with steaks, smoked salmon, roast beef sandwiches, and so much more.

50

TEXAS BARBECUE MOP SAUCE

Old timey Texans take their brisket naked. They don’t don’t cotton to sloppy, sticky, ketchup-based sauces like they make up north in Kansas City. That’s because cattle don’t need sweetened ketchup any more than they need wolves. Some pitstops have yielded to popular demand and serve gloppy red sauces, but the best serve a thin ruddy sauce, almost a gravy that works both as a mop during the cook, and as a simple finishing sauce.

These mop-sauces feature local flavors: American chili powder, ancho powder, hot sauce, cumin, beer, onion, beef drippings, and maybe even coffee grounds. Thin as it is, it adds a richness and depth to the meat because it doesn’t just sit on the surface, it penetrates. The cooks make up a batch and use it on everything: Brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs, pulled pork, sausage (a.k.a. hot links), mutton, goat, and even chicken.

They are used as mops during the cook because in Texas commercial pits often cook the meat two to three feet directly above coals. They can run hot, and they are opened often to add and remove meat. So a mop splashed on the meat during cooking replenishes moisture and cools the meat.

Still, many folks like a sauce, especially if the meat is dry, and that can happen with brisket. So here’s a very tasty formula inspired by the sauce at legendary Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que in Llano, TX, pictured above. They have a dozen pits to cook in, and one pit that is a holding pit. It has hunks of each of their meats and a big bucket of sauce. Customers come up and point at the meat they want and if they want sauce, the meat is dunked in the bucket, flavoring both. Trimmings and leftovers are also tossed in the bucket. So if you go to Cooper’s, and if you want sauce, don’t tell the pitmaster you’ll use the bottled sauce on the picnic tables inside. Tell him to dip it.

Makes. 5 cups

Takes. 30 minutes

1 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 teaspoons American chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 tablespoon of butter

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic

1 green bell pepper

1 cup Lone Star beer (or any other lager)

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

3 tablespoons steak sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons hot sauce

2 cups beef stock

About the butter. Butter works fine, but to make it authentic, use rendered beef fat from the a brisket.

1| Prep. Finely chop the onion, mince the garlic, and chop the bell pepper. Mix the paprika, black pepper, American chili powder, and cumin in a small bowl.

2| Cook. In a small saucepan, melt the butter or fat and gently cook the onion over medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic, bell pepper, and the spice mix. Stir, and cook for two minutes to extract the flavors. Add the stock and the rest of the ingredients. Stir until well blended. Simmer on medium for 15 minutes. Taste and adjust as needed.

3| Use. Divide it in half and use half to mop the meat when cooking. Use the remainder to splash on the meat when you serve it.

51

TEXAS BRISKET RECIPE

This is the way I do brisket. I cannot stress this enough: When shopping for brisket, go for the highest grade you can find, and hand pick the slab with the most fat striation visible. Pay no attention to the fat cap. You will trim most of that away. But marbling is important. Go for USDA Choice, USDA Prime, or Certified Angus Beef. If it is not labeled, chances are it is USDA Select. Avoid it. Brisket is the classic example of "garbage in, garbage out." Please don't write to me and say you can't figure out why your brisket was tough if you did not buy USDA Choice or better. 

Makes. 1 killer brisket

Prep time. 10 minutes

Cook time. 12 hours

Hold time. 2 hours

12 pound beef brisket whole packer (point and flat together) untrimmed, USDA Choice grade or higher

12 ounces beef broth with salt (approximately 1 ounce per pound of meat)

½ cup Big Bad Beef Rub

About the Big Bad Beef Rub. If you’d rather not make this rub from scratch you can buy it instead. We have created a bottled rub that is very similar and you can purchase it here. Keep in mind that our bottled rubs have salt in them. When using the bottled rub with this recipe, you do not need to add the salt that is called for in the recipe. Just use the rub instead and add it when the salt is called for.

Sauce, optional. 2 cups Texas Barbecue Mop Sauce (you can make this days in advance).

1| Trim. Trim off most of the fat cap but leave about 1/4". Until you get the hang of trimming fat, you might cut off some of the meat in the process. No harm, no foul. Remove any silverskin, a shiny, thin, tough membrane. Set aside some fat for making burnt ends. I always freeze some of the fat and grind it for my burgers if I think the meat needs more fat. I also render some fat over low heat in a pan, and freeze that too. I use beef fat to paint my steaks just before searing.

