Salt & Pepper Only: Play Action Fake of the Barbecue World?

hey guys welcome to mad scientist barbecue i'm jeremy yoder and today we're going to examine whether salt and pepper only is the play action fake of the barbecue world we've heard it repeated a million times texas style brisket has salt and pepper only but i'm not so sure anymore i recently read an article on the texas monthly website that was done with john lewis who was one of the original pit masters at franklin bbq and in that article he said something that shocked me so i'm going to read it verbatim we'll put it on the screen you guys are welcome to check it out yourselves so we can pop on the screen john lewis says i did want to add that i've never cooked a brisket in my life whether it be at la barbecue at franklin barbecue or on the competition circuit with just salt and pepper i have yet to do that then daniel vaughn asks what to use for seasoning at la barbecue john lewis replies lowry season salt black pepper garlic powder mustard and pickle juice daniel vaughn then asks is that the rub you used at franklin john lewis says i can't say okay it sounds like a barbecue mystery to me so my thought on it is this if he replies with i can't say but he's happy to tell people exactly what he's using right now at his current restaurant and he's happy to say that he's never used salt and pepper that makes me think well if he worked at franklin for several years especially in the beginning and he never used salt and pepper in his life well something doesn't add up here something's not matching up and my thought was simply okay i think he probably signed a non-disclosure agreement i can't prove that i don't know that but it certainly sounds that way and if he signed a non-disclosure agreement that means he can't presumably say exactly what happens at franklin barbecue but here's the thing he said that they don't use just salt and pepper and what have we heard a million times salt and pepper only i've kind of heard rumblings about this in the past and the idea was if you use lowry season salt and black pepper you can say well it's salt and pepper only but it's really not there's another article from andrew knowlton where it says that franklin insisted this was i believe in 2011 when he called franklin barbecue the best barbecue restaurant in the country he said franklin insisted that he used only salt and pepper but he doesn't know if he believes franklin because it tastes like there's more going on than just salt and pepper so if you guys want a link to that article or the texas monthly article i'll include both of those down below feel free to fact check me on on any of this the bottom line is when john lewis worked at franklin barbecue he didn't cook a brisket with just salt and pepper and it was that stuff that they were doing early on that catapulted them to the top of the list of texas barbecue so if they had a winning formula developed why would they change it and if in fact they only use salt and pepper at franklin barbecue and that's public knowledge franklin has talked about that i don't know a million times if it's already public knowledge i don't think he'd be in any way bound by a non-disclosure agreement to say exactly what the owner says publicly i don't know i'm not a lawyer these are just my thoughts but feel free to check it out for yourself and i'm going to pursue this line of reasoning and do a test i'm going to do a test with three briskets one gets only salt and pepper and you can make phenomenal brisket with salt and pepper i'm not saying this is a game changer will change your life but i want to see does it actually improve the brisket beyond simple salt and pepper so we have our salt and pepper brisket we're going to have our john lewis-style brisket that's going to use salt but in the form of lower season salt black pepper garlic powder mustard and then we're going to spray with pickle juice okay let me see what's going on with this fire this is so unknown [Music] we're going to have to take a second as part of the pit master's burden i actually had to mess with the fire just now so i can't remember exactly what the last thing i said was i think i was talking about the pickle juice so pickle juice isn't just water obviously because it's pickled in vinegar that's the first thing there's salt in it as well and then also there are the soluble parts of the cucumber so you're leaching out from the cucumbers some starches some pectin a bunch of other organic compounds that we won't go into depth about but it's not just water it's not just vinegar and if you've ever had cucumber water and you drink it you notice that the texture that you have in your mouth when you drink that water is different than just plain old water so i'm curious to know is that really going to change the flavor or the texture of the brisket now i think this is the play action fake a barbecue you may be wondering why i call it the play action fake of barbecue and i know i have a lot of international viewers and a lot of people in the usa who just don't watch football but i call it a play action fake because in football you have two broad categories of offensive plays you have passing plays where the quarterback throws football and then you have running plays where the quarterback hands off the football now there are other kinds of plays there are wildcats it doesn't really matter but the point behind it is this a play action fake is when the quarterback pretends to hand the football off to the running back and makes it look like a running play but really he holds on to the football and throws the ball second and seven takes it to starts now going for the deep ball nelson is there and he's got it for the touchdown and so he's trying to make you think one thing but is doing something different that's what i'm trying to figure out are they telling us that it's just salt and pepper and they're doing something different i don't know it really seems like it but we're going to test it out it's called mad scientist barbecue i've got to do some experiments we're going to find out if this is better than just salt and pepper and so for the third test i'm going to use a known quantity that's definitely not just salt and pepper it's the big bad beef rub from amazingribs.com now i've shouted out amazingribs.com about a million times because it's awesome there's so many resources there if you want to dial up your barbecue