Super smokin': BBQ brisket and spare ribs

I love football, and I love barbecue. Naturally, you'd think I'd combine the two at some point. Well guess what? I did today!

I'm not exactly a pit master, but I can say I'm pretty handy with outdoor cooking. It's a fun, productive hobby capable of producing some great-tasting results.

In my short BBQ career, I've tried brisket twice, and each attempt yielded horrendous results. The first came out burnt to a crisp, and the second came out too rare and as tough as a rubber tire. Both attempts were on a propane grill. It's certainly possible to properly cook a brisket on a propane grill, but it is also incredibly difficult. I was in over my head.

I wasn't quite ready to quit, though, and over the years I've made it a personal mission to make a brisket that didn't taste like hobo feet.

I got my chance today. It took days of mental preparation, making sure I knew exactly which ingredients to use and even buying myself a Weber kettle grill to make sure I could follow most of the recipes perfectly. I ordered a combination meat/oven thermometer in order to make sure I had the right temperature on the grill, as well. Let's make it simple: I went all-out to make sure I didn't screw this up. I even started cooking at 4am so it would finish cooking in time for the game.

In case you didn't notice, brisket is a very difficult meat to cook right. You need to cook it over low heat for a long time (“low and slow” as the Good Old Boys tend to call it), spritzing or basting the meat with apple juice or a beer mop every half hour or so to keep it moist. All the while, you've got to make sure the temperature stays within a fairly specific range. When you buy a brisket, you're entering a very high-maintenance relationship for a few brutal hours.

The most difficult part is keeping the temperature regulated, which can be absolutely maddening. The best way to go about keeping the temperature stable varies depending on how much of which type of charcoal you use. You need to experiment a LOT to get it exactly right.

The key to slow-cooking on a grill is the indirect heating method. This technique involves placing your coals on only one side of the grill and a water pan on the other. The water pan shields the meat from direct heat while the evaporated water keeps the roast moist.

For the rub, I simply used one of those McCormick pre-made rubs available at the grocery store. A neat (and kind of surprising) trick I found was that many pit masters cover their brisket with mustard before actually applying the rub. It helps the rub stick to the meat while cooking. I tried it out, and it really did help the rub stick pretty well.

The rub combined with regular application of the mop create a delicious, dark crust around the brisket.

While the meat cooked, I used a special dark beer mop recipe I found here. The BBQ Pit Boys are a pretty awesome resource for recipes and BBQ how-tos, especially for beginners.

Here's the mop recipe, if you're interested:

12 oz. Beer of your choice

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp crushed red pepper

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp pepper

The recipe yields a sweet, tangy sauce that really livens up the brisket. I'm tempted to put it on everything I eat from now on.

Long story short, the brisket took a lot of work and a whole lot of time, but I think I did pretty well this time around.

It's edible! Yay!

I also smoked some ribs, which turned out to be much more complicated than I anticipated. I put them on the old standby, the propane grill, and used aluminum foil to wrap the wood chips for smoking. You're supposed to put your grill on the lowest heat setting possible to let the ribs cook slowly. Unfortunately, that heat setting was TOO low, so they were still nearly raw when I took them out of the propane grill after 3 hours of cooking. I stuck them on the charcoal grill instead, and everything turned out fine.

I wish I had stuck these on the Weber from the beginning.

Oh, and the Giants won.

For more fantastic barbecue tips, check out Meathead's amazingribs.com. He's got plenty of information for novices and pit masters alike.