Good Days & Bad Days

[Texana]

Ok...with several cooks under my belt I felt pretty good about doing a small cook for myself. One brisket, one pork butt, and a rack of ribs.

I have no idea where I went wrong, but if I could have found someone to haul my pit to the scrap iron place I would have done it.

After a couple of days to cool off I have come to the conclusion that I must keep trying.

I keep hearing all the receipes and the great cooks you guys are having. What I do not hear are the disasters. So now is time to sound off. I just can not believe everyone has perfect cooks every time out. At least not the newbies.

Just a side note, the ribs were not to bad, the pork butt tolerable, but the brisket .... oh well.

Texana

[texasbill]

Texana:
Well we all have some of those experiences. It is just the nature of the beast we are dealing with. Sometimes you get a bad piece of meat and no matter what you do, it just won't get good.

Reminds me of a story about a year ago. We had gone to cook at Czhilispiel in Flatonia. We were entered in brisket, ribs, chicken, beans, and chili.

Well we tried a new chili recipe and it was absolutely terrible. I mean we had to scramble hard to get it edible.

The brisket was as tough as nails. As a matter of fact almost the entire case of brisket did not do right. Tough meat and we cooked it for 20 hours and it was still tough. The guy next to us had the same problem so every dang brisket is just not perfect to cook.

Our ribs were good. I thought really pretty good. We placed 4th. So not bad. The chicken, well seems like we were not paying attention to all that was going on and we let the fire just about go out while the ribs and chicken were on and we had to really scramble back. The ribs as I said were decent and not bad but the chicken was a little on the burnt side.

Beans turned out pretty darn good. I think we took 9th place in beans.

So it happens to us all. We get side tracked sometimes and don't give our meat 100% of our attention, some times we just get some real bad meat to cook, and some times the weather and other factors add to the problem. But we just think about it and figure out what we think went wrong and go back out there and do it again. This time it will be better.

I would like to say one thing that I have noticed. Around these hoildays they run all kind of specials for ribs and brisket and pork butts. Some of the meat out there for these is really not great stuff. We pay for what we get sometimes. These briskets could have been frozen for a long time and the same with the other meats. They are not fresh and we just have to be prepared for that.

So it happens to us all along the way. Not every time out there is perfect. I know you live in Houston area and with the damn storms we had all weekend here it was not perfect cooking weather. Humidity and the pressure have something to do with cooking also. I have a good story on that one also but will save it for later.

Bill-Texas BBQ Rub

[Texana]

Bill:

Thanks for the reply.

My theory is the same as most. When it comes to cheap anything you get what you pay for. For several years I have been frying turkeys around the Thanksgiving holiday. I learned real quick. Pay more for fresh non frozen turkey. It pays off big dividends on the taste and quality of the bird. I would think the same for brisket.

I think in this case I just cooked the durn thing to long. It just fell apart and was dry. It was not a fall of the bone tender thing it was crumble as you slice it. Taste was not to bad if you didn't mind eating it with a spoon!

Oh well those things happen. I will keep after it.

As a hobby my wife and I raise and show dogs. In the dog show world there is no such thing as a perfect dog. Each and everyone has there own faults. The same thing can be said about brisket. At least on a bad brisket day you can still usually eat your mistake. I have not been able to do that after losing at a dog show!!!!

Texana

[SlowSmoked]

Hi Texana

I don't like to advertise via the Forums, but to put your mind at ease, I wrote a book about my personal BBQ experience that chronicles 'disaster' after disaster till I got it right. 'Slow Smoked Success: Provocative Thoughts on Business, Life and BBQ'. It's a fun book, not your typical cookbook by any means. (currently available online - Amazon, BarnesandNoble, iUniverse or just about any online bookstore.)

As Bill indicated there are so many variables which affect how briskets and ribs turn out. Wood, weather, the meat, temp outside.......Reminds me of playing golf. One hole you birdie and feel great the next three you double and triple bogey and you can't seem to figure out what changed.

But that's the fun of the hobby. Don't give up by any means. I'm convinced there's hundreds of stories out there.

Good luck.

[Qjunkie will]

Slowsmoked there is nothing to add to what you and Bill have already said but I just got such a laugh out of the golf comparison because of My golf outing this weekend I just had to say DITTO!