2| Separate. Remove the point. Purists cry heresy, but separating the point and flat gives you a flat that is pretty uniform in thickness so it will cook more evenly. Plus, you can apply flavorful rub to all sides of the flat, and you will get an all-around smoke ring. We will cook the point and flat side by side.

3| Mark the grain. Locate the thinnest tip of each slab and notice the grain of the meat. With a sharp knife, cut a gash about 1/4-inch deep and 1-inch long with the grain. This will serve as a marker for you so you can slice across the grain because when it is cooked you will not be able to find the grain.

4| Season. If you do not plan to inject with a salted beef broth, salt the meat about 12 to 24 hours in advance so it can work its way in, 2 to 4 hours minimum. Use 1/2 teaspoon Morton Coarse Kosher Salt per pound of meat. If you have injected with a salted broth solution, do not salt the meat. If you use a commercial rub with salt in it, cut the salt application in half. I usually skip this step because I inject.

5| Inject. I almost always inject briskets with plain old salted beef broth. This meat takes so long to cook that the extra moisture helps keep it from dehydrating, and the salt in the broth helps the meat hold onto moisture and enhances flavor. Use broth only. No need to add spices, juices or other flavorings. All we want here is moisture and salt. We don't want the fluid to mask the flavor of the meat. Pump in about 1 ounce of beef broth per pound of raw meat by inserting the needle parallel to the grain in several locations about 1" apart and backing it out as you press the plunger. Do it in the sink, and be careful so you don't get squirted in the eye. If time permits, put it in the fridge for an hour so the salt can spread out a bit. The liquid can’t move around much.

6| Rub. Sprinkle the Big Bad Beef Rub liberally on all areas of the meat and rub it in. Keep the meat chilled until just before you cook it. Chilled meat attracts more smoke. I recommend you use a leave-in digital thermometer and insert the probe with the tip centered in the thickest part of the flat.

7| Fire up. Pre-heat your smoker, or if you are using a grill, set it up for 2-zone indirect cooking. Get the cooker temp stabilized at about 225°F.

8| Cook. Put the meat on the cooker right out of the fridge. On a smoker with a water pan, put the meat right above the water. Place the oven temp probe on the grate next to the meat. Add about 2 cups (4 ounces) of wood right after the meat goes on. When the smoke stops, add 4 ounces more during the first 2 hours, which usually means adding some every 30 minutes or so. Keep an eye on the water in the pan. Don't let it dry out. After 3 hours, turn the meat over if the color is different from top to bottom. Otherwise, leave the meat alone. No need to mop, baste, or spritz. It just lowers the temp of the meat and softens the bark. 

9| Crutch. The meat's internal temperature will move steadily upward to somewhere around 150 to 170°F, and then it will enter the stall. Once in the stall, the temp will seem to take forever to rise. The stall can last 5 hours and the temp may not rise more than 5°F! When the meat hits the stall and temp stops rising, if the color is a nice mahogony, take it off and wrap it tightly in a double layer of heavy-duty foil. We have learned that the more airspace around the meat, the more juice leaks out of the meat. Crimp it tight and put the wrapped meat back on the smoker or move it to an indoor oven at 225°F. This step, called the Texas Crutch, slightly braises and steams the meat, but most importantly, it prevents the surface evaporation that cools down the meat and causes the stall. If you wrap the meat at the stall it will power right through the stall and cut your cooking time significantly. If the stall hits and you don’t like the color, let it go a bit longer.

10| Temp it. When the meat temp hits 195°F, start poking it with a thermometer probe. It should slide in and out with little resistance if it is done. Poke it with a finger or pick it up and jiggle it. If it goes wubba wubba and wiggles like jelly, it is done. This usually happens somewhere between 200 and 205°F, usually at around 203°F. If it doesn’t wubba, let it go a bit longer. Some briskets are ornery and never wubba, but most good cuts will.

11| Decision time. Burnt ends are amazingly flavorful bite-size crispy meat cubes. At this time you must decide if you are going to make burnt ends or not. You can proceed to the next step and then slice and serve offering guests “fatty” or “lean.” Fatty, of course, is the point and it is the better muscle. If you are going to make burnt ends, move to the faux cambro with the flat only.

