The Future of Chud... also BRISKET! | Chuds bbq

what's going on everybody welcome back to chud's barbecue my name is bradley robinson and today i'm going to show you how i made this beautiful smokey barky wagyu foil boat delicious beef brisket healing up i know what you're thinking brad didn't you already do a how to cook a brisket video and yeah i sure did but this week i wanted to do something a little bit different i wanted to answer a bunch of frequently asked questions i get all the time like how i got into cooking how i got into welding what brought me to texas in the first place am i still with larry and lewis what's with the patreon when are chimneys coming and basically go over the past present and future of chud's barbecue but talking into a camera for 15 minutes straight seemed like a pretty lame video so i'm gonna cook a brisket while i do it because as we all know when you foil a boat a brisket it is going to be so this whole chud's bbq journey started for me back in 1995. i was in first grade and i met a little kid named miles coburn who you guys all know as cockburn we became good buddies and went through all of our schooling together went through middle school high school then we went to college together we were playing in a rock band at the time that got us interested in the music scene and audio engineering so we went to college up in bangor maine pursuing degrees in audio engineering then in 2012 we got our bachelor's degrees and it was time to move to a new city with some warmer weather better music scene and the live music capital of the world austin texas seemed like the right place to be so one day we packed up my toyota matrix and just drove from new hampshire to austin without any jobs lined up no place to live we didn't know anyone in town we were just gonna wing it so after a couple of weeks of staying in a hotel while we searched for a place to live we found a house and we've been here ever since but in that two-week period we were obviously getting to know the city trying the local cuisine and we went to try jay miller which was one of john miller's food trucks back in the day and it was on south 1st street so we went over to check it out but he was no longer there and it just so happened to be the first week of la barbecue and that was really my first experience with any brisket any tender ribs any house-made sausage the whole experience i had no idea what i was walking into because barbecue was not a big part of my life at all cooking not a big part of my life at all growing up in the northeast but you hear it all the time that was the one bite that really changed everything i remember talking to john lewis about you know how he cooked it what was really going on and he explained to me it's just meat salt pepper smoke thyme on a handmade pit that he built out of a propane tank and i just thought it was awesome the whole thing and it really peaked my interest so i wanted to learn how to do it myself in the backyard it seemed like a really cool environment a really fun hobby to have so then my sister for our birthday got me a water smoker little brinkman vertical pit and i started cooking in the backyard it was on that pit i did my first brisket first rack of ribs first pork butt all that good stuff and it was fine again it was more about hanging out with buddies drinking beer making some good meat but i outgrew that pit really quickly it wasn't big enough you couldn't control temperature it was a perfect starter pit but after a while i needed to upgrade i really wanted an offset but this was before the mobergs and the mill scales of the world were up and running the only option was really to get one from home depot or to just build one myself but more on that later again i couldn't afford anything so i just got a weber kettle and started cooking on that which was a big improvement because at least i was cooking with fire you know i was using a lot of charcoal and wood chunks that whole thing and that was a big change for me because then i could actually get good flavor i could control temperature get that nice blue smoke and yeah if you go back in time on my instagram the first 20 or 30 pictures are all briskets and ribs and things i cooked on a weber kettle while i'm cooking you know just like everyone else in this industry says they're friends and family everyone's saying the food's really good you should do this professionally you should open up your own spot and it was at this time my audio career was going fine i was doing a lot of freelance work the money was inconsistent i needed a little more consistency in my life a steady paycheck so i decided i'm gonna hop into the barbecue world give it a try see how my cooking skills compare with actual professional barbecue cooks so i hopped on craigslist found an ad for friedman's and i decided i'm going to go check it out because i'd never been there before went up had a whiskey met evan leroy chris mcgee did a stage they hired me and yeah i was there for two years and that was my first time really cooking on an offset and they had some 500 gallon pits that were not ideal but got the job done and while i was up there evan was getting ready to open leroy and lewis so he wanted to build himself a pit so he bought himself a welder and a 500 gallon propane tank on craigslist and was slowly chipping away at building the pit that is now known as rusty elroy lewis still there to this day but i was getting sick of the weber kettle and i needed a pit for myself so i said hey evan can i borrow your welder and he said sure so i took his welder took his angle grinder two weeks later i had this pit that you see behind me today that was the first offset i ever built again i just bought a propane tank on craigslist it's a 150 gallon and i had such a fun time building it it was awesome really enjoyed the welding part it wasn't very good but i wanted to get better so after that i bought myself a welder same one i have in the shop today and you know once you build one backyard pit someone's gonna see it and say hey i want one of those so i said okay so i built another one and i kept working on the design tweaking it long story short evan left friedman's chris left friedman's i stayed until the list came out because i wanted to be on that top 50 list and then after that i left friedman it's kind of popping around between mickleweight and eastside tavern just picking up shifts until evan called me saying rory lewis is opening up we need a full-time guy you want to come work with me again and i said absolutely so that brings me to leroy lewis this is 2017 at this point and yeah i've been there for four years as of tomorrow tomorrow is the four year anniversary so at the roy and lewis i helped fix up rusty that pit evan built put some new doors on it firebox that kind of thing and