1. Burn some hardwood down to coals.
2. Place a tough cut of meat over the coals and cook until tender.
3. Pull out a hunk of meat, add a little finishing sauce if you like,
and enjoy!
When you burn a hardwood like hickory or oak down to coals, the "bitter" components of the smoke are burned off in the flames. What remains is a thin, sweet smoke coming from the coals that is almost invisible to the eye. This is the smoke that produces the characteristic pink aurora in the surface of the meat that gives barbecue its distinctive flavor. I do not believe it is possible to get too much of this smoke in the meat. Without it, the meat is nothing more than a roast. That's why every barbecue joint worth its salt has a separate hearth for making the coals that are subsequently picked up in a shovel and placed under the meat in the pits. While you might see a ton of white smoke coming from the hearth chimney, you will seldom see anything coming from the chimneys above the pits. But you sure can smell it!
So much for the one and only really important thing about barbecue. All the rest is window dressing. The question of how long to cook is primarily a question of time and temperature. Temperature is a function primarily of distance from the coals and air circulation. (The word barbecue itself derives from the name of the wooden structure the West Indians used to suspend meat over coals for cooking.) Tough cuts of meat like beef brisket take a very long time for the connective tissues to break down. Therefore, very low temperatures are in order. Pork takes less time.
I am amused by the protracted daily discussions on this mailing list about thermometers. Barbecue is an art, not a science. Pitmasters may argue a lifetime over whether the racks should be 16 or 18 inches above the coals, but I have never visited a pit in which a thermometer was used! Most of them have no idea what the temperature is. Oh, they might touch a door with the palm of their hand. More likely they are going to be studying the wood, the outside temperature, the humidity, etc. Like my golfing buddy sez about my collection of putters, "It ain't the fiddle, its the fiddler!" Some truly great barbecue can be made on an old set of bed springs held over a bed of coals by cinder blocks at the corners.
Most folks like to push their barbecue in a particular direction with a little finishing sauce. That's okay so long as it does not mask the barbecue flavor. Of course, if the meat was roasted in a gas grill or some other such "oven on wheels" that produces no wood smoke at all, a strong finishing sauce will be necessary to emulate a barbecue "taste". That stuff might be good to eat, but, folks, please don't call it barbecue!
Dave Lineback
It is the thin, nearly invisible smoke from glowing wood coals
that produces the distinctive flavor of a really great barbecue. If you
can actually see smoke coming from your pit with the naked eye,
something is wrong with your fire and you are in trouble!
In the preparation of traditional barbecue, the wood is always burned to
coals in hearths away from the meat. In this coal-making process, most
of the undesirable chemicals are burned away, leaving only the coals and
their "thin" smoke. These coals are subsequently placed in the pits
under the meat. The desirable flavor of the woods -- hickory, oak, pecan
-- are preserved in the "thin" blue smoke these coals produce.
Those who would cook with gas or electricity often attempt to imitate
this flavor with a piece of smoldering wood that produces an opaque
white smoke. I personally use this technique only for grilling over
charcoal. A few chunks of mesquite bellowing away for the 8 or 10
minutes it take to grill the world's best New York strip steaks is one
thing. Exposing a nice pork shoulder to the white smoke of oak or
hickory or any wood, for that matter, for hours on end is a sure way to
ruin the barbecue. Next think you know, folks will be breaking out the
aluminum foil!
One of the greatest smells in the world is standing outside a barbecue
joint on a cool morning as they are cooking a thousand pounds or so of
barbecue over wood coals in their pits. Unless they happen to be making
coals at the moment, you will actually see little, if any, smoke. But
the smell ... now that's something else.
Dave Lineback
lineback@ipass.net
http://www.ipass.net/~lineback
"Via ovicipitum dura est."
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