Thanks for helping out!

Here is the story….

My buddy has a Blackstone griddle and got tired of running around and carrying different oils, spatulas, paper towels and seasonings in and out of the kitchen.  I have the same problem when I am cooking on my Weber kettle.

My buddy decided to make a grill caddy so he would have everything he needed in one location and could carry it all at once.

I thought it was a great idea!!

The grill caddy a dowel for holding a roll of paper towels on one side.

On the other side it has the obligatory bottle opener.

There is plenty of space inside the caddy for carry utensils, barbecue sauce, thermometers, etc.  Basically keeping everything you need in one easy to carry location.

I think the price for a grill caddy would be $49 with free shipping included.

We think the grill caddy is a great idea but we really need to hear from you.

The link below takes you to a Google Survey that lets you put in anonymous feedback.  We would absolutely love to hear what you think about the Grill Caddy, either positive or negative.

Here is a link to share your thoughts! 

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

When I am serving up brisket I like to keep things simple and let the brisket be the star of the show.

In that spirit I will keep this post simple as well.  Here is what I serve along side my brisket along with guidance on how much brisket you need to feed a crowd.

Potato Salad

• 3 pounds baby red potatoes
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 3 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 Tablespoon brisket rub
• 2 stalks celery
• 4 hard boiled eggs

Boil the potatoes for about 20 minutes until they are fork tender.  Drain, rinse under cold water and then slice into quarters.

Slice the celery and hard boiled eggs thinly.

Combined all ingredients and toss to coat the potatoes thoroughly.

Pinto Beans

• 1 pound dried pinto beans
• 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 Tablespoon brisket rub
• salt and pepper to taste

Soak pinto beans in a pan of cold water over night.

The next day drain and rinse the pinto beans.  Cover the beans with cold water, add the barbecue sauce and brisket rub then simmer the beans for 2 hours until tender.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Brisket Barbecue Sauce

I don’t even want to hear that junk about “real barbecue doesn’t need sauce.”  That might be correct but in the real world 98% of people WANT sauce.  Here is what I serve.

• 2 Cups water
• 1 Cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon beef base concentrate (Better than Bouillon brand)
• 2 teaspoons black pepper

Combine ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes.

How Much Brisket Do You Need to Cook?

When I am cooking for a crowd I figure that each guest will eat a 2/3 of a pound of brisket.

So, if I am going to have 10 guests I will need to have 6.7 pounds of finished brisket.

I also figure that I will lose 40% of a whole packer brisket to trimmings, etc.

When you divide 6.7 pounds by 60% you see that you will need to start with an 11 pound packer.

10 people will need about an 11 pound packer brisket.

So…instead of twisting your brain doing math you can get a good rough estimate by saying a little over a pound of untrimmed packer brisket per guest.

Of course other variables come into play.

• Do you want to have leftovers?
• Are you serving other proteins like sausage, etc?
• Are you feeding a bunch of teenage boys or the local church function?

Adjust your meat purchase accordingly but use the pound of untrimmed brisket per guest as a solid starting point.

Yesterday I showed you how to render brisket fat into beef tallow and use the tallow for slow cooking a brisket flat.

That was a fun trick but you can get a LOT more mileage out of your rendered brisket fat.

It turns out that beef tallow has an extremely high smoke point which makes it a great oil for deep frying.  In fact, until 1990, McDonald’s french fries were deep fried in beef tallow.  That is back in the day when they were GOOOOD!

We used this batch of tallow to deep fry some sliced up Yukon Gold potatoes and a big pile of chicken wings.

And yes, wings deep fried in beef tallow are freaking fantastic.

My favorite way of using beef tallow is to pair it with cast iron.

Want to make the best steak in the history of the world?

Forget about going sous vide or doing a reverse sear.

Instead, add two tablespoons of beef tallow to a cast iron skillet and heat on high until the cast iron hits at least 450F.

Season a ribeye with salt and pepper and then sear it in the beef tallow for four minutes per side.  Toss is a little bit of green stuff and let that get a nice little sear as well.

I have cooked steaks about twenty different ways but I have never found anything that comes close to searing a ribeye in beef tallow.

It will make you weak in the knees.

The infrared thermometer is a pretty cool tool that really helps me get the temps dialed in while doing cast iron cooking.  The IR gun is pretty affordable and if you get one you will have fun taking temps all over the house 🙂

There is no way around it, a full packer brisket has a LOT of fat.

Most backyard barbecue guys and competition teams throw their brisket trimmings into the trash and write it off as a waste.

That’s a shame so I am going to show you how to take what everyone calls a waste and turn it into Liquid Gold.

Here is what is going on….

When I trim a brisket I save all of the trimmings and cut them 1 inch cubes or just give them a solid rough chop.  The trimmings get put into a 2 gallon Ziploc freezer bag and are stored in the freezer.

After two or three briskets I will have about 6-8 pounds of fat and trimmings stored up.

At this point I break out my meat grinder and grind the fat and trimmings through a medium die.

Add the ground trimmings to a large stock pot and gently heat as the fat starts to melt.

As the fat melts all of the little bits of meat will float to the surface and form a raft.  Skim off the meat bits with a strainer (they make great doggie treats!) until nothing but clear melted fat is left behind.

This process is amazingly quick and easy.  I can render down five pounds of brisket trimmings in about 30 minutes.

I let the rendered fat cool for 15-20 minutes and then pour it through a fine mesh strainer into a 2 quart Pyrex container.

What you now have is a big vat of beef tallow.

You can either put it to use right away or store it in the refrigerator (it freezes for months).

So…what can you do with beef tallow?

One classic use of beef tallow is to employ it in a confit cooking process.  Here is how it works.