game go check them out they're super cool they have tons and tons of information and it's not just information it's really good information so do yourself a favor go check them out and i've used that plenty of times i've used salt and pepper countless times and i want to compare the one in the middle that's going to be somewhere in between just salt and pepper and then the complicated rub from amazingribs.com i want to try to figure out if that middle one is like my memory of eating at franklin barbecue because i noticed that it was different than my brisket it was better but is it a result of just superior technique probably in part but could they be using some extra seasonings to really dial it up a notch let's wait and see so people are saying that seasoned salt and black pepper are just salt and pepper let me read the ingredients on the back of this bottle really quick salt okay fair enough sugar spices that could include anything but it says it includes paprika and turmeric onion corn starch garlic try calcium phosphate which is going to keep it from caking together sunflower oil extractives of paprika and natural flavor so i don't know exactly what's in natural flavor or spices but this definitely isn't just salt i want to give a shout out to porter road for sponsoring today's video to do this test i needed high quality briskets because i know at those really great barbecue joints in texas they're using really high quality stuff and i reached out to porter road and asked if they would let me do this test and they said yes so i'm super thankful because right now i can't find briskets locally number two is i can't find high quality briskets locally that's for sure and so this is what's allowing me to do the test so thank you porter road i appreciate it if you guys don't know about them please be sure to go check them out but i'll talk more about it later just know we're using high quality briskets here we're going to compare the flavor on the outside let's get these trimmed up seasoned and on the smoker first salt and pepper only [Music] all right onto the smoker [Music] [Music] that felt weird next up big bad beef rub the salt is always added separately [Music] now the spices [Music] so i'm going to cook these three like i always do briskets i'm going to do these overnight and i'll probably wrap it about eight hours in the temperature is going to be 275 the entire time and i'm using oak wood the entire time so i'm trying to get the very best possible results and we're going to wrap in butcher paper all the normal stuff but it's going to be nighttime it's going to be hard to see and plus you've seen me do it a million times but we're going to check back in with you tomorrow morning and we're going to taste these and see is there a difference is it really just hype is this kind of an urban legend is is this the decoy and the real thing is just salt and pepper i don't know but i can't wait to find out [Music] all right guys so a 16 hour cook has now been shortened to a few seconds but one thing i think i can tell by just looking at these three briskets is you don't need extra stuff in your rub to get great bark they all have great bark i mean they're really attractive looking briskets even though they all have great bark it looks to me that the big bad beef rub has the darkest bark the mustard and lowries has the second darkest bark and then the salt and pepper has the lightest bark though still dark i mean they all kind of look like meteorites from a distance they smell great but each one smells a little bit different so i want to know how much does that carry over into the taste so we're going to slice these up in a second and we're going to compare the flavor on the outside i'm not concerned about how juicy each one is because i treated them the same way i cooked them the same way the idea here is which one is going to taste the best but before i do that i want to give a big shout out to our sponsor for today porter road i've been using porter road for a long time i use their stuff because they produce great quality meat so if you're going to do a brisket and you want to count on something that's going to be delicious and amazing porter road has your back porter road dry ages their beef for 14 days as a hanging carcass so it's going to taste that complex flavor that people love about dry age but you're not gonna have to sacrifice any of the products so you're not gonna have to cut off any dried parts of the meat but you can just use it and you can do steaks you can do briskets you can do any cut of beef and get that complexity of flavor and it shows up at your door it is super convenient i've been using it for a long time simply because it's extremely good and i recommend all of you guys if you're going to do some brisket to wow people or if you're going to try to cook some steaks and blow people's socks off porter road is the way to go i'm going to put a link in the description check them out they are a top notch company and it's just been a pleasure to work with them so first off i'm going to cut into the salt and pepper brisket give that a taste then move up to the lowry season salt with the mustard and pickle juice and then i'm going to move to the big bad beef rub the most complex of any of the rubs but first of all i want to say i learned something from my wife because she wanted to know how i figured out what i was going to use for the rub because she saw me kind of haphazardly putting on mustard and then livery season salt and garlic powder and black pepper she's like how did you know how much to use i was like i don't know he doesn't say quantities in the article so i just eyeballed it but she went to the article and looked in the comments and john lewis himself or apparently john lewis said exactly how to do it and he said if you have any problems show up at a barbecue and i'll walk you through it i don't know this guy but i love this guy i mean just amazing so i wish i would have seen this i don't know eight years ago or whenever it came out because i would 100 percent have gone to the barbecue to check it out but if i had to do the test over again and i think i might i would use that recipe and also i just assumed we all know what happens when you assume but i assumed that he was using the pickle juice to spray instead of vinegar maybe he does maybe he doesn't he doesn't talk about that in the comment but if this turns out to be