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All right, let's go ahead and stir the pot a little bit today. Here's one I've believed for years, and I mean years. Low and slow is always better. I'm talking 225 degrees. Don't touch it. Don't even look at it. Don't even breathe near the smoker because you know what? You're just gonna mess it up. And if you weren't uh cooking at 225, oh you were doing it wrong, buddy. You know, I remember uh thinking that all the time, and and not even 225, but sometimes I'd be like, let's let's keep it at 210 low and slow. And I bought into that hard. Well, welcome in to the Oki Smoking Podcast. My name is John. When we come out here uh twice a week, Wednesday and Friday, between the fires. Pick a topic, talk about it for a minute, about 10 minutes or so, and on Mondays we have a full episode with Dolores. Thanks for hanging around, and this one is the low and slow. So let's get back to it. Now, when I first got into barbecue, everything I watched, everything I read, I mean, it was the same message. My friends uh that I cooked with and everything, uh, you know, gotta cook it low, gotta, gotta dial it down, uh, whether I'd be using a uh stick smoker or something, you know, dial it down, be patient. A cook's gotta take 12 hours minimum, 18 hours, oh, that's a great cook, you know. Uh good barbecue takes time. That's what I've always heard. And look, that sounds great. I mean, it sounds legit and it makes you feel like you're part of something, like you're doing it the right way. But what nobody tells you is you can take that mindset way too far. Um, I remember some of my early cooks, uh, I'd fire up the smoker early in the morning, still half asleep, uh, you know, have my coffee as I always do in the morning, uh, thinking I'm about to create some award-winning barbecue, you know, set it at 225 dial to the end, feeling like I'm just that pro, you know, that RCOA professional, uh looking for that number one top ten spot. And then I just sit there, you know, sat there for a long time. Uh, you know, checking temps every 10 minutes is like some magical thing gonna happen, you know? Um opening the lid, losing the heat, panicking, trying to fix it. And the next thing you know, what should have been a five or six hour cook turns into an all-day event. I mean, literally. Meanwhile, your wife's like, so we eating the day or tomorrow, you know, and uh heard that one many a time. Still do from time to time, uh, but not as much as I used to. But don't get me wrong, that can make some amazing barbecue. Low and slow can be awesome. Uh, I mean, you get the perfect cook, the ribs come out great, the brisket will melt in your mouth. You do feel like a barbecue king. Uh, but at other times you get dry meat and rubber skin on chicken, you may not get bark, um, and you're eating at 9:30 at night, sometimes even closer to midnight. Um, but then one day I was up, I don't even remember exactly when it was, but I got was kind of tired, and uh I was like, there's no way I'm gonna do this. So I went ahead and I just bumped the temperature up. I went ahead and raised the temperature so that it would get done a little quicker. I wasn't raising it as significantly. It ain't like I took it to 300 or anything. Um I just went ahead and dropped it to about 250 to 275. I was a little bit nervous. Now, this was probably five years ago or so. Um, you know, I thought I was gonna run the entire uh cook that I was cooking. I had some ribs going that day. I believe I had some brisket going as well. We were cooking for some people and it needed to be done. Uh, but then, you know, something happened for the better. Uh the cook was getting faster. I checked the temperature, the the internal temperature of the meat uh was uh going up. But but more importantly, the bark, the bark was forming better. Uh I thought the the fat was rendering excellent. I mean, everything looked great. I mean, when I cooked it low and slow, I never had a bark that looked quite like that. That that hotter temperature actually had done something better, at least in my opinion. And then when it came off the grill, those briskets, those ribs and everything, they were better. Not just okay, not just good enough, completely better. I was sitting there thinking I dragged them 225 cooks out way too long, way too many times, and never had I ever experienced my ribs to come out quite like these had here. But here's the thing: this ain't just on one cooker either. I mean, I've done this on my pit barrel cooker, I've done the same thing on my big green egg and on the pit boss pellet grill. Um still to this day, I sometimes will go ahead and start the pellet grill low if I'm going to sleep while I'm cooking a pork shoulder or starting a brisket. But then once I wake up, I go ahead and crank it up. That's just so I don't have to worry too much about it getting done too fast overnight. Uh I'll cook it at say 200 to 225 overnight and then start to crank it up if I'm doing it cook that way. Um, but I mean the food