So what is Hill Country style BBQ!

In the mid 1800’s, Texas experienced a huge immigration of Germans and Czech’s. A few families, rooted in tradition, opened old world style butcher shops. They sold premium cuts of beef to the wealthy, along with fresh bread, produce and other basic goods. Using tried and true European techniques, they preserved and tenderized the cheaper cuts by either smoking them low and slow, or making sausage the same they would have back home.



When these age old German methods adapted to local Texas ingredients like beef, post oak wood (an abundant type of white oak, traditionally used for fence post) and chilies, Texas BBQ planted it's roots. Because it was the poor farmers who were eating the "BBQ", they could only afford day old bread or crackers, and an occasional onion or tomato with the meat. This authentic style of cooking and service, along with other quirky but practical traditions, is known today as “Meat Market” or “Hill Country” style BBQ.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What is BBQ?

This opens up a huge can of worms, but simply stated BBQ is the cooking of food with indirect heat, usually provided from the burning of a flavorful wood. There are hundreds of variations, and even more theories, but this is as simple an explanation as possible.

Do clarify things a bit more, indirect heat is best attained in a 2 chamber system, ie... the fire is built in one chamber, and the hot smoke is directed to the food chamber. This can also be achieved with a charcoal or gas single chamber grill, by placing the food on one side, and heating the other side. If you are limited to the more common single chamber equipment, you can throw wood chips on the fire for flavor.

The more common form of BBQ, which is not BBQ at all is direct cooking or grilling. This is how you cook burgers, with the food directly over the heat source. People often assume when you grill chicken over an open flame, then burn BBQ sauce on it, that you have made BBQ chicken. I don't want to knock this cooking method, I do it all the time, it is simple and fast, but technically it is not BBQ.
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For those of you with a Weber BBQ, check out this book!

If you have been in 1 or 2 backyards, then you have for sure come across a Weber. They are known as kettle BBQ's and are usually black and sort of a dome shape. It is a long but interesting story how they came about, but simply stated they were invented by a man named Stephen Weber while working at his fathers steel factory in Chicago. He could not BBQ in the winter with the cold winds, so he cut a buoy in half (yes those things that float in the ocean as markers for different things) drilled some holes in it, put some legs on it and added a grate. The design has not changed much, but what you can do with them has. They have become extremely versatile and a great piece of BBQ equipment that can also be used a grill. Anyways, there is great book that I have used for years called "Weber's, Art of the Grill" it does a great job explaining how to properly set up the grill as a BBQ, Smoker or Grill and has fantastic recipes that are very accurate.
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