then evan and i were talking about changing the menu up a little bit and we were talking about doing some whole hogs so then i said yeah i'll build a hog pit and the chud box was born the og tread box is still there things a pile compared to the ones i'm building nowadays so we got to get them a new one and then of course because i got used to cooking direct heat i wanted one for the backyard hence the mini chud box so really as far as cooking is concerned i learned basically in the backyard starting with youtube videos just giving as much information as i could when the franklin book came out that really helped a lot but mostly just trial and error until i got to friedman's then i learned from lane and chris and evan and joel and everyone there we all had a really good time there's a healthy competitive vibe at friedman's where we're always trying to out-cook each other come up with a fun new sausage who's got the best brisket trim the one thing that really helped me a lot was after evan and chris left i'm sitting there i'm now running the kitchen head chef head pit master at this barbecue place that has a pretty great reputation and the texas monthly top 50 list is about 9 10 months away and i knew that if friedman's didn't make the list while i was in charge those guys would never let me live it down so at this point you know a year year and a half into my cooking career in general and i'm running the kitchen which was terrifying no training but i decided i'm gonna cook every brisket every rib trim every brisket for the next 10 months just to make sure that we can make that list trimming and cooking 40 briskets a day six days a week for nine ten months that's really when i cut my teeth as a pit master really got good at running a smoker trimming a brisket all that good stuff and that kind of experience is invaluable hard to replicate but just like anything else repetition is key so all the while at friedman's at lorian lewis i'm still welding in the garage working on chud boxes making new smokers i'm selling a few here and there just the backyard models early version of the chud pit 65 and basically i was just trying to build things that i wanted right there was a market for backyard bbq pits because i couldn't find one that i liked so i had to make one and there's a lot of people out there that want a quality smoker that don't want to get something from you know home depot so that was kind of the market i was aiming for as far as smoker design i started with the propane tank because it was the easiest thing to find i basically cut the end off of the tank and use it as a firebox this is 150 gallon propane tank and this thing cooks like a dream i've had it for five six years now and uh no complaints some of these welds are just atrocious but for a first build old cochrane and i did it in the backyard of our old house cooks great hasn't fallen apart yet and if you're interested in the updated version of this pit it is known as the chud pit 115 nowadays and has a lot more features so at this stage in my story i'm working at lorian lewis very full time and i got to say being a part of a seven person small food truck trying to redefine what barbecue can be during a global pandemic it's been a journey they're all my best friends you know evan sawyer matt clayton we've been through a lot together a lot of ups a lot of downs there's no other restaurant in the world that i'd rather work at and i've learned so many valuable skills there that's where i learned how to butcher where i perfected how to make sausage all these unique cuts cheeks tongues learning how to cook those it's been a lot of fun and if you want to know more about what we're up to over there be sure to head over to the rory and louis patreon page where we're putting out videos every week so at leroy and lewis i spent most of my time in the kitchen doing most of the butchery breaking down the hogs trimming all the beef cheeks trimming all the briskets rendering the fat making whatever side dishes evan throws at me i was telling him the other day at friedman's i learned how to be a pit master at rory lewis i learned how to be a chef so i'm working six days a week at laroy and lewis and every time i have an off day i'm building smokers in the garage it's a nice little side hustle but it wasn't until brian and andrew from tales from the pitts podcast out of houston came by told my story talked about the smoker building a little bit and that's when orders started coming in i remember being super excited to have three smokers on order then five then ten then twenty and then i had thirty pits on order and it was time to get some help enter cockburn bunch of wieners so about the same time i left my audio career to pursue a life of barbecue old cochran here left at the same time and decided to pursue bartending he worked at friedman's with me he was running the bar i was running the kitchen it was a grand old time he then moved on to working some of the best bars in town for landing a job as a brand representative for some really nice scotch so cochran what made you leave your cushy job of traveling the world and making delicious bar programs tom do this dirty dirty work it was uh it was a fun part of my life for sure i got to see a lot of the world meet a lot of really cool people but uh you know then quarantine hit with covet and all that everything changed a little bit went back to the bartending world for a little while but uh honestly wasn't really satisfied with it anymore and you had this awesome opportunity to come back and try something new so uh just dove on in haven't looked back so that is going to be the new chudbox pro so all specs are pretty much exactly the same as a regular chud box except instead of the eighth inch we upgraded up to the 3 16th so definitely a lot more heat retention and then we also added an insulated bottom which you can't really tell it looks pretty much the same but there's a there's a big plate on the bottom and in between the plate and this inch and a half square tubing here there's a nice layer of insulation which should just help that heat purr if i told you in a audio engineering school that we'd end up down in texas building smokers what would you think about that even if you just said we'd end up down in texas i wouldn't believe it but no it's just weird how life works out well we always knew we'd end up doing something on our own but wouldn't i guess this yeah this has been the most fun i've had in a job and probably my whole life i get a final product not just a margarita that some drunk customer takes away and throws up in the bathroom that i then have to clean up that was one time so that pretty much brings us up till now at the time of shooting this we've got about 65 smokers on order we've already sold about 25 so far this year which is