Barbecuing is something that my dad’s been doing for over 20 years.  For the last 15 years I’d have to say that my sisters and I took that for granted. ” Brisket…again?!” was our cry at the dinner table on a semi-nightly basis.  My dad liked to barbecue, and was good at it, and we always had the leftovers.

Now that I’ve moved far away from barbeque mecca, I find I’m not satisfied with just having barbeque. I have the need to light the fire, season the meat, mop the briskets, wrap them in foil, let them cool and slice them too.

This Christmas, during my visit home, I had a chance to barbecue again like the days of old.  Thank god for my sister, who told my dad she needed Mexican food, oysters and barbecue when she got to Texas.  After a family grocery run, I gathered the spices, sauces and necessary kindle necessary for our feast.

Using a barbecue pitt that was nearly as old as I was, my dad and I teamed up to cook brisket, pork ribs, pork butt, sausage and even oysters. Our two day efforts yielded plenty of delicious, mouthwatering Texas barbecue to our plates and stomachs.

Afterwards, my sister and I had to split up the barbecue bounty in order to take it back to New York.  Once in New York, the massive amount of smoked meat that we carried across the country was finished in a week. This was mainly due to the necessary portioning off of brisket and ribs to those Texas ex-patriots in need of a home state fix.

Unfortunately, in New York I can’t cook this style of barbecue because I haven’t really lived in the appropriate space.  And I don’t know if any one has tried before, but finding a whole cut of brisket in this town is almost impossible.  Hopefully in the near future, I’ll be able to recreate my dad’s barbecue masterpieces here in NYC.

Luke dog was there to help me light the fire.  We start off with a mixture of oak and charcoal, and feed the fire with oak logs after it gets going.

This is probably the smallest of the pitts that my dad owns, but it works just the same.  I think we had a heat problem that day, but it was easily fixed by moving the pitt into the wind to make sure the smoke was hitting the meat just right.

Your basic ingredients for making some serious ‘que, black pepper, garlic powder, Lawry’s Seasoning and one whole brisket (plus some proprietary stuff I can’t really give away)

Cutting the fat!  Pops had to give me a refresher course on trimming the meat.  We cut some of the excess fat off the brisket, some people don’t…it’s really a preference of the chef.

This is what the brisket looks like after we’ve trimmed off the excess fat.

Pork ribs in the seasoning tub.  We season all of our meat in a large plastic tub and then set them in pans overnight to marinate.   The drippings of the tubs are used in something we call a “mop” sauce, because you mop the meat during the smoking process with the marinade.

Traditionally, you’d only see pork in the form of ribs in Texas barbeque establishments, but with the price of meat rising nationally, Boston butt pork roast have started to sneak in to the Texas barbeque lexicon.

You can see that sweet sweet smoke, drifting up from under the grate through the meat.  We cook the meat on the grill like this for the first 3 hours and then…

..wrap them for the second half of the smoking time. Total cook time varies on your meat, but around 6-8 hours is the norm.

The end result from barbecuing is that meat is so tender that you can cut it with a fork.  My dad takes two forks to this Boston butt pork and makes quick work of it.

Daddy would you like some sausage? All Tom Green, craptastic movie quotes aside, this was some delish jalapeno sausage that we cooked up.

There was a family concession that these were some of the best ribs we’d had in a very long time.  Perfection.

Oh brisket, you lovely love.  The brisket was actually too hot to cut here.  We didn’t have much for this meal, but you can bet I brought all of it home.

Tons of meat = pure joy.