BBQ made easy… (easier)

Boneless chuck roast and pork spare ribs basking in the smoke

I just finished 2 weekends of slow BBQ cooking.
Probably 50 pounds of boneless chuck and pork spare ribs in total.
(In this picture, about 20 pounds.)
After the first weekend I was gonna retire.
Too much fretting over a wood burning cooker, hoping the temperature would remain within a acceptable BBQ range.
( I guess that’s what they invented Jack Daniels for… mellowing the cook)
To keep the firebox heading towards some future temperature you need just right amount of wood fuel and air combination, at the right time.
I’m stressing just thinking about it.

I use a Oklahoma Joe’s (indirect firebox) wood burning vertical bbq/smoker.

My bbq cooker was built for Oklahoma Joe’s the famous Kansas City BBQ restaurant.
The cooker model was discontinued, then taken up by New Braunfels smokers in New Braunfels Texas home of the famous New Braunfels Smokehouse.
Char-Broil then bought out the New Braunfels line… so if you have to have one… that’s where you find yours.

In my opinion, there are 4 elements of slow BBQ cooking.
The cooker, the fuel/smoke, the meat, and the method of cooking.

I covered the cooker above a bit … good seals, heavy enough steel to last and retain heat, good transfer of smoke to the meat, and efficient fire box for fuel burning.
Portability is also a plus, I can get this in the back of my pick-up solo.
(Don’t get any ideas though…. have cooker, will not travel!)
This cooker is large enough to cook for 50 people. Any more than that, you’ll either need to cook in two shifts, or rent a larger cooker.

Your fuel
If using wood, should be some combination of readily available wood for heat, consistency, and economy… oak, maple etc.
Then some flavor wood like fruit/nut wood .. Apple, cheery, hickory, pear etc. You don’t need a truck full, just enough to add that sweet smokey flavor.
You want to tailor your smoke flavor to you particular meat.
Delicate meat, delicate flavor perhaps a shortened time exposed to the smoke with no fruit wood flavor at all.
You judge from your taste.
You can over do the smokey flavor…. experimentation will get you in the right zone for the particular meat you are cooking.

The meat.
Slow cooking meat is usually relatively cheap, after all you are using tough cuts that take hours to soften up.
Get the meat as fresh as possible.
I usually dry rub the meat the day prior to cooking.
There are many rubs available online you can make yourself.
I use boneless chuck roast as a slow cooking mainstay.
I know it’s blasphemous, but I’m not a huge fan of pork shoulder/butt… The double digit cooking hours seem not to be worth the taste to me.
I also use pork spare ribs as opposed to baby back ribs… twice the meat and half the price.
Yes the cooking times are twice too, but I can handle 5 hours at a sitting…
You’ll have to learn to trim a spare ribs St Louis style.
Here’s how the BBQ Pit Boy’s trim their ribs on Youtube.

On to cooking…
As I stated earlier I dry rub the meat at least 24 hours in advance.
Start your cooker fire in the box… take the meat out of your fridge.
The meat should be room temperature when it goes in the cooker.
Cold meat combats the heat of the fire and will prolong cooking times.
The wood fire takes appx. one hour to get to a good temp (220 degrees or so) in my cooker.

I subject my beef and pork to oak and apple wood smoke for 2-2 1/2 hours.
Then I wrap them in heavy foil and “bake them” in the cooker for the remaining 2 hours or more.
Wrapping in foil is a controversial method.
Here’s a link to why they call using foil… “The Texas Crutch”.

I like foil because of smoke flavor control and keeping the meat moist.
Cooks faster too? What’s not to like?
One warning… if you foil too soon… your meat may have not let go of enough of it’s moisture content. Your meat can boil in it’s juices and turn out tasting like boiled not bbq’ed meat. Take it from experience….

I marinade and mop after foiling the meats.
Several tablespoons of Mr. Stubbs beef marinade or mopping sauce.
I marinade right after foiling but for thicker sauces especially sweeter sauces… you might wait to sauce in the final hour of cooking so as not to have any burning.
I also use Mr. Stubb’s spicy BBQ sauce, and Johnny Harris’s BBQ sauce as a dipping finishing sauce. Loose Lips Larry’s is a excellent brand of sauces.
But all that is up to personal taste.
Here is a great resource if you want to make you own sauces from scratch.
I’ve tried several of the recipes and they are very good.
Knock yourselves out… Pepperfool BBQ sauce recipes

I try to move the meat higher and lower in the cooker to subject all meats to the differing heat zones in the cooker… and keep things from burning.
The key here is… keep the door closed as much as possible.
Figure a way to remove and move meat quickly… You can lose 70 degrees of cooker temperature in a minute with the door open.
Think like a pit crew of NASCAR race… get focused, and gitter done quick!
Good (cheap) pit hot mits of some sort are a must! (you will destroy them!)
A roll of paper towels too because it all messy with smoky grease. (yum)
A tube of Handy wipes is not a bad idea to have around.

After all is said and done.. Your meat is falling off the bone

I said earlier that I almost retired from my BBQ cooking because of the roller coaster ride of cooker temperature changes.
My delicate psyche just could handle not being in total control!
( My wife Marie can tell you more about that)
I am pleased to say… I’ve gotten back on the BBQ pony… or pig as it might be.
I ordered a log burner/gas assist element from Tejas Smokers and am now officially “cheating” while BBQing. (Check out the smokers Tejas Smokers make… drool drool!)
The propane element buried in the bottom of my cooker firebox, not only fires up the initial wood fuel faster, it is a “assist” in maintaining temperatures through all phases of cooking.

I am very happy with the maiden voyage of my new hot rodded cooker!
I bbq smoked with wood and propane for the first 2 1/2 hours, foiled the meat, then let the wood burn out and ran on propane the final 2 or so hours.
Everything turned out super! And I couldn’t tell any difference in taste.

This is so much easier… the only easier solution is buying it already cooked from some BBQ shack!

You don’t really have to go to all the trouble for smoky BBQ that I do.
You too can have smoky flavored cooking on your propane grill or charcoal.
Here’s a link to a good website that will show you how… The Firepit and Grilling Guru… smoking box.
Good luck! Good eatin!