Feeding the Fire

Long before I owned a restaurant—and, with it, a top-of-the-line commercial smoker—I taught myself how to barbecue in my backyard with a $40 Brinkmann smoker, which continues to turn out some of the best meat I’ve ever smoked. You can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a fancy high-end smoker, but all you’re paying for is convenience and, perhaps, some badass-looking equipment—but certainly not flavor.

An electric smoker is the easiest to use: you plug it in, set the temperature, load your meat, and let the machine do its work; all you have to do is add some wood chips periodically. What you’ll end up with is, yes, technically, barbecue, but it’s almost impossible to create a thick, flavorful bark in an electric smoker, and you can forget about a smoke ring. Simply put, electric smokers don’t produce the combustion needed to create the flavor of authentic barbecue.

Propane smokers are as easy to use as electric smokers but much more portable. As with a gas grill, there’s no charcoal fire to attend to, and you can achieve something close to barbecue flavor. But, as with gas grills, something very important is missing: wood. Read on.

Like electric and gas smokers, pellet smokers offer accurate temperature control and require only minimal babysitting during the smoking process. These grill-like rigs burn small cylinders of compressed sawdust to produce a constant output of smoke. While pellet smokers have their fans and are great for cold-smoking, I’ve found them to produce less smoke—and therefore less flavor—than even electric and gas smokers.

Consistent temperature is a convenience, but what’s lacking in all of the models mentioned above is charcoal. While fresh wood, whether in the form of chips, pellets, or chunks, adds flavor, carbonized wood—that is, charcoal—is equally essential to achieving maximum barbecue flavor.

Most charcoal smokers fall into one of two categories: offset or bullet-shaped. Offset smokers look like a grill with a small firebox attached to one side. The heat and smoke produced in the firebox flow through the barrel-shaped chamber and out through a chimney. It’s easier to build and maintain a fire in this style of smoker, but I’ve found that they’re very inconsistent. It’s hard to control the flow of smoke, which tends to float above the meat and exit the chimney before it’s done its job. Plus, the side of the chamber near the firebox gets much hotter than the opposite side, so the meat will cook unevenly unless you move it around. There are some great offset smokers on the market, and you’ll see professional pitmasters trucking around giant versions of them to barbecue competitions, but these are usually very expensive and/or custom-made.

My favorite type of smoker is the bullet-shaped barrel smoker. Some folks actually fashion these smokers from repurposed barrels, but most store-bought models resemble a kettle grill with a long metal tube fixed between the bowl-shaped bottom and the domed lid. The setup for all of these smokers is basically the same: Charcoal and wood go in a pan on the bottom of the grill and then are added through a small door as needed. A water pan is set above the charcoal and below two or more racks to hold the meat. On top goes the lid, which usually has air vents and a thermometer. The most popular barrel smoker on the market is probably the Weber Smokey Mountain (see Resources), which comes in three sizes. The cheaper Brinkmann smoker is similar in form and function, but it lacks the Weber’s adjustable air vents and has a smaller door, which makes adding charcoal and wood more of a pain. It also has a rather vague temperature gauge on the lid (with “low,” “medium,” and “hot” zones) in lieu of an actual thermometer. (With any smoker, I recommend using an accurate oven thermometer or instant-read probe thermometer to monitor the temperature until you calibrate the built-in thermometer to your desired cooking range.)

But you don’t actually need a dedicated smoker to make proper barbecue. A kettle grill can easily be configured into a smoker and will achieve equally great results once you know how to set one up (see page 47).

My advice: If you’re new to barbecue, start with an inexpensive bullet smoker (see Resources). If you catch the barbecue bug after using it for a while, upgrade to something that suits your particular needs (capacity, speed, convenience, etc.). Just remember that if you opt for convenience over charcoal, you’re also leaving out flavor.

1 Remove any ash and debris if the smoker has been previously used and clean the grates. Any leftover particles or residue will also flavor your meat as they heat up, so you want to start with as clean a smoker as possible.