will come out great every time uh you cook it this way, every time I've tried it. Um that's when it started to really uh change my mind a little bit on is low and slow wrong? Or is it right? Or does it matter? I I don't know the answer to that 100%, but what I can tell you is low and slow, in my opinion, is overrated. I mean, when you go to cook-offs, they get a time and they get them cooked pretty fast. They get brisket, they get uh ribs, they're not cooking overnight, they're not cooking 12 hours, 18 hours in most cases. Uh there may be some that do, uh, but for the most part, they're doing fairly quick cooks that come out fantastic. And uh if you're cooking chicken at 225, I'm just gonna say it, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You're gonna get rubbery skin. You want to cook it at that 275, that 300. Heck, let's go to 325. Get that skin hotter, get that skin crispier, get that bark better. And it is this is the same with the ribs. You know, I cook in the pit barrel cooker, and I have those ribs going 275 to 325 all day long. I get them things hot and you know, they come out great. So what I'm trying to say here, whether you're cooking ribs, whether you're cooking brisket, or you know, anything at all, I'm gonna go ahead and say low and slow, don't worry about it. Cook it on up there. Get the food done, cook it at 250, cook it at 275. Uh, not everybody has 12 to 14 hours. And that's something else that I had heard someone say when that was uh uh said, Have you cooked a brisket or a pork shoulder? And they're like, No, I I am not cooking anything for 18 hours. Are you kidding me? I'll go to a restaurant or I'll come eat yours. Uh but you don't have to do that. You can cook it in a much shorter time. You can go ahead and not stress about having to wait all day getting up at the crack of dawn so you can try to have dinner before the sun goes down. Now, it's also going to depend on the size of meat you get, don't get me wrong. You go out and buy a 20-pound brisket. Well, you're in for a cook. Uh so it it's going to depend what size you get of things. But it's a basic uh size of brisket, you know, we can put a uh 10, 12 pound brisket on the pit barrel at six and be be done between noon and three, no problem. Uh the resting, you'd still let it rest for a while, and uh then you're ready to go ahead and eat. Another thing that I've found is stop chasing perfection. Uh and when you do that, you will start focusing on results. Uh I know some people that don't ever really start a cook, that don't ever really uh have never cooked certain things, a brisket bean one, because they're too worried about whether or not they need to cut a quarter inch of fat off or 0.33 inches of fat. I mean, is there really that big a difference? They're worried about if they put too much seasoning on, it's gonna rent it. They're worried about if the temperature is wrong, it's gonna be tough. They're they're worried about all these things and never even put it in the grill. They never even go ahead and uh get their day started cooking it. The results are what's gonna matter, and you're not gonna get any unless you put it on the grill. So quit chasing perfection, you're gonna start to see great results. So when people say low and slow is always better, what they really mean, that's what I was told. And I never questioned it. And I get it, barbecue has a lot of tradition, but sometimes that tradition turns into gatekeeping. Like if you don't do it their way. And there is no gatekeeping here on the Oki Smoking Podcast. I say it how I see it. Some people are gonna agree, some people are going to disagree, drop the comments, let me know. Do you agree, disagree? Is low and slow overrated? Is that the only way you cook today, still today? Because I know I've changed things to where I don't cook low and slow all that often anymore. I cook at a medium 250 to 275. What I will say, if you go above that on some cookers, such as a pellet grill, you're gonna reduce the amount of smoke you get. So the lower the cook, you will get a little more smoke. Uh, so you don't want to necessarily go 325, 350 if you're wanting that smoke flavor because you're gonna be using more fire. Uh you can always add a smoke tube though. And in the pit barrel cooker, because of the way it's designed, you're gonna get the smoke flavor no matter what. That thing is inside that barrel. Uh, this has been another episode of Between the Fires, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Be sure and find me Monday through Friday on TikTok around 4 30 a.m. with a cup of coffee. And if you would like to uh check out um Off Wayre, that is my coffee that uh I am sponsoring. You can go ahead and check it out at OkieSmoking.com forward slash coffee and use promo code OKIE to get 15% off. And yes, I do earn a commission, but it's some excellent coffee. Great story. Look them up, check them out, read their story. I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye now.

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