Viewers like you
make this program possible. Support your local
PBS station. (laughter) (mumbles) (cracking fire) Welcome to BBQ
with Franklin. You know, to make barbecue,
it doesn't really matter if you have a fancy
cooker or not, but what you do need
is a little bit of fire and a little bit of smoke. And on today's episode, we're
gonna find where our wood comes from, how to cook
on it, and we might even smoke something a little weird. (upbeat music) Hey, thanks for
having a beer with me. - Absolutely. - Cheers.
- Cheers. - [Aaron] Barbecue
is huge right now and since you've been
documenting that, since before this
stuff happened, what are your feelings on that? - I think for the most part,
if you're going to a place in Chicago, or in New
York, by and large, when they say they're
doing Texas style, they mean they do
smoked brisket. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Daniel] You know,
you go back and talk to the old timers and in
Dallas and a lot of other cities who were cooking
barbecue that weren't doing it in the meat market tradition. Barbecue meant chopped meat. If you ordered barbecue
in Dallas in the 1940s, you were getting
chopped beef on a - [Daniel] bun.
- [Aaron] Really? - [Daniel] Yeah, it was
called a chopped beef sandwich because it could be
brisket and more likely, it was gonna be navel
-[Aaron] sausage, pork, whatever - [Aaron] It's like, back
in the day, one temperature probably not a
temperature gauge, just a fire, a
grate, and a chimney. - [Daniel] They were
cooking so that people had something to eat. And probably something
pretty cheap to eat. With this whole
explosion of barbecue, I think rather than
differentiating themselves, places are really trying
to do the same thing. As a Franklin Barbecue,
or as a Kreuz Market. They're trying to do
really similar barbecue. Not only is that being
replicated here all over Texas, that Central Texas style,
you're also seeing it all over the country. - [Aaron] I don't think
anyone is opening up just a barbecue
place, it's Texas barbecue. - [Daniel] Yes. You see Texas-
style barbecue in Toronto. - Um hm. - [Daniel] We do Central
Texas-style barbecue right on these people's website. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Daniel] I would say
the other regions of Texas aren't getting nearly
the sort of attention outside of Texas. - [Aaron] Yeah. They
don't seem to be. - [Daniel] Hill Country-style
cooking directly over coals. You're not really seeing
that replicated anywhere. Everybody wants some
indirect smoker. The East Texas style,
you know, really. - [Aaron] Heavy sauce,
lots of sugar - [Daniel] Super tender ribs
with really heavy sauce. You know, a big mound of
chopped beef on a sandwich, on a squishy white
bun covered in sauce. - [Aaron] Yeah. - Don't really see that a
whole lot in many of those (crosstalk) photos from
around the country. Really the new places
popping up in Texas almost all these other barbecue
joints that are getting all the high accolades now
are one and two years old. That's amazing.
- [Aaron] Yeah. - [Aaron] I guess that's true.
- [Daniel] It's not the old time pit master
out in the country under the shade tree anymore.
- [Aaron] Yeah. - [Daniel] It's gone from
that to something that is really a craft. - [Aaron] It's kinda the
same thing with craft beer. You know, micro brewed
coffee and all this stuff is kind of happened
at the same time, so maybe it's just our culture that's nudged it
in that direction. But it's really neat to watch
other people that have like culinary backgrounds kinda
get turned on to barbecue. I mean, that's what
we're talking about. It's like how many
people are into barbecue and seeing people with
those kinds of backgrounds, kinda put a
different spin on it. - Yeah and given barbecue.
- Garnish with brisket? - I thought it was just pickles. - And giving barbecue
its proper respect. I mean, it is something
that still fits within chef-dom, right? I mean, I just went to
Stephan Pyles's Restaurant. They walked me through their
five day smoked brisket method. - Oh my God. - Yeah. They cure it for a day, cold smoke it at a
120 degrees for a day, and then Sous Vide
for three days. And then they take
it out, portion it. And then to order, they
grill it over a wood fire. - Is it awesome? - It's really good. - Does it like... - Would I choose a good 16 hour smoked
brisket over that? Yes. - Yeah. - But it's good and it's
different, and it's new, and its innovative. I mean you're still smoking it -[Aaron] it's still live fire. You are still cooking
meat with wood. I mean, you're also cooking
it with other things, too.