2 Fill a chimney starter about halfway with hardwood charcoal. Loosely crumple a couple of pieces of newspaper and drizzle or spray them with vegetable oil (this helps the paper burn longer and speeds up the charcoal-lighting process). Stuff the paper into the chimney’s lower chamber, place the chimney on the smoker’s top grate, and light it. Let the charcoal burn until the coals are glowing red and coated in gray ash, about 15 minutes. Put on a pair of heavy-duty fireproof gloves and carefully dump about half of the smoldering charcoal into the charcoal container. When I barbecue, I like to have a kettle grill or an extra chimney starter nearby and keep a steady supply of burning charcoal in it to replenish the fire—if you’re using pure hardwood charcoal, you can throw a couple of unlit chunks into the smoker at a time, but charcoal briquettes must be lighted beforehand or they’ll add nasty flavors to the meat.

3 Line the water pan with aluminum foil (this makes cleanup easier), position it over the coals, and fill it about half full with hot water (if you use cold water, it will take longer for the smoke to heat up). The water pan’s primary function is to catch the fat that drips from the meat to prevent flare-ups, but it also acts as insulation that helps reduce temperature fluctuations. Some say the water adds humidity and therefore keeps your meat moister, but I’ve never noticed a difference.

4 Set the metal grates in place, adding the meat to the grates. If you’re not filling up the entire smoker with meat, load it from the top down, as there will be a higher concentration of smoke near the top of the unit. Then put the lid on top. Some experts advocate lighting and assembling your smoker and waiting until it reaches optimum cooking temperature before adding the meat, but all of that assembling, disassembling, and reassembling is a pain in the butt, and I’ve never had an issue with my single-assembly method.

5 If your smoker has air vents in the top or bottom, open them up all the way. You can adjust the vents later to control the temperature.

6 Open the smoker door and throw a few tennis ball–size chunks of wood or a handful of wood chips on top of the charcoal. Wood chips should always be soaked in water for at least 15 minutes and drained before use, but there’s no need to soak wood chunks in water. If you’re using chips, keep a ready supply of them soaking nearby.

7 If you have a probe thermometer, insert it through the top air vent to monitor the temperature. (My Brinkmann doesn’t have any air vents in the top, so I drilled a hole in it for the thermometer.) The smoker will take about 10 minutes to reach 225°F, which is the optimal temperature for cooking most barbecue. As you get accustomed to your smoker, you’ll find yourself needing to check the thermometer less and less.

8 You’ll notice that the temperature will fluctuate up and down as the wood chunks or chips ignite and the charcoal burns down. These fluctuations are inevitable with a charcoal smoker and are nothing to worry about. Your goal is to maintain a range between 200° and 250°F: As the temperature nears 200°F, add a couple of pieces of charcoal (keep a pair of long tongs handy for opening the hot door and adding the charcoal and wood). If the temperature spikes above 250°F for more than a few minutes, remove a piece or two of charcoal or partially close the bottom vent (and top vent, if necessary) to lower the temperature. If your smoker doesn’t have air vents, you can briefly remove the lid until the smoker cools down, though this lets a lot of smoke escape.

9 When you notice the supply of smoke dying down, add one or two more wood chunks or another handful of chips to the charcoal container. I think it’s more important to keep a constant supply of smoke hitting the meat earlier in the cooking process (see How Often to Add Wood); when the meat nears doneness, I stop adding wood to the fire—any smoke created in the final cooking stage adds little to the overall flavor.

10 If you’re smoking big cuts of meat, the barbecue process can take all day. While it’s impossible to “set it and forget it” with a charcoal smoker, you don’t need to constantly babysit your barbecue. Check the temperature and smoke level every hour or so, and add small amounts of charcoal and wood as needed. As long as your mean temperature is around 225°F, you’ll have nothing to worry about.

The chart below gives smoking times and temperatures for the various meats and cuts most commonly used for barbecue. My target smoking temperature for most barbecue is 225°F.

You’ll notice that the range of cooking times for any given meat can be quite large; this is because of many small factors, including the temperature of the meat when it begins cooking, the mean temperature of your smoker, the temperature outside of your smoker, and even the breed of animal. I’ve included a target internal temperature for when the meat is done, but that is far less important than the texture of the meat, which you should check first, following the recipe’s directions.

2 Prepare a chimney starter according to the instructions in step 2 of page 44, filling it about halfway with coals. Dump the charcoal into one side of the grill—over the bottom air vent if your grill has one—leaving the other half free of coals. Place a disposable aluminum tray on the other side to use as a drip pan.

3 Place a few hardwood chunks or a foil packet of wood chips (see page 49) over the coals. Add the top grate and put your meat over the drip pan. Cover the grill, placing the air vents in the lid over the meat. Open both vents about halfway.