12| Faux Cambro. Cambros are insulated boxes used to keep food warm for extended periods of time. To create a home made version, get a plastic beer cooler, line it with a towel, blanket, or crumpled newspaper, and put the meat, still in foil, into the cooler on top of the lining. We call this a faux cambro. If the foil is leaking fluids put the meat in a large pan first. Leave the thermometer probe in the meat. Close the lid and let the hot meat sit in the hot box for 1 to 4 hours until you are ready to eat. If you can, wait til it drops to 150°F before you slice it. If you have a tight cooler, it should hold the meat well above a safe serving temp of 140°F for several hours. Click here for our cooler reviews.

13| Burnt ends (optional). If you are going to make burnt ends, I describe the process/recipe here, in the next chapter.

14| Slice. I describe the three different slicing methods in this chapter.

15| Serve. If the brisket is perfectly cooked, it should be moist and juicy. You can serve it simply sliced on a plate or as a sandwich made with Texas Toast. If you wish, drizzle some Texas Barbecue Mop Sauce mixed with some of the drippings from the Texas crutch on top of the meat. Taste the drippings first because they can be salty (if so, you can dilute them with water or unsalted beef broth). At Joe's KC in Kansas City the serve a sandwich called the "Z-Man". It's thin sliced brisket with a sweet KC sauce topped with melted provolone cheese, a couple of thick crunchy onion rings, more sauce, all on a toasted kaiser roll, and slaw on the side. You want pickle chips on it, go ahead.

52

BURNT ENDS

Burnt ends are amazingly flavorful bite-size crispy cubes of meat.

Originally they were simply edges and ends that were overcooked and trimmed off and munched by the kitchen staff. If there were any leftover, they were given away for free.

Then, in 1970, in his marvelous book American Fried, Calvin Trillin wrote the following about Arthur Bryant's restaurant in Kansas City: "The main course at Bryant's, as far as I'm concerned, is something that is given away for free -- the burned edges of the brisket. The counterman just pushes them over to the side as he slices the beef, and anyone who wants them helps himself. I dream of those burned edges. Sometimes, when I'm in some awful overpriced restaurant in some strange town -- all of my restaurant-finding techniques having failed, so that I'm left to choke down something that costs seven dollars and tastes like a medium-rare sponge -- a blank look comes over my face: I have just realized that at that very moment someone in Kansas City is being given those burned edges free."

Nowadays burnt ends are usually made from the point muscle of the brisket. There are a variety of techniques. Here's the Meathead Method:

1| Separate the point from the flat before smoking, and remove almost all the surface fat. You can leave on 1/6 to 1/4” if you wish since most of that will melt off.

2| Wrap the flat. When the flat is done, wrap it tightly in foil, wrap it in a blanket or towels, and move to a faux cambro (a.j.a. beer cooler).

3| Grill. Cut the point into cubes about 1” on all sides. Set aside any pieces that are too fatty or just eat them. Dust them with rub and a little sugar to accelerate browning and bark formation. Tumble them onto a grill topper on a hot grill over direct heat for a few minutes to caramelize the sugars and brown the cut edges.

4| Fry. In a frying pan, render about 1/4 pound of the beef fat that you trimmed from the brisket. Or better still, use bacon fat or duck fat. You can do this over hot coals. Move the cubes to the pan and gently fry them until they are crunchy on the outside, turning them a few times. Drain the fat and add about 1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce and 1/4 cup of the drippings from the foil used for the Texas Crutch. Put the pan back on the grill and stir every 5 minutes or so. Let the cubes absorb most of the liquid and start to sizzle, but don't let them burn.

5| Serve. When they're done, serve them before they go soft. You can just present them in a pile on a plate, or on a bun. I like to man a banh mi type sandwich with quick pickled onions on a garlic bread baguette sandwich.

53

CHAMPIONSHIP COMPETITION BRISKET RECIPE

BY CLINT CANTWELL

To anyone schooled in the art of true Texas brisket, many things about competition style brisket seem blasphemous. In the Lone Star State, success is the product of simplicity: the brisket is trimmed, seasoned with salt and pepper, then smoked for 12+ hours until ultra-tender. That’s it.

