American BBQ Adventures: A One Year Retrospective

As I sit here on Easter  Weekend, I remember its been about a year since I started on my American Style/Low and Slow BBQ journey. I first tried this style of food at Wilson BBQ, a food truck/restaurant in Wellington sometime in 2018. I fell in love with it straight away. The tender meat, the smokey flavour, the tangy rubs and the comforting sides. I was hooked. Because life, I moved to cities on Easter Weekend 2019, and I now had space for a BBQ at my home to begin trying this myself.

If I’m honest, this hobby has taken a lot of my attention over the last 12 months, maybe to the detriment of my waistline and my work, but I have loved every minute of it. It’s a fascinating culture and it has made me a better home cook, more conscientious of the environment and hopefully a more interesting person - always nice to have a hobby that doesn’t involve a screen.

In this one year’s retrospective, I’ve written up a mix of my experiences, lessons learned and some tips for you if you want to go on a similar journey. I will focus on coming at this from the perspective of a person living in New Zealand. Something obviously not done that often for a typically American pastime.

Buying a BBQ

First off, buying a BBQ isn’t (nor should it) be a cheap exercise. A good quality BBQ is an investment and should last 10 or more years if well looked after. I wanted to start at the cheaper end so I went with a Kettle style grill. This allowed me to both grill and smoke meats – which is very versatile. Alternatives include barrel-style - which are upright with a fire at the bottom - like a Pit Barrel Cooker or Weber Smokey Mountain. Another alternative is an offset - like an Oklahoma Joe or a Yoder Abilene, with the fire to the side. Generally speaking - offset are the canonical smokers, and can be as small as an oil drum up to the size of an LPG tank that’d go on a section of a train. There’s a niche community out there that converts barrels and drums to offset smokers - maybe one day!

Back to the Kettle - The big brand in New Zealand for a kettle is Weber. Weber does have a solid NZ/AUS presence here and you can buy kettles made for our markets. However, I found it cheaper to parallel import a kettle using a company called Trade Tested. I also think Container Door does something similar. This is a neat hack because the only meaningful difference I noted was that for the temperature gauge on top (which shows both F and C), the F is in a larger font. But the C is still there. If you can live with that, you can save yourself  $100. I picked mine up from their Auckland base and assembled it in an hour or so. Take a good look, it’ll never be that clean again.

Gadgets and Accessories

While this could be a long section, I do want to cover some really good accessories. Some quick-fire obvious ones are a decent, long pair of metal tongs. The second is a wire brush for scraping your grill down after a cook - lots of drippings tend to get stuck to it, so after 20 seconds of a decent scrub, it is clean.The next is a charcoal chimney. These are $20ish and take the hassle out of lighting coals. Just put 12 firelighters underneath and as many coals as you want in the top and light it up. It’ll smoke like crazy (be considerate of your neighbours here if you can) and wait around 20-30 minutes for the coals to become lit and slightly ashed over. I’ve found that if you try to light small, used charcoal briquettes (more on this in the next section) then there isn’t enough airflow and you get a smokey mess. So, loosely pack these into the chimney. As you can tell from the links, I picked these all up in one go from my local Bunnings Warehouse. I’ve found they have a decent range year-round. Mitre 10 is also good, I just happen to live near Bunnings.

Fuel

Next up is what do you actually light in your BBQ. This is where it can be a bit religious and so I’ll try to stick to my own experiences. Ultimately, finding a fuel source that works well for you, your bbq/smoker and imparts a flavour you enjoy is what it’s all about.  

For use in my kettle, I go with a two-part system. Charcoal briquettes and Wood Chunks/Chips. Charcoal briquettes are processed compressed charcoal (not to be confused with coal, don’t use coal) that end up in a rounded rectangle shape of even size. There are a few brands out there, but Bunnings stocked Samba Hot Shots, so I’ve become a Samba user. They also came very recommended by Under The Hood. They’re thicc boys and they burn at a good rate, and not too hot. There are other brands with chips of wood in them too, but these ones are straight heat. Next, you need wood for actual smoke. I’ve tried a few different kinds of wood now. I started with wood chips from, guess where... Bunnings. These hickory wood chips are great, and using the snake method (see below), I would use a few large handfuls (3 cups?) per long cook. Some people say to soak these chips overnight, I’ve tried doing that and not doing that, and can’t tell the difference. If you do soak them, they lose a lot of odour, which arguably I want in the meat so I’d actually recommend doing them dry. After that, I wanted to try larger chunks, so I picked up a bag of Apple Wood from Mitre 10. I didn’t really like these, they smoked a thick smoke and the food didn’t really taste as good as hickory did.  After this I’ve just tried using Manuka chunks from BBQ Supplies - these have been working great and I love the flavour of them. Now, full disclosure, the flavour difference is very subtle and I’m not at the stage where I can tell you the difference, so this is just a feeling.  I simply haven’t done enough cooks yet to be sure. Ask me in 5 years?