4 Smoke the meat, monitoring the smoker temperature on a thermometer inserted through the top vent. If the grill gets too hot, close the top vent and, if necessary, partly close the bottom vent. If using hardwood chunks, add a couple of pieces of unlit hardwood charcoal when the temperature dips down near 200°F. Or, if your wood chip packet stops producing smoke, remove it with tongs and replace it with a fresh packet. If the wood chips ignite, douse the flames with a squirt bottle.

Gas grills have the advantage of easy temperature control, but you’re going to miss out on charcoal flavor. And gas grills tend to be poorly ventilated, which allows a lot of smoke to escape rather than circulate around the meat. Most gas grills have at least two burners; if yours only has one, you won’t be able to smoke on it—sorry.

1 If your grill lights from left to right, turn one burner to medium and put the meat on the opposite side of the grill (you don’t have to wait for the grill to heat up; and there’s no need for a drip pan with a gas setup unless you want to make cleanup easier). Put a wood chip packet (see page 49) under the grate over the lit flame. If your grill lights front to back, light the front burner, place the wood chip packet under the grate over the burner, and put the meat as far back on the grill as possible.

2 Smoke the meat, adjusting the burner to maintain your desired temperature. Replace the wood chip packet whenever it stops smoking; each packet should last 30 to 45 minutes.

1 Put the pork shoulder on a rimmed baking sheet and cover it generously with the dry rub, making sure to stuff and pat the rub into any cracks and crevices in the meat. If you have time, let the pork rest for 1 hour at room temperature, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Put the pork in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 225° and 250°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 8 hours, begin checking the pork periodically. When it is done, you should be able to easily pull a hunk of meat off with your fingers; the pork should have a thick, chewy bark and a noticeable pink smoke ring (see The Smoke Ring) just below the surface. With a towel or thick rubber gloves, grab the bone and give it a wiggle; if it’s loose enough to pull from the shoulder, the pork is ready; an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the meat should register between 185° and 195°F. Total smoking time can be up to 13 hours.

5 Using heavy rubber gloves, transfer the pork to a rimmed baking sheet. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

6 Remove the bone, if you haven’t already, and begin pulling the pork into pieces. I find it speeds up the process if you first smash the shoulder a few times with the base of your palm; this will separate it into a few larger pieces, which you can grab and pick apart. As you pull the pork, discard any large pieces of fat that you come across.

7 Once all of the pork is pulled to your liking, taste a piece and, if necessary, season the meat with salt or dry rub. Serve with potato rolls or hamburger buns and sauce on the side, if you like. The pork can be made up to 1 day ahead.

1 Put the pork belly on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has an even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the pork rest for 1 to 2 hours, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the belly, fatty side up, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 210° and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 6 hours, start checking the meat periodically: Poke the belly in a few places; the fat should be gelatinous and custard-like in consistency, and the meat will easily separate under your finger. If you think the belly is nearly finished, cut off a chunk and eat it. The bark should be dry and crisp, and the meat should be moist and very tender but not mushy. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the belly should register around 175°F. Total smoking time can be up to 9 hours.

5 When the belly is smoked to your liking, use two pairs of tongs or a pair of heavy rubber gloves to transfer it to a cutting board. Let the meat rest for at least 15 minutes, then cut the belly crosswise into ½-inch slices and serve.

1 Put the ribs on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has a thin, even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the meat rest for 1 hour at room temperature, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the racks of ribs, meaty side up, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 200° and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 5 hours, start checking the ribs periodically: You should be able to easily tear a piece of meat from the bone with your fingers, but the meat shouldn’t be falling-off-the-bone tender. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the rib meat should register about 180°F. Total smoking time can be up to 7 hours.

5 Using tongs or a pair of heavy rubber gloves, transfer the racks to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes, then cut into individual ribs and serve, with sauce on the side, if you like.

New Jersey Barbecue

As surprising as it may sound, my home state of New Jersey has a barbecue subculture all its own, one that predates the modern wave of Applebee’s-style barbecue chains the state hosts too. While there are plenty of these around the Garden State, there’s also a pocket of legitimate barbecue hidden among the heavily wooded Pine Barrens in the southern part of the state. In warmer months, you’ll find a smattering of roadside stands here, each spring bringing a new crop of barbecue entrepreneurs.