incredible because that's more than double what i was able to put out last year so having burn around is a big help we're both working really hard to try and get that wait list down but as you can see it's still a pretty minimal shop and miles is doing most of the work while i'm out here cooking briskets so thank you to everyone that's bought a pit or is on that wait list i do appreciate it so much hopefully we can hire a new welder at some point in the future but more on that later another question i've been getting asked a lot lately is am i still with laroy and lewis and as of the last month no i have stepped away from my role as pit master slash prep cook slash whatever you want to call me over there in order to focus more on this channel the welding shop and other future endeavors but have no fear i'm still involved with the roy and lewis we're all still on good terms i'm still making their patreon video every week and when events start rolling around i'll be there as well we're heading to hogs for a cause in new orleans i'll be up in chicago at the windy city smoke out this summer and you'll probably see a lot more of me at the truck because i'm there shooting patreon videos more often than not instead of just being in the prep kitchen all the time it's pretty bittersweet because on one hand i'm very proud and excited to be running my own company but i really love those guys i love that company i put a lot of work in there so leaving was hard but after a year of putting out a patreon video for them a youtube video for me building smokers in my free time and working a full-time job 2020 took a long time so something had to go so that being said chud's bbq is now an official business with an llc fully legitimized paying bookkeepers paying taxes paying the irs so as you may or may not have noticed prices have gone up on chud pits which does bum me out a bit but i can't get away with charging the same low prices i was when it was just a side hustle now that it's both of our livelihoods but don't worry if you've already got an order in your grandfather didn't at whatever price we agreed on not to mention steel prices are higher than they've been ever so what does this mean for the future of chud's barbecue well i'm going to keep making videos as long as y'all keep watching them we're going to keep pumping out smokers as fast as we can and hopefully introducing some new ones sooner rather than later such as the chud grill the tread box pro which we talked about earlier and the three quarter sized chud box right between a mini and a full size camera we're also gearing up to release shipping options for the tortilla press as well as the chud chimney so in the next few weeks i'll be releasing videos all about that and eventually i'd really like to move this welding shop out of my house into a professional environment so we can start shipping our smokers as well but that's where you all come in i've created a patreon page for chud's bbq where you can help support us and help us reach our goals and if you want to support us and keep these videos coming get shipping even faster that's the best way to go about doing it but patreon is not just a donation there are three tiers five ten and twenty dollars a month each tier has a different benefit different perk we're gonna be doing a lot of live streams a lot of behind the scenes bonus content and mostly we're gonna be doing a lot of giveaways whether it's chud rub charcoal chimneys tortilla presses exclusive merch that's gonna be the place to get that and each tier gives you one more chance of winning so first here is one chance second tier two chances and the third tier gives you three chances to win so hopefully we're gonna be doing two or three giveaways per month for patreon members because we want to give back to you for helping support your local should chose a beautiful day to spend the entire day outside so again that is patreon.com chud's bbq we appreciate all the support we can get and again all proceeds are going to go into helping us bring some more expensive meats to the channel maybe adding another video a week getting another welder hired up so we can bring that wait list down but also let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see at each tier if you've got any suggestions for perks i am all ears so to wrap this video up i just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who's been a part of my barbecue journey thus far mainly evan leroy you've been an incredible mentor to me taught me so much and i'm super proud of what we've built over the last six years and i'm looking forward to many more years of putting our heads together also sawyer lewis it takes a strong person to be able to put up with me to the degree that you've had to over the last four years and like i'm always telling you i wouldn't have done it without you and to the rest of the gang at leroy and lewis you guys are my second family and as much as it pains me to take a step back i know those beef cheeks are in good hands and finally i want to thank all of you everyone watching these videos especially the 40 of you that have hit that subscribe button it means so much to me while i was making this video we crossed over the 40 000 subscriber threshold which is just amazing especially after only 12 months and also a big shout out to all the people who have already found the patreon and signed up so to all of you guys this slice of fatty brisket is for y'all [Music] yes please not gonna lie i'm pretty excited about this one oh yep that's a good looking pile of brisket right there if i ever saw one nice and juicy that wagyu beef gotta love heb and now after listening to me rant for a solid 15 or so minutes i think it's time to let this brisket speak for itself and if you want to learn more about how to cook this with a little more detail be sure to check out my other how to cook a brisket video all right y'all that is it that is how to smoke a delicious brisket while telling the story of your career i know it's not my typical style of video but if you enjoyed it be sure to let me know by hitting that subscribe button and if you'd like to see more content like this in the future let me know in the comments below cochran was supposed to be out here tonight sharing some thoughts but he had a bit of an accident in the welding shop this afternoon and had to go home a little bit early so more info about that on the patreon but let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see me cook next head over to chudsbbq.com for all prices wait lists and everything chud pits and until the next time i see you please go cook something outside peace you

Channel: Chuds BBQ

Views: 136,812

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Id: 5I9PFMc4hm0

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021