My father
was a Texas Oilman and Rancher that traveled all over the State for his
business. Sometimes he would take me along on his road trips and my favorite
thing would be when we stopped for lunch. Dad
knew every good hole-in-the-wall Barbecue place in Central and West Texas. We would
always get some brisket and sometimes sausage links or ribs with onion,
jalapeno and bread. No beans, potato salad or other sides were bought, I was
taught that the meat was the reason we were there. My father was quite the BBQ
Pitmaster himself and was always looking at different styles of Barbecue smoker
designs and had several different ones made. I can remember my family cooking
briskets, sausage links and ribs for church and school fundraisers along with
family barbecue get-togethers. As I grew older I was always asking the
pitmasters at each place we stopped questions about how they cooked, seasoned
the meat, what type of wood they preferred and any other things I could get
them to tell me. In those days many of the pits were made of sheet steel, brick
or stone. Most were simply a long rectangle with a lid to lift and a grill to
put meat on. Fires sometimes burned at one end and the smoke passed through the
pit around the meat to a smoke stack at the other end or smoke simply rose
through the meat and found its way out of the pit around the lid. My favorite
places to eat had long, steel pits that they shoveled coals into a door at one
end or at the back of the pit. Most barbecue places today use modern-type
offset smokers with many now using smokers that burn pellets or lump charcoal.
A few of the best Texas style barbecue joints still use the old type pits and
cook with real wood coals. I realize that barbecue is done different all over
the country and I am sure many methods are excellent. My goal here is to simply
give you the instructions to make a simple Texas style box pit and how to use
it. I am going to show pictures of my latest pit construction along with
recipes for rubs, sauces and how to cook a Texas style brisket, ribs, sausage
and other cuts of meat. My pit is three feet wide, three feet tall and 6 feet
long.
The grill of
expanded metal sits on a rail about 10 inches deep in the pit. The frame is one
inch steel tubing but I have used angle iron with equal success. The covering
is simply sheet metal I had left over from constructing a metal building. I
have seen these pits built out of stone, brick, sheet steel and other
materials. Some buddies and I even built one to use at a deer camp by stacking
concrete blocks and using a piece of scrap metal for the lid. I put a metal
counterweight on the back of my pit lid to help with opening and closing the
heavy lid or hold it open while I tend to the meat. You don’t need to worry
about a smoke stack to draw the smoke out as you will be shoveling wood coals
or lump charcoal coals into the end of the pit under the meat and the smoke
will rise through the meat and find its way out of the pit. I build a fire of
oak or mesquite in a fire ring close enough to the pit so I can put a shovel
full of coals in the pit as needed. I cut a door in the sheet metal where I
shovel in coals directly under the grill on one end of the pit. Sometimes if I
am in a hurry or just cooking a small amount of meat I use lump oak or mesquite
charcoal and shovel it in the pit when it is burning and covered with white
ash. The great thing about this type pit is you can use it to cook for just a
couple of people or it will handle enough meat for a hundred people depending
on what you cook. You can cook a half a deer, hog, lamb or goat on this pit if
you need to.
I am going to give you some family
recipes and then tell you how to I use them and some tips on how I cook meat. I
will also give you a temperature guide for cooking and wrapping your meats. I
don’t use a thermometer much anymore as I kind of know what I am looking for in
the meat bark and pretty much can tell when I want to wrap it and when I want
to take it off the pit. If you don’t have a lot of experience with barbecue, by
all means use a thermometer as good meat is too expensive to mess up. The
methods and recipes here are from my family, friends and other Texas pit masters
that have shared with me through the years. There are lots of other recipes,
methods and opinions out there. With that said here are some of mine. The meat
rub: I use a simple four part rub made of kosher salt, course ground black
pepper, garlic powder and allspice. In a quart jar use equal parts salt and
pepper with about a teaspoon of garlic powder and a teaspoon of allspice and
mix well. I wet the meat with Worcestershire sauce, olive oil or vinegar
whatever I have the most of usually. I then liberally rub the rub all over the
meat to give it a good coating and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least
an hour and sometimes even overnight. This is what will give you a good bark or
crust on your meats and enhance the flavor. The mop: I take one cup of barbecue
sauce (I will give you my recipe), three cups of water and one cup of vinegar
to which I add some sliced onion and a quartered lemon. Place a half stick of
butter in this mixture and place in a pot or pan on the grill in the pit to
heat. This is simply used to mop or dip the meat pieces as needed in order to
give the meat moisture as it is cooking. You can find a meat mop in many
grocery stores or online, it looks just like a miniature floor mop and works
great. An old cup towel or rag works just as good. The sauce: Good barbecue
does not really need sauce but lots of people like to have some on the side so
here is an easy one that most seem to like. I never baste meat on the pit with
sauce as it will caramelize and burn, which is not the flavor you or looking
for.