One of the area’s standbys is Uncle Dewey’s Outdoor BBQ Pavilion, located along Route 40 in Mizpah (see Resources). Its proprietor, Dewey Johnson, moved to the state from South Carolina in 1941 and worked as a union representative until retiring and opening his seasonal operation in the lot next to his childhood home. Here, he smokes briskets and pork shoulders in large brick pits, using only salt and local cherry or oak wood to flavor the meat. He also makes chicken and pork ribs, served with a tangy, secret-recipe sauce. Dewey’s style of barbecue is clearly influenced by his Southern roots, though it bears little resemblance to the smoked pork of his native state. “A lot of people move up here from the South,” he says, “so it makes sense that there’s a demand for good barbecue around here.”

Nearby is Henri’s Hotts (see Resources), where owner Doug Henri smokes his version of Texas-style barbecue—brisket, pulled pork, ribs, and chicken—in portable smoking rigs behind his restaurant. Like me, Henri claims no regional barbecue heritage: his parents hail from Philadelphia and New Jersey and he grew up an army brat in Germany. “I’m not from the South,” he says, “but I know what good Southern barbecue should taste like.”

For me, these two spots show that barbecue culture is portable: A small enclave of localized barbecue can spring up anywhere, anytime—even in New Jersey, and probably all over America. All it takes are a few folks who want to fire up a smoker, and enough hungry customers to keep them in business.

1 Put the roast on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has an even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the meat rest for 1 hour at room temperature, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the roast, rib side down, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 250° and 300°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 2 hours, start checking the meat. The pork is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the roast registers 140°F. Total smoking time can be up to 4 hours.

5 Using tongs or a pair of heavy rubber gloves, transfer the roast to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting into individual ribs.

1 Trim the brisket’s fat cap to about ¼ inch thick, removing any hard lumps of fat. Put it on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has an even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the meat rest for 1 hour at room temperature, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the brisket, fatty side up, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 210° and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 8 hours, start checking the meat periodically: Poke the brisket in a few places—the fat cap should be soft and pliant and the meat should separate under your finger. If you think your brisket is nearly finished, cut off a chunk and eat it. The bark should be dry and crisp and the meat should be moist and tender but not mushy or overly chewy. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the brisket should register about 185°F. Total smoking time can be 12 to 16 hours.

5 When your brisket is smoked to your liking, using two pairs of tongs or a pair of heavy rubber gloves, transfer it to a cutting board. If your cutting board doesn’t have a channel for catching juices, put it on a rimmed baking sheet. Let the meat rest for at least 30 minutes.

6 Just before serving (once sliced, brisket dries out quickly), slice the brisket across the grain into ½-inch pieces, beginning at the thinner end of the cut. When you encounter the thick band of tough fat that separates the point from the flat, cut the brisket into two pieces between the point and the flat. Remove most of the fat, then continue slicing and serve.

The Stall

When barbecuing large cuts of meat like brisket or pork shoulder, you’ll notice that the internal temperature rises quickly and constantly over the first few hours of smoking, then stalls somewhere between 150° and 170°F and hangs out there for a few hours before resuming its climb up the ladder. If you’re monitoring the temperature of your meat as it cooks (which you don’t really need to do), this can be a scary time. Don’t worry: the “stall” is caused by moisture evaporating from the surface of the meat, which cools it down until all of the surface moisture has evaporated—the best analogy I’ve heard is that it’s the same as how sweat cools us down on a hot day.

Moving the Meat

Most of the time you can set your meat in the smoker (always fattiest side up) and forget about it until it’s finished. There’s usually no need to move or turn it unless you notice parts of the cut beginning to burn (this usually happens around the edges)—this is a sign that your smoker has a hot spot. Simply rotate the grate or move the meat.

Knowing When It’s Done

Unless I’m smoking poultry, sausage, or cured meat, I rarely use a thermometer to check doneness when barbecuing (the opposite is true when I’m grilling; see page 170). With barbecue, texture is everything, and a thermometer can’t help you with that. Barbecue is a lot like cooking pasta: you have to taste for doneness as it cooks, checking more frequently toward the end.

For beef (brisket, cheeks, and so on), the meat is done when you can easily rip off a piece with your fingers or a fork. Taste it; if it has the right amount of chew, it’s done. How tender you like your meat is a matter of personal preference. With ribs, the meat should tear easily when you pull two bones apart.