- And that's what defines barbecue for me;
is it a real fire? Well, there you go. - To me, it's no different
than if you take a brisket off the smoker and you finish it off with a cooler for four hours. - Doesn't matter. - You're still cooking it
off the fire for four hours. It's not resting. It's
cooking in that cooler. So you're using a different
method other than just wood to finish it off, but that's
certainly still barbecue. - Yeah, that's how you classify
it for the end product. - [Aaron] Well, one
things for sure, if you're gonna make barbecue, you're gonna need
fire and smoke. - [Aaron] There's a ton of
different types of barbecue across America and there's all kinds
of different meat and wood combinations. For example, if you're
cooking in the Carolinas, you're probably going to be
cooking down hickory into coals for direct heat cook. In Georgia, it's easy to
find places cooking pork over fruit woods, like
apple or peach. And if you're pulling
pork in Tennessee, you could be cooking over a
regular old charcoal fire. Up in the Pacific Northwest,
there's cold smoked salmon, which is typically
cooked over Alderwood. Now in Texas, we've
got four major regions. In the deserts of West Texas,
where barbecue includes beef and goat,
Mesquite is plentiful, and sometimes they cook
cowboy-style over direct heat. In the flat plains
of South Texas, there's a lot of Mesquite and
a strong Mexican influence where families still cook
traditional barbacoa. That's where the meat
is wrapped and cooked in a hole, dug in the ground. Heading out to East Texas,
we'e got the Piney Woods, And unfortunately, Pine's
no good for barbecue, but luckily there's
Hickory and Pecan around, so that's mostly what East
Texans are cooking with. And finally, my neck of
the woods, Central Texas. We're cooking briskets
and beef ribs on Oak here. Now, Oak comes in a lot of
varieties, but in Central Texas, we've got Post Oak. This is one of the greatest
things about barbecue across the country. Even with the same kind of
meat, and the same seasoning, regional wood can give you
a totally different flavor. (birds chirping) - [Aaron] Barbecue's just
about the oldest way to cook. And everything we
do is based on fire. So we thought we'd come out
here and see where our firewood comes from. Thanks for having us, Joanie. Thank you for coming. - Look at this
bounty of Oak trees. - We're outside of
Marlin, about 10 miles. - Okay. - We're close to
Cedar Springs, Texas. We're cutting a lot in
this area right now. We don't cut down live trees. We haven't had to cut
down a live tree yet. - [Joanie] When someone
does ask us to trim a tree, yes, but so far,
we've just dealt with dead trees.
- [Aaron] Just a good way to get rid of stuff. - [Joanie] You know, we're
looking for the season, and then we might see a
tree that got knocked over by a fire or by a farmer. - Um hm. - Bulldozing this place. I can't imagine bulldozing down
these beautiful trees, but they do.
- [Aaron] I'd feel terrible about it! - I know. - [Aaron] You know,
live fire cooking like barbecue and stuff is
a really cool way to get rid of stuff that would
otherwise go to a landfill or just rot on the ground, so
it's cool to be able to go in, and kinda reuse - some of that stuff.