Cooking

This section could be large, and honestly it's the craft you’re going to be working on for life after this, so I’ll keep it brief.For the actual American style/low and slow smoking of meat on my Weber kettle, I use the technique called the Snake method. Here’s the first YouTube result. The technique is great and allows for a consistent burn rate as the fire continues, and a fairly easy visual guide on how you’re going.

I then also use a water pan - which is an aluminium pan filled with boiling water, which sits inside the ring formed by the snake. This (apparently, never cooked without one) keeps the temp a bit more stabilised and keeps the air in the kettle more humid, which is great for low and slow. For temperature control, you can follow the guide on the Weber website. Learning your vents is key and it's a bit different for most people. Things like ambient air temp, wind, coal, wood chunks, meat size, amount of water in the pan, the way you hold your face and much more can affect it. Keep an eye on your temps every hour or so and adjust hotter and colder. After you adjust the vents, it can take 20-30 minutes to see a difference.For temperature reading, I usually use the lid temp on the Kettle. I place it over the fire (on mine, it’s directly opposite the vent, so it needs to be to ensure the smoke drags over). I aim for mine to say 300F, which translated means really about 250F where the meat is. The hood will always be different compared to the temp where the meat is, but being consistently different means you can just use that. However, I use a Weber iGrill 2 to monitor the meat temp, and recently I’ve started using it to monitor the ambient temp too. There is another attachment for that, but I found a bulldog clip from my stationery drawer also worked (lol) (there’s probably a difference but it hasn’t been made clear to me yet). Don’t fuss too much over thermometers - spend a decent amount on one, but not too much. They’ll all be up to 5-10F over or under. As for units, I’ve found simply using Fahrenheit much easier. Almost all the content to learn from is US based, and therefore in F. There’s only a few numbers to commit to memory anyway (grill temp and food temp). Quick food temps:

Brisket: Cook at 225-275F. Wrap at 165 or when the meat stalls. Take to 200ish, or when the temp stalls again. Probe for tenderness around 190. Could be done then. Time for me: 12 hours. Beef Ribs: Cook at 225-275F. Don’t wrap. Take to 210ish or until tender. There’ll be a stall at the end. Keep going. Time for me: 7-8 hours. Pork Ribs:  Cook at 225-275F for 3 hours. Wrap for 2 hours. Unwrap and glaze for one hour. (3-2-1 method). Time for me: 6-7 hours. Pulled Pork: Cook at  Cook at 225-275F. Wrap at 5 hours or a nice brown colour. Go to 210F or fork tender for pulling. Time for me: 10 hours. I’ll stop there, I’ll have a section below on people to follow and where to learn more. I watch a BBQ video at least once a day these days and I have gained confidence and knowledge by watching them. Generally speaking, keep the fire hotter than you want the meat to be and wait. BBQ is done when its done. Cuts of meats have a pretty large variation of cooking time, so one brisket could be ready an hour early or two hours late. Adjust your expectations thusly. 

Buying Meat

At this point, you’re probably thinking to yourself  “I’ve never seen beef ribs or brisket in the supermarket”. Correct. You never will. This is the time to go find a good butcher near you. I’ve found Butcher Jacks pretty great for all things meat. Butchers have a larger range and these days are increasingly becoming aware of low and slow cooking as a trend, in New Zealand, so have cuts for such enthusiasts. I’ve also tried meat from the Mad Butcher, Simply Fresh, Bidfood and Gilmours. All great. Now, the big important thing here is that the cuts in NZ are always much smaller than you’ll see on the American BBQ Youtube channels. Simply put, they don’t breed cows/pigs etc here that big. Beef ribs won’t have 5 inches of meat on them and briskets won’t be over 7-8KG. They just won’t be. It’s disappointing but probably good. I’ll bite my tongue here and not speculate as to why, but let’s just say farming practices in New Zealand are far more natural than other parts of the world. For low and slow, look for good fat marbling and size you want to cook for. If you’re hungry, buy 300ish grams per person you’re feeding. Some *cough* me *cough* will eat more, some will eat less. This is also the point where I’ll point out that you’ll need to be comfortable handling large chunks of meat. There will be blood, fat, silver skin, smells and all sorts that simply isn’t for everyone. If you get queasy at the thought of this - this might not be the hobby for you. I grew up on a farm, so I might have a better stomach for it than most. My partner is one of these people, so I am respectful of that and abstract much of the grossness away from her. She loves the end result, though. Wagyu? I’ve tried Wagyu brisket twice, and despite the logical fact of a slightly fattier cow not being necessary for a low and slow cook, I have found it more amateur-friendly in terms of not drying out. They also tend to come a bit better pre-trimmed. So don’t be impressed by the name, it just means fattier, which means (a higher chance of being) moister once cooked. Also, Waygu is not Kobe. Learn the difference.

