Introduction to Patience in Barbecue

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Hey y'all, this is John here from the Oki Smoking Podcast. Welcome to Between the Fires. These are just short episodes where I pull up a chair, slow things down just a little bit, and share what's been on my mind. No guests, no fancy setups, you know, just a few minutes between the fires of the grills to think, reflect, and hopefully spark something in you too. And today I just want to talk real briefly in this short episode about patience and what I've learned about patience from barbecue and the barbecue life. You know, if you've ever been staring at a brisket that just will not hit that temperature, you know, you're you're expecting to eat soon. You may have guests waiting or you're hungry yourself, you've done everything right. I mean, you trimmed it early, you seasoned it early, you kept all your temps steady because quite possibly, and I've done this, you early on look at it and say, Oh, it's going to get done way too fast. Have you ever done that? You'll be cooking something, and you will be like, wow, we don't eat for six hours, and and we're already at 140 degrees, 145. It's going to get done way too soon. I need to turn the temperature down. Tell me, have you done that? I know I have. And you turn it down just a little bit, it slows down, and then a few hours go by and you look at it, and now it's 170, and you're like, oh my, we gotta eat soon. And we need to get to say 201, maybe 195, whatever it is you're cooking, so then you've got to turn it back up, and then it kind of stalls there, it sits there. And that's another thing where you may not turn it down, and you just kind of let it cook, and it starts getting to the temperature, and then it just stalls. Uh, you know, the stall. And man, that stall teaches you more about patience than just about anything else, let me tell you. Uh, because in barbecue, you'll learn real quick that rushing it kind of runs it. It really does. Uh, you've got to have that patience and let it do its thing. There's no reason to rush it. Although I think more and more, uh, and you may or may not agree with me, the slow, the the slower method, you know, uh, I remember people always saying you've got to cook it at 225. You're cooking too hot. Let's get it down all the way to 210. Let's cook it at 210. Slow, uh, low and slow is the way to go. You know, you've heard that. I don't think that's quite the case. And and um, and you'll see many competition cooks that cook things for uh a quicker time than what the casual user would. You know, the guy out in their backyard, they'll be out there trying to cook it low and slow, like, oh, we had to cook the it's 15-hour cook, man. It was 21 hours. But, you know, if you can get the same results for eight hours instead of 15, wouldn't you? Maybe. I know. Uh it's it's a hard thing to grasp. But either way, whether you're doing that eight-hour cook or that 15-hour cook, patience is still key, no matter what type of cook you're doing. Whether you're doing it a little bit of a warmer 250, 275, or you're doing it at that 225 model, you're going to get to a point to where you get to that stall. And and that patience will test you. Uh, it's tested me many a times, and then you may think if you haven't already, I need to wrap it. Because of course, when you wrap it, what happens? It it seals in the heat. It makes it cook even quicker. That's what they say. And it does. You start to not let the heat escape, you start to kind of cook it, get all that heat, keep it in there, keep it warm, wrap it in some foil, uh, wrap it in some butcher paper. That's an argument in itself. I've did some uh some cooks in some foil recently and and and was told on uh get it on YouTube use butcher paper. I have a lot of uh butcher paper fans out there, and there's nothing wrong with that. I've used it. Uh I kind of like both of them. I rotate back and forth. I know when you use uh uh foil, if you're adding liquids, it's a little more cumbersome because uh the liquid kind of uh goes through it a little easier and the foil you can contain it a little better. Maybe do the both of best world, you know, a layer of uh foil and then butcher paper. I don't know. I've done that, I've done that too. But either way, you kind of wrap it up and that will help get the process uh cooking a little faster. And then when you wrap it, this is another thing that a lot of people do, and and including myself, is once you wrap it, what do you do? Sometimes you can a couple of things. Some people will just remove it from the grill completely. I'm gonna put it in the oven, let it do its thing, smoking's over. I don't need to put any more charcoal on, I don't need to waste any more pellets. That's one option. The other option is turn the grill up 25 degrees, maybe 50 degrees, maybe you're cooking at 225, and now all of a sudden you want to cook at 275. That's as well another option to kind of get it heated up a little quicker to kind of get over that patience. Your patience is at this point running thin, and then and then get it done that way. But you know, it it is something uh that stall and the patience of cooking uh barbecue, at least long cooks, pork shoulders and brisket and all those uh cooks that's gonna take you 10 hours, eight hours, six hours. Uh you definitely need patience. Now, if you don't have those patience, I'll tell