Dry link is the Texas pitmaster’s term for a hot beef sausage that is pit-cooked long enough to lose the extreme succulence typical of sausages in the Lone Star barbecue belt. Sublime as the juicy links are, attention must be paid to these well-done tube steaks, known to pit men as dry links because so much fat has been rendered out of them. Extra time on the grate diminishes the wanton hedonism of the sausage and creates a leathery, crackle-textured skin, concentrating flavor into an edible epigram of beef, pepper, and smoke.