Ole Cowboy
TGT Addict
We are close except on Louie Mueller, eaten there 3x in the past year and no more, its far cry from the LM's I was eating back the the early 70's and on. His granddaughter (?) LA makes some of the best Q you can get in Austin, it ranks with some of the best I have ever had and that is eating Q for nearly 70 years.TL; DR: beef tastes like beef and the wood it’s smoked on.
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Rudy’s Original or franchise? They are two different flavors.
As a native, beef is bbq; everything else is, well, something else.
For brisket, I’m looking for a pepper seasoning, light on the salt with maybe a hint of garlic. Good bark, lean or moist should each stand in their own, no burnt ends or sauce. The beef tastes like beef with the ability to distinguish the wood it was cooked with. Smoke should not overwhelm.
Kreutz, Black’s, or Louie Mueller are the standard bearers, the original Coopers in Llano and Hard Eight up north fall in the same category. There’s a place on 90 in Hondo that’s pretty damn good, too.
Brisket is followed by sausage. No sausage means your not serious about barbecue. For sausage, I look for a beef/pork hotgut, venison/pork hotgut, or a beef/pork hotlink. Jalepeno cheddar starts to get too far out there for me. Southside in Elgin, Kreutz and Blacks do real good here; Coopers sausage is pretty good, but I don’t think it’s hotgut; they may have changed, though.
There’s a place in Belton that gets Honorable mention: Schoepf’s. They’re all-around very good, but not stellar.
Now, here comes the really subjective part; atmosphere. I’m looking for a place that’s been in the same spot since Christ was a corporal. So, food trucks are out—some call this blasphemy and there’s good food truck bbq out there, but even Franklin realized you’ve got to settle down.
Meet on butcher paper is best. Sauce only for dipping, if that’s your thing, but no mopping, glazing, or any other sauce served on the meat. Sauce should enhance the beef, but not overpower it. While I like the original Salt Lick, it’s not my favorite due to saucing and finishing. They’re pretty damn good, though. If I’m entertaining for work, we go to Drfitwood and that’s a haul from USAA.
My preference for ribs is beef. Should be similar to brisket, with more beef flavor. If pork ribs is all you’ve got, they need to be perfect and compliment the beef, not be the centerpiece. I’ll take sausage over pork ribs any day. If there’s brisket, beef ribs, and hotgut, then I’m in heaven...and a meat coma afterwards.
I ALWAYS get Brisket and sausage. Most Q's get their sausage at Wal Mart, HEB if you are lucky, the next thing I look for is the ONIONS, you can either buy the Yellow or White, which ever is on sale and they taste like crap and are hot, or you can step it up and get Sweets for a FEW cents more. Hot onions and Wal Mart sausage almost guarantee I won't go back because it tells me the rest of the stuff they make is questionable.
I am a sauce guy, but I am old school. Sauce has always been key in the world of Q, sadly not so much today. BBQ goes way back and the brisket was not a prime cut of meat in those times, it was tough, ran a bit on the dry side and were it not for sauce would not have been a great meal. Old school sauce was thin compared to most sauces today, no where near as sweet as some of the sugar, sugar and more sugar sauces of today. It was made from the meat drippings in the pit. They had pan that sat under the meat and it was a couple of 2 or 3 in deep and partially filled with water. The pan was long and narrow an sat directly under the drip. The last I had was in a joint up in Dallas, there were 2 places, world famous, my guess they are gone as BBQ joints rarely outlive the founder. Last I had was back in the late 60's or early 70's. Its a taste long gone for the Q scene.
The meat today is far better quality, Franklin BBQ in Austin uses ONLY grade Prime and he personally picks out the briskets, if they don't meet his standards he does not take them, which is a reason why his Q is so good.
95% of the Q you get is marginal at its VERY best. If you get a good plate, chances are the next time is won't be so good because they just take the meat off the truck, few places make their sauce anymore and almost sauces are more sugar than anything else. I am just finishing up a tasting of sauces, I think I still have maybe 2 or 3 bottles left that are not open, but I have been tasting for a couple of years. More often than not I have to thin it and add some spice to it to get it acceptable or something I just throw it away since there is so much sugar in it that it will send you into diabetic shock.
My wife wants me to sell my sauce. It goes back in my family, not sure how far but at least to the 1800's.
Todd, last April I crossed over 51 years with USAA!
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