Enter the world of competition BBQ, however, and brisket becomes an entirely different beast. Teams vie to pack maximum flavor into the one or two bites taken by each judge. For competition-style brisket, most, if not all, of the external fat is removed for maximum bark creation; salt and pepper are replaced with layers of complex rubs; flavor and moisture enhancers are injected deep within the meat; and the whole thing is wrapped in foil or butcher paper (i.e. the Texas crutch) halfway through the cooking process to ensure tenderness.

Given the complexity of creating an award winning brisket, I turned to Travis Clark of Clark Crew BBQ for his input. One of the hottest cooks on the circuit and the winner of the 2017 American Royal Barbecue Invitational, he also won a World Championship title in brisket and his team has been named KCBS Team of the Year in brisket. “I’ve been cooking brisket a long time, and it is by far my favorite category to cook in a competition.” Clark certainly knows his way around a brisket. He even offers classes.

I asked him where to begin. His reply: “My favorite way of preparing brisket for competition is to start with an 18 to 20 pound Snake River Farms American Wagyu brisket. Once you try one of these,” says Travis, “it’ll be impossible to go back to anything else!” Starting with Wagyu beef does seem like a great way to beat the competition right off the bat. “You’ll also notice that I separate the point from the flat, as they both cook differently, and that helps create better bark over the entire surface. Typically I’ll trim the brisket on Tuesday for a Friday/Saturday competition in order to cut down on the on-site prep work.

“I also inject my competition brisket, as I really feel that it enhances this tough cut. Once injected, I like to start the brisket hot and fast before dropping the temperature. I find this does something really special to a Wagyu brisket, including creating a great sear and plumping it up. Finally, there are three keys to a successful competition brisket – always burn a clean fire free of thick black smoke, always wrap the brisket based on color rather than temperature, and pull the brisket based on how tender it feels.”

Makes. 1 championship brisket

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Serve with: your favorite local beer, but only after turn ins.

1 (18 to 20 pound) whole packer Wagyu brisket

6.5 ounces Kosmos Q Brisket Mop

20 ounces beef broth or beef consommé

2 tablespoons of your favorite BBQ sauce 

1 packer brisket (18-20 pounds (8.2 to 9.1 kg))

2/3 cup Kosmos Q Reserve Blend Brisket Injection

24 ounces water

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

3 tablespoons Kosmos Q Texas Beef rub

3 tablespoons Big Poppa Smokers Double Secret Steak rub

5 tablespoons Eat Barbecue Most Powerful Stuff rub

3 tablespoons Kosmos Q Hot Dirty Bird rub

1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce

About the brisket. Travis recommends and wins consistently with Snake River Farms American Wagyu brisket. Seek an 18-20 pound (8.2-9.1 kg) whole packer (flat and point) brisket.

About Kosmos Q Brisket Mop. If you don’t want to buy it, make a batch of our Texas Barbecue Mop Sauce and cut it with cider vinegar, about 3 parts sauce to 1 part vinegar.

About Kosmos Q Reserve Blend Brisket Injection. This is a blend of Sodium Phosphate and beef stock, and spices. I talk about injecting in an earlier chapter. If you don’t want to go for the commercial stuff, use beef broth.

About the rubs. Clark makes a blend of four commercial rubs. If you don’t want to buy them all, use ny Big Bad Beef Rub or buy Meathead’s Amazing Smoked Red Meat Seasoning and Dry Brine.

1| Prep. Combine the Mop, broth, and BBQ sauce in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake until combined. Refrigerate for a least two days before smoking the brisket.

Prepare the brisket by separating the point from the flat then remove as much of the fat and tough silverskin as possible. Refrigerate.

2| Inject. Prepare the injection by combining the injection, water, and white pepper in a large bowl and blend well.

Pour the injection mix into a narrow container so that it is easy to suck the liquid up with the injector. Place the brisket flat in a large aluminum pan. Fill the injector with liquid and insert the needle into one side of the brisket flat, pushing it as close to the center of the brisket as possible. Slowly push the plunger while gradually easing the needle out of the brisket. Continue injecting the brisket every 1 1/2 inches, then repeat on the opposite side, filling it with as much of the injection liquid as possible [at least 12 ounces or 1 1/2 cups]. Inject the brisket point all over with as much liquid as possible, at least 4 ounces [1/2 cup]. Let the brisket rest for 30 minutes before adding the rub.