- [Joanie] Yeah, we would go in and get them, and reuse them. We want to get the
best use out of them. (upbeat music) - Well, Joanie, thanks so
much for having us out here. It's been a pleasure. - Well, thank you
so much for coming. - Yeah, it's beautiful. - [Joanie] Isn't it? Mas bonita. (upbeat music) - [Aaron] A cord is the
unit that we use to measure the volume of firewood. A cord of wood measures
four foot high, by four foot wide,
by eight foot long, which totals 128 cubic feet. Joanie said her crew can cut
about two cords of wood a day. And back at Franklin Barbecue,
we can use almost five cords of wood a week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Voiceover] Where you gonna
want that would stacked? (upbeat music) - So these are the four main
types of woods we have here in Texas. From strongest to mildest. We've got Mesquite,
Hickory, Pecan, and Oak. So, the first one is Mesquite . You can always tell it because it always
has red streaks, and it has a real
tight bark on it. It's great for grilling steaks. It's good for shorter cooks. One of the things about
Mesquite is that it's got a really strong flavor
when it's green. The more you let it age,
the more it mellows, and those flavors
really take a backseat. So this is definitely a good
candidate for letting it age for at least a year. And then we go into Hickory. Hickory is also a really
strong flavored wood. I'd let this stuff age
for maybe up to a year. Maybe not as much
as the Mesquite. Popular in the rest
of the country. Maybe not so much in Texas. It looks a lot like
Oak when it's green, but then when it dries
out a little bit, it tends to get a
much tighter texture and you can really tell
some more cured Hickory by looking at it. And this is definitely
more mellow. It'll burn really hot. It'll
burn really quick and fast. And then we have Pecan. You can always tell Pecan
because it has a little bit coarser bark, and often
times it has some streaking and it has a pretty
fine grain texture. Pecan's kind of mild,
little bit sweet. It'll burn really hot, but it's got a pretty
distinctive flavor. I prefer to cut it with Oak. Nice wood. Mostly predominate
in East Texas. But in Central Texas, we use Oak and Oak is
a really mild flavor. You don't have to let
it age quite as long as some of the other woods. It burns pretty slow. It gets a good amount
of heat off of it. That's why we like to use
it here in Central Texas for long cooks like brisket. And these are the four woods. Back in the day, you really
had to cook on whatever wood you regionally had available,
but these days you could get wood off the Internet. You can go to any
store and get firewood. So you can really pick and
choose what flavors you want. And I prefer Oak. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (bird chirping) (upbeat music) Sometimes, even I get tired
of smoking hot red meats, and when that happens, I like to smoke some cheese on a cold smoky smoker. Keep the cheese as far away
from the fire as possible. And wait. And drink a beer. One of the great things
about smoking cheese is that it's so easy. You just use the
lowest temperature
you can possibly get, the smokiest smoke
you can possibly get, and time. You just smoke it
till it looks right. (upbeat music) - [Aaron] Oh, man. And what you're waiting for is for the cheese to
get real nice and smoky, about the color
that you want it. Kind of an amber-ish
for the white. Maybe a little darker for yellow and you could really use
any kind of cheese you want. You could use any
kind of wood you want. Today, happens to
be white cheddar with really green Hickory. (upbeat music) [Aaron] So whenever
your smoke goes down, just put another small
piece of wood on there. Keep it low and smoky. (upbeat music) Well, let's see where we're at. So this cheese is
looking pretty good. It's definitely getting smoky. It smells really smoky.