really good i'm going to use his method and i'm going to use the ratios that he outlines in that comment and see if that's kind of like a winning formula for brisket let me get into the salt and pepper brisket and i'm going to get slices from each of these and taste them [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay so i'm ready to taste and i'm going to move up from fewer spices to more spices and then finally the most spices so first up is salt and pepper i want to know is this going to stand up to large season salt and big bad beef rub you guys know me i'm using salt and pepper all the time so this is kind of important to me so i need to know do i need to make an adjustment with how i do barbecue or is the simplicity of salt and pepper really the way to go let's find out man that's good brisket as my papa used to say you can't beat that with a stick that's really good erica you gotta try this all right i don't think my wife wants to be on camera but i'm gonna have her try it too this is really good you gotta try it what are your thoughts okay all right so erica gives that an 8 out of 10 in terms of flavor i'm a little hurt but i'll get over it next up larry season salt wow man this is having me question my life choices gosh okay that's good let me try another bite here wow i didn't think would make this big of a difference my first impressions are that's better i think i'd rather have that bite than the first bite even though the first bite was great i mean i just think that this is superior it's it's hitting more of your kind of flavor taste buds so wow but you still get clear smoke flavor too so that's my issue usually with rubs is because they put so much stuff into it you lose out on the smoke flavor it's kind of hanging out in the background but with this it's kind of like a beautiful marriage between oh different seasonings and smoke flavor is the backbone of everything you taste here we go big bad beef rub this is very good the seasonings on the outside the spices and flavorings are really tasty but the problem is i think the brisket gets a little bit lost in the background if you're producing real smoke with a real fire you want that flavor to shine and you don't want it to be covered up with other stuff so if you're using a smoker that doesn't really give a lot of smoke flavor you want to just kind of bolster the flavor of your brisket i think maybe that's a good idea but for me i'm thinking i don't like it as well as the other two the other two i mean i would 100 spend good money on one of those briskets this one i think it's very good but i like a clearer smoke flavor so right now eric and i are both leaning toward the lyrics brisket um and if a change that simple can really improve the quality of the flavor i mean i think i'm gonna be doing it all right erica try this out aren't these briskets good though these briskets are freaking great people trying to get creekstone prime and you know those are extremely good briskets but i'd put those i put these up against anything i put these up against wagyu in terms of flavor i love that you like it it's sweet yeah what's in it sugar burnt end ready oh that bites good you can taste the smoke on that i'm not like doing the best i don't think i do hold on i think i like this one the least can i taste the point of the lowers again yeah i'll take a bite too see i like this better there's more beef in the lowry's one and more smoke and when i make a brisket i want to taste beef i want to taste smoke and this one just does it for me you get all that complexity of flavor on the outside i like the big beef the best it's wrong all right these briskets look so good i had to cut one of these points in half just so you understand like the quality of this meat so we didn't sandbag anything in this test we got the best briskets we could and we cooked them side by side the exact same way and in terms of flavor i think we have some answers so to sum it up i think the lowry's with the garlic powder the black pepper the mustard the pickle juice i think that one would get my vote and so what i need to do is do some more testing with this and i'm gonna do a couple more side-by-side comparisons just for me and if i really think it's better i'm going to start doing my briskets that way and i'll let you guys know about that and if you haven't tried this definitely give it a shot because i need feedback too i have you know one set of taste buds my wife has one set of taste buds but you guys out there who are barbecue connoisseurs are going to be able to provide me more and better feedback that i could get just by eating it myself so i'm going to ask you guys please do this test too and let me know what you think i mean to me it dials up the flavor but you lose none of the integrity of the smoke or the beef i think with the big bad beef rub yeah great flavor on the outside but the smoke and the beef kind of get lost a little bit more so i don't think you can go wrong with any of these methods but for me i think the lowry's method is the best i always appreciate you guys watching you can support the channel by liking this video by commenting down below and subscribing to the channel all those things help you can also follow me on instagram twitter and facebook at mad scientist barbecue i'll see you guys next time [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign

Channel: Mad Scientist BBQ

Views: 147,475

Rating: 4.9581027 out of 5

Keywords: seasoned salt, brisket, texas brisket, texas style brisket, brisket recipe, brisket recipes, bbq seasoning, barbecue seasoning, lawry's seasoning, lawry's seasoned salt, john lewis, john lewis bbq, la barbecue, offset smoker, offset smoker tips, using an offset smoker, offset smoker fire management, offset smoker fire control, barbecue, smoking meat, burnt ends, franklin barbecue, aaron franklin, brisket burnt ends, smoked brisket flat, best smoked brisket recipe, yoder

Id: WhPD1w_6jL0

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/dasnoob]

Try the rub... god my typing sucks.

[u/The-Shogun]

I recently made pastrami for the first time, it came out awesome BUT I didn’t spray it. I had cans of beer bubbling which did the same, then finished it with water in the grill pan while wrapped in the oven. Keen to give the pickle juice a whirl actually….that sounds great.

[u/KithAndAkin]

So are you still supposed to spray it with pickle juice? I got cornfused.