The texture of the fat is just as important; you want it to feel like soft gelatin—almost liquid—when you poke it with your finger. It shouldn’t spring back on you at all.

1 Put the ribs on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has an even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the meat rest at room temperature for 1 hour, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Put the racks of ribs, bone side down, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 210° and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 4 hours, start checking the ribs periodically: You should be able to pull a piece of meat off the bone with your fingers. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the rib meat should register about 180°F, and the meat should be tender all the way through. Total smoking time can be up to 6 hours.

5 Using tongs or a pair of heavy rubber gloves, transfer the racks to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting them into individual ribs and serving, with sauce on the side, if desired.

1 Put the ribs on a rimmed baking sheet and coat all over with the dry rub, patting it onto the surface until the meat has a thin, even layer of rub (you may not need all of the rub). If you have time, let the meat rest for 1 hour, or until the rub starts to turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the racks of ribs, meaty side up, in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 200°F and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 3 hours, start checking the ribs periodically: You should be able to easily tear a piece of meat off the bone with your fingers, but the meat shouldn’t be falling-off-the-bone tender. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the rib meat should register about 150°F. Total smoking time can be up to 5 hours.

Pulled Leg of Goat

Although goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world, the demand in America is so low that most goat farmers here—who primarily raise the animals for milk and cheese—either kill male goats at birth or sell them to the commodity meat market. A few years back, Heritage Foods USA (see Resources) launched their “No Goat Left Behind” program, which promotes the cooking and eating of goats every fall. If you choose to get on board, try my favorite goat-based barbecue.

Many people say that goat is a very gamey meat, but I’ve always found its flavor to fall somewhere between that of beef and lamb. However, because it contains far less fat than other barbecue-bound animals, you have to pay attention and be sure to take it out of the smoker as soon as it’s tender enough to pull, or it can be dry.

1 Put the goat leg on a rimmed baking sheet and generously cover it with the dry rub, making sure to stuff and pat the rub into any cracks and crevices in the meat. If you have time, let the meat rest for 1 hour at room temperature, or until the rub starts to moisten and turn into a pasty coating.

3 Place the goat in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 200° and 225°F, replenishing the charcoal and wood chunks or chips as needed.

4 After about 4 hours, begin checking the goat periodically: When it’s done, you should be able to easily pull a hunk of meat off with your fingers and the exterior should have a thick, chewy bark. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the meat should register about 150°F. Total smoking time can be up to 8 hours.

5 Using heavy rubber gloves, transfer the leg to a rimmed baking sheet and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

6 Begin pulling the goat into pieces. As you pull the meat, discard any large pieces of fat that you come across.

7 Once all the goat is pulled, taste a piece and, if necessary, season the meat with salt or dry rub. Serve with potato rolls or hamburger buns.

South Texas Barbacoa

The history of barbecue is written by the winners. Many of America’s hotbeds of modern barbecue share a similar origin story: Some guy—inspired by local cooking traditions, nearby livestock, or pure imagination—smokes a hunk of meat at home, impresses his friends, and is urged to open a barbecue joint. His restaurant/shack/roadside stand is wildly successful, other folks take notice and open similar establishments emulating his barbecue nearby, and, before you know it, a regional style is born.

Sometimes, however, regional barbecue becomes endangered, even extinct. Such is the case with barbacoa in south Texas. Though the word has traveled over the centuries from the Caribbean—where it described a wooden contraption used for smoking fish and game—to Europe via Spanish conquistadors and, finally, back to the New World, barbacoa in the south Texas tip refers to barbecue made from cabeza de vaca, the head of a cow.

Barbacoa was most likely introduced to the region by Mexican ranch hands. Across Mexico, head-based barbecue—be it from a cow, goat, lamb, or pig—has been a weekend-gathering staple for ages. In the cattle ranches near the U.S.–Mexico border, ranch hands, who were often left with the unwanted remnants of livestock butchery, would wrap the heads in maguey (agave plant) leaves and cook them en pozo—that is, buried in a pit over smoldering mesquite coals. After a night of steaming and smoking in the earth, the heads would be extracted and unwrapped and the tender meat pulled from the skull and wrapped into tortillas.

The arrival of food-service culture brought with it a proliferation of joints serving barbacoa along the U.S.–Mexico border. Over the years, though, modern health regulations have all but quashed the traditional whole-head method; these days you’ll still find barbacoa on the menu at barbecue joints across Texas, but it’s almost always made from beef cheeks or rump roast, often roasted or steamed instead of buried with a mesquite fire.

