Texas Barbecue

I have a couple of briskets, one a 14-pounder, the other 13, on my 22 ½-inch Weber kettle, and they are coming along nicely. Beneath the briskets is a pan catching drippings, from which I will make sauce tomorrow.

I am barbecuing them for an educational foundation fundraiser tomorrow. The pinto beans are made already and will have tonight to cool and marry in the refrigerator. Tomorrow morning I will make pecan pie squares, and then just before leaving for the fundraiser, Jim Price’s Skillet Cornbread, which has for me become the only way to eat cornbread.

I started these benefits, Texas Barbecue for 20, three decades ago, when I was writing a newspaper column. I still get the occasional request for reprints of my technique, so here is this year’s.

A word about education. The First Amendment guarantees individuals the right to do all sorts of things to meat and call it barbecue. In this nation, you can find places in which the law states that pork is the only suitable meat for barbecue, and in others, people will shake fists at anyone who does not accept mutton, or goat, as the standard. I have not attempted to eat mutton barbecue, but goat, or cabrito, isn’t bad, and I have had some delightful Southern pork barbecue, even if they do put it on a bun with a gob of coleslaw.

All this is fine. The only universal standards that I think apply are: barbecue is never basted, and you have to give it enough time. In the case of these briskets, they are going to have about 14 hours. I don’t baste them, because they baste themselves. They are whole briskets, bought “in the bag,” as they say, and they will have some fat on them. Most of the fat will melt away in the smoker, and as it does, it bastes the meat. Some years ago, I taught lessons in Texas cooking, here in Southern California, and as we were sampling the result in a brisket class, a gentleman asked: “What did you baste it with?”

“I didn’t baste it,” I said. “Huh,” he said, and went back to eating. A few minutes later he spoke again. “You sure you didn’t baste it?”

The briskets went on at 6:30 this morning. I built a fire of 30-35 mesquite-laced briquets and stacked it against one side of the Weber fire grate, with the drip pan opposite. The briskets were fat enough that I trimmed off a little fat with poultry scissors. They got generous dustings of sea salt and freshly ground pepper, plus sprinklings of garlic powder and celery salt, just for kicks.

I use a big cookie sheet to carry the briskets out, one at a time if they are big like these. The smallest I would recommend are eight or nine pounds. The briskets go over the drip pan. They are going to overlap, and be hard to handle. Add three or four small chunks of mesquite charcoal – most supermarkets have it – and put the kettle cover on with the vents half-open. The vents go over the meat, to draw the smoke.

All day long, I will tend the brisket hourly at first, then every 90 minutes. Keep rotating them, end-for-end and side-for-side, over-under and under-over. Use old hot pads, or folded paper towels, to handle the meat. Give the fire seven new briquets and a couple more chunks of charcoal each time. Poke the fire to let air in through the ashes.

At seven or eight tonight, I will feed the fire and turn the meat for the last time, then leave it overnight. In the morning, I’ll take the cooled briskets and wrap them loosely in foil. I’ll heat the drippings, pour them into a saucepan, and place the pan in the refrigerator freezer to bring the fat to the top and freeze it. After a few hours, the fat will lift off like a frozen discus. Heat the drippings again, just until they are heated through – boiling ruins the chemistry – and strain them into another saucepan, pushing the solids against the sieve with a spoon. To the drippings add a bottle of barbecue sauce – I use KC Masterpiece Original – and add vinegar (not much), pepper and oregano to taste. Heat the sauce thoroughly, just to blend.

When you’re getting ready to eat, slice the excess fat off the brisket. There’s a cap end and a flat end. The flat end is leaner, the cap fatter. The cap end, if you ask me, is to die for. The cap is just that: a cap of meat on top of the flat part. Slice diagonally starting from the flat end, slices a quarter of an inch thick. When you reach the cap, lift or cut the cap off and trim excess fat. The cap will fall apart as you try to slice it.

Place the meat on heavy tinfoil, loosely gather the foil (you don’t want to steam the meat as it is warming), and warm it on a new, small fire on the Weber. Heat the sauce, pile the brisket on a platter, set out the beans and cornbread, and enjoy.