It's getting real sweaty. This is just about
where I want it. I'm gonna go inside,
wrap it up real tight in plastic wrap and what
that does it continues to let the smoke permeate the
cheese, so it'll actually get more flavor, and
really soak in there. So, leave it on the
counter for a little bit, then put it in the refrigerator
for a couple of days, and after that, we've
got smoky cheeses. (upbeat music) (crackling firewood) (upbeat music) So, time to throw on a log. What I'm looking for right now. I'm looking for a clean fire,
but I'm also looking to pick some pieces of wood that are
maybe a little bit denser. Wanna get a little bit of smoke without choking off the door. I really build my fires
like a game of Jenga. I start it off with
a few going this way, then I'll have one going
perpendicular direction. (upbeat music) So this is how I build
every single fire. This is, in my opinion, the most efficient
way to start a fire. All the pits at work. Totally light up every
Monday morning like this. One of the most important
things on working a fire is always kind of watching
your temperature gauge, watching the smoke stack. You don't want the smoke to
be just puffing out of there. You wanna make sure
there's a lot of air flow. Hence, keeping the back
door open on the fire box. But you don't ever
wanna see black smoke, or like real heavy gray smoke. It should be kind of
blue or clear-ish. It should have lots of
movement coming through. And also, you don't ever
wanna force a piece of wood to do something that it
doesn't naturally wanna do. If it's kinda green, it's
gonna be a real slow burn. It'll eventually catch, but
it's gonna get really hot. It's gonna take a while, so
it's a real slow heat curve. It's gonna be a little
bit smoky and that's okay, and if a piece of wood is
say, really really dry, it's not gonna
burn for very long. It's gonna spike up
quickly, so you kinda watch the gauge, and you
figure out what you need. If you need something
slow and long. If you need smoke. If
you need some clean fire. Kinda depends on what you want, but that's how you make
your wood selection. Just let it do
what it's gonna do. It'll taste much
better that way, and burn much more
efficiently that way. So when I build
a fire like this, it's got a lot of air flow. It's got a good coal bed. I could really regulate the
heat by moving logs around and stuff in there. Always looking for
a super clean fire. I wanna be able to regulate
the amount of smoke that goes on. Normally, you'll get a little
bit of smoke when you put a fresh log on, but the
last thing you wanna do is shut the door and
choke off the air. You always need
to leave it open. You always wanna keep lots
of air flow through there 'cause that's what's
letting things cook quickly. Building a fire the right
way is really the most important thing to
making barbecue. You could choke off the air,
you could shut the door, you could get a dirty smoke,
you can get quick color, you can maybe use some
other contraptions, but at the end of the day,
it's all about a fire. If you don't have a good fire, you probably don't have
very good barbecue. So, work on the fire skills. Be patient. Just keep practicing. Let it do its thing. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [Aaron] Smoking isn't
exclusive to barbecue. For hundreds of years, beer
ingredients have been smoked in different ways to get
some pretty wild flavors. So to see all beer and
smoke come together, we're here at a local
brewery, Jester King. We're working on a collaborative
beer with these guys with smoked figs. So we're gonna go
inside, do a test batch, and learn a little bit
more about smoked beer. (upbeat music) - [Aaron] Hey, hey, hey. - What's going on, Aaron? - How you doin'? - Cool man, how are you? - Good, good, good. - [Garrett] Good. - We're here doing a test
batch of the smoked fig beer. - [Garrett] Yeah.
I've got a grist here, which is a composition of
different types of grain that I picked to kind of
compliment the flavors of the smoked figs that
you're gonna smoke. So yeah, we're gonna smoke
these grains in hot water for an hour, - [Aaron] Okay. - and after which, we'll
run the liquid off. We boil it and then it'll go
through a primary fermentation, but after the primary
fermentation, we're gonna add the figs that you're
gonna smoke for us. Once we put these
figs in the beer, it'll spend about three weeks
to a month to re-ferment to dryness. - And as far as
the smoke aspect, I think what I'm looking
for is I'm looking to take Oak wood, burn it down to coals at a really high temperature, so I can get some vanilla
flavors out of it, and then I'm gonna get my
smokiness from some fruit woods. I'm thinking maybe