you a couple of uh things if you haven't tried, or at least one that you probably would like, and that's the pit barrel cooker. I have one of those. I've got six different cookers, so I've tried the pit barrel cooker, the Weber Smoky Mountain, I've got the big green egg, love that thing as well, the Minimax. But if you're cooking on it, the uh pit barrel cooker, the PBC, you don't have to worry as much about time. Uh you put it on, you let it do its thing, it's going to get done a lot quicker. The PBC does not have any adjustment on temperature. You put your charcoal in, you let it light, it heats up. It's supposed to average between 275 and 300 degrees. I've seen it go up to 325 plus, but you just don't sweat it. You don't worry about it. You let it do its cook. You have you a thermometer inside, and you know the internal temperature, you know when to pull it. Because we all know by now, time isn't when it's done, it's when it gets to the proper temperature. How many times do you hear people say, How long should I cook a twelve twelve pound brisket? I've got an eight-pound pork, but how long do I need to cook it? I don't know. I honestly do not know. There's gonna be so many factors. Maybe you are in Colorado in the mountains or in California, uh, different elevations, different temperatures, different heat. Maybe you are in uh Alaska and it is very cold. All these play a factor in how long it's going to take to cook. It's gonna play a factor in how hot you're gonna get your grill. It's because if it's hotter, it it likely sometimes will cook hotter. When it's colder, it'll likely cook colder. The oxygen's gonna play a factor. Uh, the air is gonna play a factor, so you've got that. Then you've got the meat itself. What quality of meat is it? Is it uh is it more fat than meat? It you know, and then are you gonna trim it and you're gonna lose two pounds? Are you gonna leave it all on? Uh are you gonna be cooking other things crammed in there with it, not allowing it to cook as fast? Are you gonna have it uh closer to the temper closer to the fire? Is it indirect? Is it direct? So all these things come into play, and then you can't give a time. You can and this is another fascinating thing. Have you ever cooked something? Uh whatever it is, we'll just go ahead and since we've been talking brisket, say brisket, and you cook the perfect brisket. I know I've cooked some real good ones, and and I've cooked some that were a little bit of a dud. Uh not not horrible, but you know, wasn't spot on. I mean, it they're they're a hard meat to cook for sure. But have you ever cooked a uh uh brisket or whatever it is, and it was perfect. And you said 12 hours, 325 degrees, uh X amount of charcoal, uh I used hickory, I used pecan, I put three of them in. I started it at six, I put this rub, I did all these things. And at six o'clock this evening, it was perfect. We let it rest till eight o'clock and enjoyed dinner. It was the best brisket I ever had. I know the formula, I know how to do it now. Have you ever had that happen? Because I have. And don't fall in that trap. And maybe the next time all that falls in place perfectly. However, you can cook a brisket like that. I remember one uh that I did. This was many, many years ago, and it was one of the best briskets I ever did. And I want to say it cooked 10 to 11 hours. Uh and I think then we were cooking it at about 250, 225, somewhere in there, and it was phenomenal. I said, I've mastered this. The next one, I didn't pay attention to the temperature as much as I should have. I you still monitored it. Did the same thing. Ten hours comes along. It was only like 175 degrees. I'm like, are you kidding me? Right now. Uh so it took several hours longer. Miss Oki Dolores was uh waiting for the brisket to get done, and it went on, you know, 9 o'clock. Finally got done rest, and it's like midnight till we ate. So that's why you can't repeat. It's it's not each one. It's like a fingerprint. Each brisket is unique in itself. The meat's different, it breaks down different. Various things go into it, so it's hard to get uh to do everything the same and have the exact same time and everything each and every time. Uh the best thing, the best practice though, is just have patience. Gotta have some character, some tr strength, and uh it's not easy, but I've learned how to stop fighting the stall. Let it do its thing, and uh once it starts to get over it, things will start to move. Uh just hold the temp, stay steady, trust the process because patience doesn't just make better barbecue, it makes better people. It really does. And uh it'll make you a better person, it'll make you a better barbecue extraordinaire. And this is just between the fires, uh, micro episodes uh that come out on Wednesdays and on Fridays. So if this hit home to you, share it with a friend or text me your thoughts. Uh, you can text us at 405-458-5513. You can also call that number and leave us a voicemail, and we might just pick it and play it on a future podcast episode on this channel. Uh, would love to hear from you. Uh once again, that's 405-458-5513, where our regular episodes come out on Mondays, meet Dolores and sometimes a guest. Where we're just between the fires right here on the Okie Smoking Podcast. Until next time, be patient, be patient on that stuff. My name's Jimmy, and I'm out of here.

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