Get a sharp knife for trimming, too. Watch some videos on brisket trimming. (Links below)

Rubs and Sauces

Rubs are another art-form of the BBQ world. A rub is a medium ground power of spices that you put over the meat. You could think of it as a crust or coating. You can buy them pre-made/pre-mixed or you can make your own. I’ve made my own when I first started out, and then since have tried a few different ones designed for beef or pork. This is where I encourage you to try out stuff on your own, as everyone’s taste buds are different. However, the overwhelming flavour will still be the meat and the smoke, but you can add some other notes in there like garlic, paprika, brown sugar, onion etc. But they are just notes. I’ve enjoyed this rub for anything beef, which I actually found stocked at my local butcher. There are other great NZ brands too, like The Four Sourceman and Rum and Que. Once again, shop around, it’s cheap to try them out. Buying/supporting local is generally easy to do with this hobby.On the Sauce side, we’ve all had maybe Watties BBQ sauce, but there are so many more out there. From fruity to smokey to tangy to spicy, there’s a bunch to try and you’ll find your favourites pretty quick. Right now I’m enjoying Sweet Baby Ray’s. I generally buy a new brand every few weeks from the supermarket, BBQ supply websites or event just to try out.

People to follow

Across Instagram and YouTube, I follow a fair few BBQ people now. Here are my faves:

Just note once again that the meat you’ll see from the Americans here are often too big of cuts for what you can get in New Zealand. Everything else still applies, though. 

The Not So Fun Parts

It’s not all fun and games. There are some untold, much worse realities to cooking with fire. Feel free to skip (you’ve been warned). Here’s a quick list

  1. Your clothes and house will smell like smoke. Always cook outside in a well-ventilated area. Shower before eating to wash off the smell of the cook.

  2. Smoke in your eyes can do damage. I’ve had a couple of eye stys because of smoke or soot getting in my eyes. Not fun. 

  3. You’ll blow your nose black. If you breathe over coals or fire, your nose will collect soot particles and your mucus will be black. 

  4. Meat smells meaty and there will be blood in the packages. Drain well and wash the sink. Clean up after yourself.

  5. Cleaning your BBQ (Great video) is a long, gross job. Took me an hour recently. Had to shower after. 

  6. Rub goes everywhere. Especially the ones with charcoal in them. Try seasoning your meat on a surface you can easily clean. I’ve taken to putting down some glad wrap now.

  7. Early starts. I start my brisket process at 3 am. I am often very tired when it comes time to eat and don’t enjoy it as much as the second night or going out for Brisket.

  8. Resting meat is key but requires great patience. A brisket, for best results, should rest for 2-3 hours. Being hungry while smelling it really sucks. 

  9. My partner would like to add - ruining tea-towels. Try to use older or not important tea towels and kitchen accessories. Oops.


Future Thoughts

Next, I’d like to get another, bigger dedicated smoker. I’m considering a pellet smoker like a Traeger, and while they’re great - largely set and forget, they do take a bit of the challenge out of it in terms of temperature management. I’m also tempted by a Weber Smokey Mountain (a barrel style smoker). Once I’ve mastered these, I’d like to cook with some real pressure - perhaps for a large gathering. Right now I’ve been cooking for myself and my partner and maybe a friend or two, but the joke/actual back up plan has always been ordering pizza, haha.

Final Lessons

  • If you go to Meatstock (which you should) then you’ll find good deals on many of everything above - BBQs, rubs, sauces, equipment etc. As well as, you know, the best meat coma of your life. 

  • This is an expensive hobby - meat is 20/kg, fuel + wood chunks, rubs, your Saturday...A decent brisket can cost over $120 NZD to cook. You might just want to find a restaurant :P

  • You probably want to exercise more. I’ve added more walking and running to counter the increased caloric intake. Do your thing though.

  • Experiment, try out. BBQ is about feeding people at the end of the day. Find and cook what you and the people you’re cooking for love to eat. 

  • All my best cooking pics are on my Instagram - check the story highlights!

Thanks for reading! What a fun year this has been so far. Happy Smoking! Any questions? Ask away!
My regular programming posts will continue after this one.