like Applewood, but
Apple's really mild. - [Garrett] Cheers. - [Aaron] I'm looking for like
a really clean fruit smoke. I'm gonna share something
very personal with you. - [Aaron] (laughter) Alright. - I really like figs. - [Garrett] Yeah, me too. Well, if you wanna try these
figs with some smoked beer, Ron's got some waiting
inside for you. You should give it a shot. - [Aaron] And I think I do. Cool, I'll see you
in a little bit. - Alright. See you. (upbeat music) - Well, hey, hey, hey. - Oh, hi Aaron. How you doin'? - Good. How you doin'? - Good to see you. - Heck yeah. - I've got a few smoked
beers for us to taste. Thought you might enjoy. - [Ron] Let's start
with the Germans. So this is a beer that's
brewed using Beechwood smoked malt. It's kinda the grand
daddy of smoked beers. But the smoke in this
is pretty intense. - [Ron] Prost. - [Aaron] Indeeds. - [Ron] It's very unique. It's got a lot of kind of
smoked meat and cheese flavors to it. Part of that is the smoke
working together with the hops in the beer. - [Ron] Second beer that we
have, it's a little bit of a different technique. They use Oak smoked malt,
which I think it imparts a little bit of a softer
smokiness to my palette. - Well, it's really
kind of in the back. It still has a little
bit of smokiness, but the Beechwood
is way smokier. I'm pretty sure that Oak would
burn a little bit hotter, than Beechwood,
I wonder if maybe there's something to
the level of smokiness in this being the
quality of fire. - That's possible. The techniques may also
be a little bit different. - [Ron] The way in
which malt was smoked back in the old days,
this was pretty much how all malt was prepared, was to kiln dry it
over wood fires, which would impart
a natural smokiness, so all malt at - One point. - [Ron] In the earliest days
of brewing at one point, would have been smoked to
some extent or another. - [Ron] Alright, so the
third beer is pretty unusual because it's not the malt
in this beer that's smoked, but it's an adjunct ingredient. They actually use a smoked tea. It does come off
as much sweeter, which is interesting
because the previous beer was a Doppelbock, which
is a beer that's meant to be a little bit sweet. - [Aaron] Yeah, but
this is kinda fruity. - Yeah. It's a different
character of sweetness in here. This is definitely of the
three that we've tasted so far, this is going to be the closest
to what we're shooting for. - You know, I think this will
be a perfect candidate for eating some figs at tasting. - Sounds like a good plan to me. - How about a fig? - Why, thank you. Don't mind if I do.
- [Aaron] (laughing) (upbeat music) - I bet if you just cracked
open a bottle of this without knowing it was smoked,
you might even overlook it. - We actually have a couple
of beers that we made here. - [Ron] These are not beers
that are commercially available. They're actually
experimental beers. - [Ron] I'm gonna start with
a beer that we made with Pecan wood smoked malt. - [Aaron] How is that
smoked? Do you know? - [Ron] In this case,
we had the malt, which had already been dried. It was barley that had
already gone through a malting process, pilsner malt. That we then took through that
secondary smoking process. - [Aaron] I would taste this
and not even really get smoke. That's not like something that
I'm picking up necessarily. I mean it's in there. - I feel like when we aged
smoked beers in Oak barrels with wild yeast and
bacteria, they become very kind of cocktail-like,
which is something - [Ron] that,
- [Aaron] Yeah, - [Aaron] It's interesting. - [Ron] that we'll see even
more with the last beer that we're gonna taste, which we used a combination
of three different types of smoked malt. We used some
Beechwood smoked malt, the same malt that's
used in the first beer that we tasted. We used some Oak smoked wheat, similar to what was used in
the second beer that we tasted, and then we also used some
malts that we smoked over Birchwood in-house. When we aged that
beer in Oak barrels, it really picked up some
very, very different flavors. This beer contained
about 91% smoked malt that made it for me personally,,
kind of a smoky gin and tonic. - [Ron] Like some really (crosstalk)
interesting cocktail. - [Aaron] Turns out,
smoking beer is a lot like smoking barbecue. You build a good fire and
you could end up with some pretty delicious results. (upbeat music) - Cheers. - [Ron] Cheers. (upbeat music) Marlin, Texas. Neh, I'm not going to
do the pirate thing.
Should I? I like pirates. Dude that's gonna
be so good. - [Garrett] Yeah. - That's gonna
ja rule. Sweet and sassy. That's what it is. Dah. (upbeat country
music) (techie music) (chimes)