This is a basic Texas style sauce
and you can add different spices if you want more heat or substitute molasses,
sorghum or other syrup for the brown sugar.
1 32 ounce bottle of ketchup
½ cup of brown sugar
½ cup of molasses
1 cup of vinegar
½ cup of water
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon meat rub
1 tablespoon of course ground pepper
This is the basic sauce feel free to
add more pepper, sugar, cumin, chili powder, paprika, your favorite hot sauce
or other spices. Experiment and come up with your own. I sometimes add leftover
strong coffee for an espresso sauce or substitute pickled jalapeno juice
instead of vinegar for a more spicy sauce. Cooking the meats: In Texas,
barbecue almost always includes brisket so I will cover how to cook a Texas
style brisket and then cover some other basics. Remember this is how I do it
and there are many more ways to cook a brisket and many more opinions. This
method has always turned out a good product for my family. I usually pick
smaller briskets with lots of meat. I buy packer trim as I want to trim the fat
myself so any of the fat that will render as it cooks is left on the brisket to
keep it moist and flavorful. Pick a brisket that is flexible. The brisket that
does not flex well when you bend it usually has more hard fat that lean meat.
Take the brisket out of the plastic and trim off only the hard fat. Wet it down
and cover with rub and set aside to rest until you are ready to place on the
pit. You will also be able to cook prime ribs, large roasts and other large
cuts of meat the same way. When you have your wood coals or lump charcoal
burning and ready shovel into the pit, add the coals and let the pit get up to
cooking heat. I try to cook somewhere between 250-350 degrees Fahrenheit. Again
the temperature is not critical it just makes the cook longer or slower. One
good thing about this kind of pit is you can place the meat directly over the
coals and if it is cooking to fast or trying to burn just move it to the part
of the pit where the meat is away from the coals it will keep cooking and
smoking. I try not to check the meat too often as it lets heat out of the pit,
but I do check the meat now and then. If it is getting dry, I mop the meat to
add moisture. I wrap my briskets and other meats when they have the desired
bark and color. If you are unsure stick a meat thermometer in the meat and take
a reading, somewhere between 150-165 degrees is about right for a brisket. I
wrap my meat in paper not aluminum foil. I believe meat steams in foil and then
tastes and has the texture of roast beef not barbecue. I like to use the pink
butcher paper as it works well for me. If you use white waxed butcher paper
place the waxed side out away from the meat. I have used plain brown wrapping
paper and even paper sacks from the grocery store and the meat comes out fine.
The paper will allow the meat to breathe, not steam, and continue cooking
without over smoking and getting dry. At around 185-195 degrees I take the
paper wrapped brisket and place in an ice chest (without the ice of course)
lined with old towels. Cover with an old towel and shut in the ice chest for at
least an hour or until you plan to slice it and serve. This allows the meat to
continue to tenderize and take a set so it will slice clean. Slice across the
grain and serve. Any large cut of meat I do very similar, ribs I simply cook
until they have the color and bark I desire. They will bend and start to break
when you try to pick them up with a meat fork from one end. When they reach this
point simply wrap in paper and place in ice chest until ready to serve. On
chicken and steaks I can tell by color and crust if they are ready or not. Use
a thermometer until you are a good judge on these. On this type of pit you can
hold most any meat for quite a while by simply wrapping in paper and placing on
the far side of the pit away from the coals. Give this style pit and these
methods a try and I believe you will find them a favorite method of yours also.
Several generations of Texans swear by it. Wild Ed
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