I seasoned a three pound brisket flat and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight along with the beef tallow.

The brisket was placed in a Dutch oven along with some aromatics (one medium sliced onion, one head of garlic and three stalks of celery).

I melted the tallow in the microwave and then poured the tallow into the Dutch oven to completely immerse the brisket

I stuck a lid on this guy and placed it into a 275F oven for 3 hours until the brisket reached an internal temperature of 205F.  I took the brisket out of the tallow and let it cool for a while before slicing it up.

Of course this didn’t taste like a traditional low and slow smoked brisket.

It did taste like a serious piece of beef that had been slow roasted immersed in beef tallow with aromatics.  This ain’t our Momma’s pot roast!

We tore this guy up pretty fast but I did mange to save a few slices to use in a brisket slider 🙂

So that is one reason to not throw away your brisket fat 🙂

I’ll share more ways to put this stuff to use later!

Four Essential Barbecue Books

Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue

Paul Kirk, aka The Baron of Barbecue, was one of the founding fathers of the modern day competitive barbecue scene.

Paul is a member of the Barbecue Hall of Fame, was a founding member of the Kansas City Barbecue Association and served as a Board Member for 24 years.

Paul has hundreds of awards under his belt including seven World Championships.  Paul’s reputation as one of the world’s best brisket cooks is well deserved.

Paul’s published his book in 2004 and, in general, the recipes are not in line with what wins at KCBS competitions today.  There is no Wagyu brisket or butter bath cupcake chicken thighs in Paul’s book.

What “Championship Barbecue” does have is deep barbecue wisdom that will serve you well regardless of whether you are a backyard smoker or a competition team looking to build you skills.

I don’t think Paul even offers a single recipe that says, “This is what I used to win.”

The spirit of Paul’s book is best captured by the follow excerpt:

Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue, pg 266

“Building a BETTER Barbecued Brisket

By now the astute reader who started this chapter and has read all the way through to this point will realize something.  After yammering on about how much I love brisket and providing lots of in-depth information on how to barbecue it, I’ve given you only two barbecued brisket recipes.

Am I keeping all the prize-winning ones to myself? Am I afraid of the competition?

The answer to both of these questions in NO.

Getting really good at barbecued brisket is a hands-on thing.  It’s more about technique-managing and maintaining the temperature and smoke levels-than about recipes.  I want to encourage you to get into brisket like I did-by doing, not reading.

So, read this and then get busy.”

The trick to reading Paul’s book is to realize that he is understated.

Most people miss out on tricks Paul shares because he doesn’t hit you over the head with them.  He tells you once.  You can either choose to pay attention or not.

In addition to brisket, Paul offers up ways to barbecue and smoke just about anything else you can imagine.  His section on sausage is pretty strong.

If you want highly detailed, step by step instructions for how to win a KCBS championship then this book will not meet your needs.

That being said, I will be willing to wager that the cook that takes home the Grand Championship at the next KCBS completion has a copy of Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue sitting on their bookshelf.

Legends of Texas Barbecue by Robb Walsh

There are a lot of barbecue books sitting around my house.

Some are great for the recipes.

Some are great for the wisdom.

Some are great for the history.

On the history front my absolute favorite is “Legends of Texas Barbecue: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses” by Robb Walsh.

Legends of Texas is an authentic look at the small bbq joints and old time Pit Bosses that truly defined the Texas regional style.

The book spans Presidential barbecue for Lyndon B Johnson all the way to how they handle barbecue in the Texas state penitentiary.

Page 84 has the barbecue sauce recipe that Barbara Bush gave to White House visitors 🙂

The recipes in the book look fine but I don’t think I have ever tried any of them.

This is the book I grab when I get nostalgic about living in Texas and want to relive a few memories.

Robb Walsh wrote a book that captures the true essence of Texas barbecue and it is beautiful.

Peace Love and Barbecue by Mike Mills

Mike Mills is rib man but there is plenty of wisdom for other aspects of barbecue passed on by the folks he interviews.

There are plenty of great barbecue recipes in Mike’s book but what makes this book special are the interviews and tall tales that Mike shares with other pitmasters.

I have read Mike’s book many times and it gets a little sweeter each time.

Franklin Barbecue: A Meat Smoking Manifesto

I’m not going to muck around and try to describe why you need this book.  I will leave that job to the professionals.

“The most refreshing barbecue book to come along yet. Rather than preaching about ‘one true way,’ Aaron Franklin guides you through all the wood and smoke so that you can find your own style. And instead of just listing ingredients and rattling off generic recipes, these pages tell the story of a place and a barbecue tradition steeped in history. This isn’t just a book about barbecue; 
this book is Central Texas barbecue.” 
— Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor, Texas Monthly, and author of The Prophets of Smoked Meat

“Aaron Franklin makes the finest barbecue I’ve ever had, barbecue worth waiting for. His work and his words express a truly rare level of commitment and expertise. With Franklin Barbecue, he shares it all—in a book that, fortunately, you don’t have to wait for.”
— Anthony Bourdain 

 “Pure genius! Aaron Franklin has distilled years’ worth of barbecue knowledge into this book. In it, he exposes the sacred insights of a top pitmaster—information that can otherwise only be learned from long nights spent staring at a fire, shovel in hand, constantly prodding and pinching your meat to figure out that ‘just perfect’ point of doneness. This book is a game changer: read it, and your barbecue will improve overnight!”
— Adam Perry Lang, chef, restaurateur, and author of Serious Barbecue

One of the more famous brisket cooks around today is Aaron Franklin.  Chances are you have seen him on television or read about his restaurant where people stand in line for hours to try his brisket.