3| Rub. Lightly season the brisket and flat with Kosmos Q Texas Beef rub. Follow with a light coating of Big Poppa Smokers Double Secret Steak rub. Add a medium coating of Eat Barbecue Most Powerful Stuff rub. Lastly, add a light coating of Kosmos Q Hot Dirty Bird rub. Place the brisket flat and point in a clean aluminum pan and chill overnight uncovered.

4| Fire up. Prepare a smoker or a grill set up for 2-zone indirect cooking. Adjust the vents to bring the temperature to about 400°F and add 4 to 5 fist sized chunks of your favorite smoking wood to the charcoal for flavor.

5| Cook. Remove the brisket flat and point from the aluminum pan and place on the smoker or the indirect side of the grill and allow them to smoke for 30 minutes to create some color and and plump them up.

Reduce the temperature of the smoker or grill to 275°F and allow the brisket to cook until it has a nice mahogany color and the beginning of a nice bark, approximately 160 to 170°F internal temperature. Wrap the brisket flat in a double layer of aluminum foil along with 6 to 8 ounces [3/4 to 1 cup] of the mop mixture. Wrap the brisket point in a double layer of foil along with 4 to 6 ounces [1/2 to 3/4 cup] of the brisket mop. Return the flat and point to the smoker on the indirect side of the grill and continue cooking until they are tender, approximately 203 to 206°F internal temperature for the flat and 210°F for the point.

Once tender, remove the flat and point from the cooker and carefully vent the foil to release the steam. Place the meat in a holding box such as a Cambro or faux Cambro for at least one hour.

6| Slice. Once you are ready to prepare the brisket for the turn-in box, unwrap the point from the foil, reserving the liquid. Cut the brisket point into 3/4-inch to 1-inch cubes. Brush the burnt ends with your favorite BBQ sauce and place in an aluminum half pan. Place the pan on the smoker or the indirect side of the grill for approximately 5 minutes to set the sauce.

Remove the brisket flat from the foil and add the liquid to the liquid from the point. Pour all the liquid from the foil through a fine mesh strainer to separate the liquid (“au jus”) from any solids.

Slice the flat against the grain. The slices should be approximately the thickness of a pencil [about 1/4-inch]. Brush both sides of each slice with the au jus. Turn in brisket slices and burnt ends according to contest rules (traditionally in a “blind” Styrofoam turn-in box).

54

COOKING A “HUNK O’ FLAT” (HOF) OR “HUNK O’ POINT” (HOP)

A whole packer brisket is a lot of meat! Many grocers cut up the whole brisket into smaller more manageable sizes. I often see cuts from the flat or point running anywhere from three to six pounds. I call them a HOF, for Hunk O’ Flat, or HOP for Hunk ‘O Point. These HOFs seem to be more common than HOPs. If the meat case has both, chose the HOP. It has more marbling in the muscle and will be more tender, flavorful, and juicy. Now if you see only flats, ask the butcher if you can order points. HOFs are usually tough and it is hard to make them tender. But don’t ask your butcher for a HOF: that’s just a term you and I use.

My grocer usually has a number of HOFs in the three to four pound range, perfect for serving a small family. If you are cooking a three to four pound HOF, there is much less waste and shrinkage, so buy 1/2 pound or more for each person. 

The HOF is practically pure muscle and has little marbling, the kind of fat that makes meat taste tender and juicy. Most people who buy the HOF are making pot roast by simmering it for hours in liquid. But you want the Texas taste, right? If you must do a HOF, then try really really hard to get Certified Angus, USDA Choice, USDA Prime, or even Wagyu beef. They have better marbling. Choose a thick HOF, and look for marbling and uniform thickness so one edge won’t dry out. If the meat is not on a plastic tray and you can flex it, select one that is floppy. The technique for cooking a small hunk is pretty much the same as cooking a packer.

55

SOUS VIDE QUE BRISKET

BY CLINT CANTWELL

As a native Texan, I have always had an affinity for smoked brisket. Properly smoked, it is the food of the gods; cooked poorly, however, it is no tastier than dry dog food.

For a well-practiced Txas pitmaster, transforming this tough cut of beef into a masterpiece requires nothing more than a simple salt and pepper rub, some post oak smoke (or another favored smoking wood), and 12+ hours of low heat and TLC. On the other hand, for those who only cook one or two briskets a year, adding liquid injections and using the “Texas crutch” (foil-wrapping) are commonplace strategies that ensure moist, tender, and flavorful results.

