The beef barbecue page

Some factoids and suggestions...

• You can't grass-feed beef for barbecue, the process doesn't lead to sufficient fat for the meat to endure the process.

• In the 1960s, United States growers of beef began cutting beef and selling it in "boxed sets" tending to cut the butcher out of the cycle.

• The sort-of really big "brontosaurus" ribs are beef short ribs.

• If your butcher or meat packer lopped the "packer" or fatty end off your brisket, then you just bought a pot roast not a brisket to barbecue. Ask your local barbecue joint where they buy their cuts.

• Smoke and cook between 225° and 250° measuring this temperature as close to the meat as possible. This is for smaller cookers where cooking any hotter is a disaster. Big, trailer-sized cookers can go up to 375°, but the meat will be more distant from the fire. Always cook brisket as far away from the first as possible with the fattest end nearest the fire.

• Smoke and cook for about 1¼ to 1½ hours per pound of brisket. Afterward, let it rest to reclaim the juices.

• Don't cook ribs too hot (but hotter than brisket). Too hot makes the bone marrow come out and the result is gamier.

• Don't smoke with chips because it makes the meat too smokey—as if you used liquid smoke flavoring. If you use chips because on a gas cooker, don't use them the entire time you cook.

• Yes, I ripped my illustrations off from an episode of BBQ with Franklin on PBS. It's "Episode 9: Pickin' Beef," well worth watching. I've not seen better illustrations on any show or web site and I don't have a smoker anymore as I write this.

Let's get started...

The map. For barbecue, what interests us most are the brisket, ribs and short plate.

Brisket

The chuck is mostly for pot roast, not barbecue. There are two briskets per animal right and left. The brisket should have a fat cap, the "packer."
Trimming some of the fat from the brisket. You end up with a long wedge of meat—still with surrounding fat.
Here, it's almost trimmed, but too much fat has been removed. The fat needs to remain a) to keep the meat moist and b) protect it from burning while cooking.

Steaks and other stuff

Though less interesting for barbecue, lots of steaks come out of the short loin (lower ribs) and the sirloin, what's after the bottom of the rib cage.

Ribs

From the middle rib area, near the top of the back, come the rib roast and back ribs, ...
...the short ribs in the middle and the plate underneath.
In the middle, the short ribs; to the cutter's left, the back ribs and ribeye steaks; to the cutter's right, the plate ribs.
The plate ribs.
Separating the short- and plate ribs from the rest of the forward, upper ribs.
Peel the belly sheath from the plat ribs; on a pig, what you're peeling is called bacon.
Plate rib, from the grocery store. About 6 hours to cook. Slather in Louisiana hot sauce, then salt, then pepper. Fire about 285°, bone-side down.
After 5½ hours, spritz liberally with water or apple juice, etc. (This is in place of "mopping.") You don't want the "bark" around the edges to get too crunchy. (The bark should be mostly fat, especially on a brisket, and not meat.) When done, it should be tender all the way through to the bone and everywhere, but not falling off the bones. Let it rest out of the heat.