Today you can find traditional barbacoa in exactly one place: Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville, Texas, located a short stroll away from the Mexican border (see Resources). Thanks to a grandfather clause, Vera’s is the only surviving establishment allowed to serve whole-head barbecue, albeit sans brains, which have been forbidden since the mad cow scare. The restaurant’s sign says “Barbacoa en Pozo con Leña de Mezquite,” which sums up the cooking method—“barbecue in a hole with mesquite wood”—owner Mando Vera inherited from his father, who opened the restaurant in 1955. Vera wraps the cow heads in foil and buries them in a firebrick pit over mesquite-wood coals. During the slow, 10-hour cooking spell, the head’s fat and connective tissue break down, leaving behind impossibly tender, mesquite-scented meat, which is served with tortillas and an assortment of homemade salsas. In addition to being a prime example of barbecue’s sweet simplicity, a bite of Vera’s barbacoa is a taste of history—one that you should experience while you still can.

Beef Cheeks

Barbecued beef cheeks are the best part of authentic Texan barbacoa, minus the fuss and possible trauma of cooking an entire cow’s head.

A cow’s cheek does a lot of work (think of all the grass and feed cows eat), making this muscle very flavorful but also extra-tough. A cheek’s fat structure is also different from that of most other beef cuts; instead of long striations of marbling, you’ll find tiny pockets of fat throughout. For such a tiny cut, the cheeks take a long spell of low-and-slow cooking to get to the right texture, which will be tender but a little chewier than a brisket, like little fists of intensely flavored barbecue. Be sure to save any leftovers for shredding into barbacoa-style tacos.

Makes 4 servings

4 beef cheeks (about 1 pound each)

1 cup Fette Sau Dry Rub

Wood chunks or soaked wood chips

1 Trim any silver skin and large chunks of external fat from the cheeks. Put the cheeks on a rimmed baking sheet and lightly coat them with the dry rub (you may not need all of the rub).

2 Preheat a smoker to 225°F or set up a grill for smoking (see page 44 or 47). Place the cheeks in the smoker and smoke, maintaining a smoker temperature of between 210° and 225°F, replenishing the wood chunks or chips as needed.

3 After 5 hours, start checking the beef cheeks periodically: Pull off a piece and eat it. The bark should be dry and crisp and the meat should be moist and tender but not mushy or overly chewy. An instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the cheeks should register about 175°F. Total smoking time can be up to 7 hours.

4 To serve, either thinly slice the cheeks and arrange on a platter, or serve one whole cheek per guest.

Note

To rewarm the beef cheeks, wrap each in a piece of aluminum foil, adding a splash of water. Heat in a 200°F oven until warmed through. If the bark has gone soft, you can recrisp it over a medium-hot grill fire for a minute or two.

Meat	Approximate Weight/Size	Ideal Smoker Temperature	Approximate Cooking Time	Internal Temperature when Done
Beef brisket (whole)	10 to 14 pounds	225°F	12 to 16 hours	185° to 195°F
Beef short ribs	7 pounds per rack	225°F	5 to 6 hours	180°F
Beef tongue	2 to 3 pounds each	225°F	6 to 8 hours	175°F
Beef cheeks	1 pound each	225°F	5 to 7 hours	175°F
Pork shoulder (Boston butt)	5 to 8 pounds	225°F	7 to 13 hours (1½ hours per pound)	185° to 195°F
Pork spareribs	3 pounds per rack	225°F	5 to 7 hours	180°F
Pork belly	12 to 15 pounds	225°F	7 to 9 hours	175°F
Pork baby back ribs	1½ pounds per rack	225°F	3 to 5 hours	180°F
Pork loin roast	5 to 6 pounds	300°F	2 to 4 hours	140°F
Fresh sausages	1½ to 2 inches in diameter	225°F	1 to 2 hours	165°F
Lamb shoulder	8 to 10 pounds	225°F	4 to 6 hours	185°F
Lamb spareribs	1½ pounds per rack	225°F	3 to 5 hours	150°F
Goat leg	5 pounds	225°F	5 to 8 hours	150°F
Chicken	4 pounds	225°F	3 to 5 hours	165°F
Turkey	12 to 14 pounds	225°F	6 to 7 hours	165°F