With both ends of the brisket spectrum in mind, I recently set out to create a recipe that ensured mouthwatering results without relying on injections or wrapping. To do so, I turned to one of the hottest emerging trends in BBQ — sous-vide-que. To begin, the brisket is seasoned with Kosher salt and cracked black pepper before being sous vided in a 145°F (63°C) water bath for 30 hours, a time and temperature devised based on our sous vide que cooking guide here. This low and slow cooking process breaks down the brisket’s tough muscle fibers and connective tissue. Once the water bath cooking is complete, you rapidly cool the brisket in a 50/50 mix of water and ice. Cooling it down ensure that the meat can be smoked on the grill without drying it out. Or, if you want to make it ahead of time, you can refrigerate the cooled-down brisket for a day or two or freeze it for several weeks. Note that there will be approximately one to two cups of flavorful liquid left in the bag after sous viding the meat. I recommend reserving and reheating this liquid to drizzle over the sliced brisket or to make a sauce for other beef dishes.

Explore the world of Sous Vide Que, the ultimate marriage of water and smoke, by clicking here to download our ebook “Sous Vide Que Made Easy” for $3.99 on Amazon (free Kindle app runs on all computers). Or get the book and others FREE as a member of the AmazingRibs.com Pitmaster Club. Click here to join.

To complete the brisket, you only need to smoke it briefly with your favorite smoking wood to add a true barbecue flavor. Since the brisket has already been fully cooked during the sous vide step, there is no need to smoke it beyond an internal temperature of 125°F (51.7°C), at which point it will be pleasantly warm when eaten.

Once smoked, be sure to slice the brisket against the natural grain of the meat to cut across the tough muscle fibers and ensure maximum tenderness for your anxiously waiting family and/or guests. Do note that since the brisket isn’t cooked entirely on the grill or smoker, it won’t have the same heavy bark you’d expect on traditional brisket. That said, you’re sure to love the end product equally if not more!

Serve with: a Lone Star beer.

Makes. 6 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Sous Vide: 30 hours

6 pound beef brisket flat

3 teaspoons Morton Coarse Kosher Salt (approximately 1/2 teaspoon per pound (453.6 g) of meat)

3 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper (feel free to substitute our Big Bad Beef Rub)

About the salt. Remember, kosher salt is half the concentration of table salt so if you use table salt, use half as much. Click here to read more about salt and how it works. For this recipe, you want to use 1/2 teaspoon Morton coarse kosher salt per pound (453.6 g) of meat.

Prep. Trim off most of the fat cap but leave about 1/4-inch (6.4 mm). Season the brisket with kosher salt. If you can, refrigerate the brisket uncovered for 12 to 24 hours to give the salt time to be absorbed. The process of salting in advance is called dry brining. The rule of thumb is 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt per pound (453.6 g) of meat.

Prepare a sous vide immersion circulator, such as Joule by ChefSteps or Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker, according to the manufacturer's instructions and set the water temperature for 145°F (63°C).

Place the whole brisket in a jumbo, 2 or 2.5-gallon (7.6 or 9.5 l), sealable storage bag. Alternatively you can divide the brisket into two halves and place each half in a separate gallon size sealable freezer bag. Carefully submerge the freezer bag in the water bath until most of the air has been removed and then seal the bag. Completely submerge the sealed bag, and cook the brisket for 24 to 30 hours (I like 30).

Once the brisket has finishing cooking, remove the bag from the water and submerge in a large container filled with a 50/50 mix of ice and water until the meat’s core temperature reaches a safe range of 34-38°F (1.1-3.3°C), at least 30 minutes. At this point, the brisket can be refrigerated until you are ready to smoke it (several days ahead of time) or frozen for future use. Thaw before smoking.

Fire up. Prepare a smoker for indirect cooking, adjusting the vents to maintain a temperature of approximately 225°F (107.2°C). If you’re using a charcoal grill, prepare it for 2-zone cooking by placing a chimney full of pre-heated charcoal briquets on one side of the charcoal grate to create direct and indirect cooking zones. Adjust the grill vents to bring the temperature to about 225°F (107.2°C). Add 2 to 3 chunks of your favorite smoking wood to the charcoal for flavor. On a gas grill, adjust the temperature knobs so that one half of the grill is off (the indirect side) and the other half is heated enough to maintain a temperature of approximately 225°F (107.2°C) on the indirect side, adding wood chunks or chips to the direct side.

