New Tallahassee Restaurant Sharing Recipes and BBQ Tips

Brisket Ingredients:

1 whole brisket, from 10 to 15 pounds, untrimmed with full fat cap
1 cup 4R Brisket Rub (Recipe follows)
All-Purpose BBQ Sauce
Sliced dill pickles
Onions, sliced thin
White bread
4R Brisket Rub
Makes 1/4 cup
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar

Make rub:

- Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. Store in airtight container. Will keep indefinitely.

Prepare brisket:

- Apply rub liberally on brisket, making sure to cover all sides and crevices. Refrigerate uncovered at least four hours, preferably overnight.
- Remove brisket from refrigerator at least 1 hour before smoking, letting it come to room temperature.

Prepare smoker:

- Soak hickory chips or chunks for 1 hour before smoking. Soaking will allow the wood to smolder and smoke for longer periods of time versus catching on fire and quickly burning up.
- Light charcoal and allow to burn to a white ash
- Place soaked wood on top of hot coals and adjust smoker vents to settle the temperature in a range between 200˚ and 225˚F

Smoke brisket:

- Place brisket, fat side up, indirectly over the smoking wood. Close the lid and get comfortable. Depending on the size of your brisket, smoking will take from 12 to 18 hours. A general rule of thumb is 75 minutes for every pound of brisket.
- Keep an eye on your coals and wood, replenishing both as needed, but opening the lid of the smoker as little as possible.
- After 8 to 10 hours, check the internal temperature of brisket using a meat thermometer inserted into brisket at its thickest point. Continue checking every 30 to 60 minutes until the internal the internal temperature reaches 190˚to192˚F
- Remove brisket from smoker. Using multiple layers to prevent dripping, wrap brisket in plastic wrap and place in a small, empty cooler. Cover with a folded towel (or two), close the cooler lid and let it rest for 1 to 2 hours before carving. This will allow the juices to settle back into the meat.

Slice brisket:

- When ready to serve, remove brisket from cooler and place in a baking sheet or sheet pan with a rim. Carefully cut open the plastic wrap, allowing the juices to spill out into the pan.
- Place the whole brisket on a cutting board and, starting at the thinnest part of the flat, begin to slice the brisket against the grain, working toward the thicker side (the point). Trim the fat cap off as necessary or to your preference.
- As you work your way up the brisket, you'll begin to notice a seam of fat forming in in the middle of the brisket. This is the connective tissue that holds the two pieces of meat together. Once it becomes distinct and runs the entire width of the brisket, you need to separate the two cuts.
- Using a long knife and cutting the full width of the brisket, slice directly into seam of fat along the contours of the meat until the two pieces are separated.
- Remove the point (the piece), flip it over and, using the back of your knife, scrape the excess fat from the meat. Repeat on the bottom piece.
- Rotate the point 90 degrees so the grains of both pieces are running in the same direction. Flip both pieces over so the bark is facing up and continue carving as needed.

Serve with white bread, pickles, onions and sauce. 

Each type of meat served at the Smokehouse is cooked in a manner that reflects the best style I found during many years of traveling throughout the country. Whereas my pulled pork comes from Alabama and my brisket goes back to Texas, the best ribs I came across were in North Carolina. The combination of apple and pork is good on it own, but the finish with the sweetness of the honey and brown sugar is a treat you don't want to miss.

St. Louis Ribs Ingredients:

1 full rack of St. Louis-style ribs (about 4 pounds)
2 tablespoons 4R All-Purpose Rub
2 cups apple juice, poured into a squirt bottle
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
¼ cup BBQ Sauce

Prepare smoker:

- Soak wood for 1 hour before smoking.
- Light charcoal and allow to burn to a white ash
- Place soaked hickory on top of hot coals and allow the temperature to settle at 225°F.

Cook ribs:

- Remove membrane on underside of rack of ribs (or score along the length of the rack with a knife, taking care not to puncture the meat).
- Apply rub evenly over top of ribs. Place in smoker and cover. Check and replace wood and coal every hour to maintain a constant temperature.
- After 2 hours, begin to spray the ribs with apple juice every 30 minutes
- Continue smoking and spraying ribs for another 1½ hours, until the meat turns a dark brown and begins to pull back from the ends of the rib so ¼ to ½ inch of the bone is exposed and meat is tender to touch.
- Remove ribs from smoker. Spray with apple juice and sprinkle top with brown sugar and honey, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap or aluminum foil.
- Place ribs back in smoker for 30 minutes.
- Remove ribs from smoker and keep wrapped until ready to serve. If longer than 30 minutes, place ribs in an empty cooler and close lid tight to preserve heat.

Finish ribs:

Just before serving, heat a gas grill to medium-high. Remove ribs from wrapping and drizzle with BBQ sauce. Place ribs on hot grill, bottom side down, for 3 minutes. Flip only once, and grill the top side for another 3 minutes, until meat is slightly charred and sugar from the BBQ sauce has caramelized.

Rib Facts:

Just as baby back ribs have nothing to do with piglets, St. Louis ribs have nothing to do with St. Louis. They're the trimmed-up version of a sparerib after the tips and flap have been cut off (called a square cut). They wrap around the belly of the pig on the bottom of the rib cage, whereas the baby backs wrap the loin where the rib cage meets the spine. I serve St. Louie's exclusively at the Smokehouse because I like the flavor the moist bacon fat provides, plus my guests appreciate the additional amount of meat on the larger rib.