Smoke. Once the smoker or grill is ready, remove the brisket from the freezer bag and season liberally with either coarse ground black pepper for a traditional Texas-style brisket or Big Bad Beef Rub. Place it on the smoker. The liquid in the bag can be refrigerated for future use. If you’re using a grill, place the meat on the cooler side of the grill as far away from the heat source as possible. Set the lid on the grill with the top vent fully open and positioned directly above the brisket in order to force the smoke over and around the meat. Allow the brisket to smoke until it reaches an internal temperature of 131°F (55°C), about 2 hours. Note that the interior of the brisket will already be perfectly cooked from the sous vide step. The goal is to simply reheat and smoke the brisket without overcooking it

Serve. Remove the brisket from the smoker or grill, slice it against the grain, and serve immediately.

56

WHAT TO DO WITH LEFTOVERS

If you do have leftovers from this Texas style smoked brisket recipe that you will not be able to scarf down in a few days, you can freeze it. Mix the leftovers with a bit of barbecue sauce or the jus from the Texas Crutch (if it is not too salty), and freeze everything in zipper bags or vacuum bags. The sauce helps prevents freezer burn.

Leftovers from my smoked brisket recipe are best reheated in the microwave a small amount at a time. But it will be a bit drier and tougher than the first day, so bring it back to life with a splash of water, apple juice, Texas Crutch jus, or barbecue sauce. The best method is in the microwave, second best is to heat it slowly in a pot with the lid on.

Here are some other ideas for leftover brisket:

Cottage Pie (like Shepherd’s Pie but with beef instead of lamb). Probably the best thing I’ve ever done with leftover meat from my smoked brisket recipe is a variation on Cottage Pie. This classic Irish peasant casserole was a hearty meal for farmers, often served midday. There are hundreds of variations on the theme, but it is essentially meat and potatoes in two layers. Here’s the core concept: Brown veggies and cubes of beef in a deep pan or casserole. Whup up some mashed potatoes, and pile them on top. Put them in the oven and bake. So here’s what I did: On Sunday I did brisket and garlic mashed spuds. I browned carrots, celery, onion, and frozen peas, and then tossed in cubes of leftover brisket, some of the jus that was in the foil when I did my Texas Crutch (not too much, it’s strong stuff), and some beef stock leftover from the last time I did a Prime Rib (any beef broth will do). I topped them with about 2″ of leftover garlic mashed, painted the top with butter, sprinkled on some parmesan cheese and bread crumbs, and baked the whole shootin’ match in the oven until the top was brown. OMG. Substitute BBQ lamb and you’ve got Shepherd’s Pie.

Brisket enchiladas. Slow’s Bar-B-Q in Detroit is famous for their brisket enchiladas. Folks make the enchiladas by sautéing onions, tossing in some sliced brisket and a splash of hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and their house secret sauce. They then dump it on a tortilla, top it with grated smoked gouda cheese, roll it up, grate some American cheese on top, and give it a squirt of hot sauce for good measure.

Stir fry. Believe it or not, leftover brisket is great in a Chinese stir-fry with onions, carrots, broccoli, and a soy/sesame oil/hoisin sauce with a splash of hot sauce on a bed of rice.

Hash. John R. Crowley from Denver (a member of our Pitmaster Club, where many brilliant BBQ ideas are shared) says he likes to chop up leftovers, mix them in beans, or fry them up in some hash.

On scrambled eggs or salads. Bill Martin likes his leftovers chopped up in scrambled eggs and on top of a salad.

Sandwiches. Steve Page says “To me there is not much better than a long slice of brisket with mozzarella (or provolone) on a steak roll bun. I microwave gently with some crutch sauce, place on the bottom half of the bun with two thick slices of cheese end-to-end on top and pop into a small toaster oven in the broil mode to melt the cheese and toast the bun (so it doesn’t get soggy). I then drizzle the crutch sauce on the top toasted bun and slap ’em together.”

Italian beef sandwiches. Lucy Baker says “Make Italian beef-style sandwiches with very cooked (limp) green and red bell peppers, onion, and a little Italian seasoning. Reheat the beef in broth and spoon over crusty bread before adding the beef and peppers. Yikes!”

Quesadillas. Merrill Powers in Elmhurst, Illinois, makes quesadillas with his leftovers.

Chili. Dave Frary makes chili with his leftovers.

Burritos. Danny Gaulden makes burritos.

I don’t know what to call this but I want to eat it. Rodney Leist from Elfrida, Arizona, kills several different leftovers in one dish. He puts one of those single serving bags of corn chips in a bowl, adds a big scoop of leftover chopped brisket, a similar amount of leftover smoked sausage, and a similar amount of beans. On goes some leftover sauce, chopped onions, chopped jalapeños, and grated cheese. The whole thing gets heated in the microwave. Sort of like a walking taco but in a bowl!

Trade bait. Buzz Dean in Wisconsin says he takes his leftovers to the pub and trades them for beer!

57

SIDE DISHES

Beef brisket achieves its apogee on the blackened pulley pits of Central Texas, so I like to serve it Texas style. The smoky slices of meat from this smoked brisket recipe lounge on a thick slab of Texas Toast or garlic bread. I like to honor the Mexican heritage of Texan cuisine with frijoles, simple pinto beans cooked cowboy style with some fatback or bacon, onion, garlic, and a few chopped tomatoes, scented with bay leaves and cumin, and sprinkled with fresh minced jalapeño. Absolutely positively none of those sweet Yankee beans. The wolf law holds for beef sides too.

Then, honoring the European heritage of many of the great Texas barbecue joints surrounding Austin, I want a mound of German Potato Salad, warm and pungent with vinegar and dotted with celery seed.

Next to it I want a scoop of fresh, crunchy sauerkraut from the fridge. None of that soggy canned stuff.

To honor the Czech heritage of the numerous Texas butcher shops turned barbecue joints, I chase the whole thing with a tallboy, a simple uncomplicated Pilsner style Texas brew, straight from the bottle.

Dessert has to be crunchy, gooey pecan pie with black coffee. Pecans are a major cash crop of the Lone Star State, and my favorite pie bar none.

After all your careful prep and cooking, let the meat be the center of the show. One or two sides are all you need, especially if you've already got sauce on the meat. Meat and potatoes are an unbeatable combo, although rice is nice and couscous is cool. Try our really simple Warm French Potato Salad. Keep the veggies simple, like our Crunchy French Green Beans, or, since the grill is primed and ready, go for Grilled Asparagus.

For other delicious sides, check these out:

Our potato recipes including fried, baked, twice baked and mashed

The Best Grilled Corn On The Cob Ever

Potato salad recipes especially Mom's Old Fashioned Potato Salad

Mac-and-cheese recipes especially Smoked Mac And Cheese

Regional beans recipes especially Bourbon BBQ Baked Beans

Veggie, salad, and slaw recipes especially Creamy Southern Coleslaw and Thai-style Chilled Cucumber Salad and Caprese Tomato Salad

Cornbread, garlic bread, and other bread recipes especially Griddle Grilled Corn Cakes

Potato recipes especially Grilled Sweet Potato Fries and Grill Baked Potatoes

Snacks and munchies especially Grilled Guacamole

and soooo many other wonderful tested recipes

PART VII

CHECK THIS OUT

Here are some goodies from AmazingRibs.com

MEATHEAD’S AMAZING SEASONINGS & DRY BRINES

Many meals ago, in 2005, my neighbor challenged me to a rib cookoff. I won, got a swelled head, and built a website to share my “secrets.” Now, according to Forbes, Meathead’s AmazingRibs.com is “By far the leading resource for BBQ and grilling information” and I am in the Barbecue Hall of Fame.

Since I founded the site in 2005 I have shared more than a dozen of our favorite rub and sauce recipes for free, like the ones on the previous pages, and they have become hugely popular. All of them have won big bucks in competitions and been used in restaurants. Finally, after 16 years, in November 2021, we listened to your requests and created three bottled rubs and a sauce under the name “Meathead’s Amazing.” They are based on our free recipes, but have several new ingredients and changes.

Why there is salt in these rubs? When you make rubs at home, we recommend you do not add salt because salt penetrates and none of the other spices and herbs do, so thick cuts need more salt. We put salt in these bottled rubs because all commercial rubs have salt and without salt the price would be outlandish. Also, without salt buyers would wonder why their food needs salt. You can still use these as a dry brine, just sprinkle the rub on well in advance to give the salt time to penetrate. For very thick cuts of meat, we recommend adding a bit more salt. Click here to order them.