Colt Knight: 00:29

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor, state livestock specialist for Cooperative Extension here at the University of Maine. And today, I have got an outstanding guest, Doctor. Gregg Rentfrow, meat science professor at the University of Kentucky. And we have maybe the best podcast topic ever today.

Colt Knight: 00:57

We are gonna talk about one of my favorite subjects,

Gregg Rentfrow: 01:05

barbecue. Barbecue. You bet. Yeah. It seems odd to talk about barbecue as we’re recording this, there’s about eight inches of snow on the ground, but it’s never too late, never too early, never the wrong season to do barbecuing.

Gregg Rentfrow: 01:24

And yeah, it’s an interesting subject because Dr. Knight and I are going to travel this summer to North Carolina State University. A friend of mine, Dr. Dana Hanson, there at NC State, he has a barbecue camp, a three day affair of nothing but barbecue. So make sure you call your cardiologist before you go.

Gregg Rentfrow: 01:47

And we’re going learn more about barbecuing down there. I’ve been there the last couple of years and at the university level, more and more universities are starting barbecue classes for folks. And cool thing is, is in Kentucky, I say it’s cool for us, we don’t have barbecue style like, you know, North Carolina’s got a barbecue style, so does Texas and Memphis and so on. So we’re gonna try to create our own barbecue style.

Colt Knight: 02:16

That’s I’m looking forward to going to the North Carolina State barbecue camp. I kind of got into barbecue. West Virginia was not a barbecue state when I was growing up there. When someone said barbecue, usually what they meant is like some kind of pulled pork or beef just like a sloppy joe almost with barbecue sauce and like a crock pot on a bun kind of deal. And I grew up showing horses.

Colt Knight: 02:46

So we traveled all throughout the South, showing horses and my dad really liked barbecue. And we’d always stop at different. Different little hole in the wall barbecue joints. We never went to a big commercial place. And we fell in love with the stuff in Arkansas, Alabama, that vinegar based barbecue sauce and pulled pork sandwiches.

Colt Knight: 03:10

And as time progressed, when I was in graduate school, I went to a store, and they had a offset smoker for $99 is a piece of garbage. But I remember, I bought that thing. The firebox was too small to keep the thing going. Ended up like retrofitting it with a turkey fryer burner, and then I could just burn some chips and whatnot. And it’s been an adventure since then.

Colt Knight: 03:37

Yeah. And since then, I think I’ve honed my craft to a to a much better level. And and I can make some pretty good barbecue these days. But

Gregg Rentfrow: 03:46

Yeah. It’s really there’s a lot of equipment out there that you can buy that really screw up barbecue too. It’s but no, I’m the same way, you know, growing up in Central Illinois, you know, barbecue was hamburger with barbecue sauce or we’d have something we would call rope sausage. Basically, was a instead of making sausage and putting it in links, it was kept as a rope. Our cookers there in Central Illinois were the old kind of oval shaped water tanks that people would cut in and kind of retrofit in there as well.

Gregg Rentfrow: 04:22

But yeah, the NC State barbecue camp, you know, because North Carolina is really big into pulled pork and it’s even regional, you know. And the one thing that you learn when you get there is barbecue sauce and how regionalized barbecue sauce is, you know, because there in North Carolina, it’s the vinegar based sauce. And then you get to a certain part of North Carolina, it’s the vinegar based sauce with some sort of tomato in it, whether it’s ketchup or tomato, you know, sauce of some sort in there. But then you get closer like to Kansas City where you got to burn in.

Colt Knight: 04:57

You left out the mustard sauce.Gregg Rentfrow: 04:59

I left out the mustard sauce. I forgot about that. You get into South Carolina and North Carolina’s got the mustard sauce. But it’s really neat to go there. And it sounds like we’re promoting Dana’s barbecue camp.

Gregg Rentfrow: 05:16

But you do, he gets to the guys from Bonesucker Sauce, which is a huge barbecue sauce in the South to come in and talk about that kind of stuff. And so it’s fun. Learn a lot. Know, we talk about NC State having their barbecue camp. Texas A and M University does the brisket school.

Gregg Rentfrow: 05:36

And holy cow, I think you eat brisket almost breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Colt Knight: 05:42

When I saw videos of Texas A&M teaching barbecue in their Meats Lab Auditorium, I said, if they can teach barbecue classes in Texas A&M, I can teach barbecue We can do And we actually had quite a few extension barbecue classes here in Maine before the pandemic, and they were really popular and well attended. I had so much fun doing them. Pandemic put a stop to them. And we’ve been thinking about getting them started again now that we’re rolling out and starting to get more in person stuff going. And I think going to this camp this summer is gonna give me a lot of good ideas to bring back to the state of Maine.

Gregg Rentfrow: 06:25

Yeah. You know, and it’s interesting you say that because we were the same way because, know, I knew that Doctor. Hansen down at NC State had a camp and I knew Davy Griffin, Doctor. Griffin down in Texas A&M had one. Then Doctor.

Gregg Rentfrow: 06:38

Berg up in North Dakota State University, they have a barbecue camp as well. And I always wanted to do one and all of a sudden, boom, here comes the pandemic. And like you say, that shuts everything down. And it takes a couple years. I mean, I think when we really look back at history at the pandemic, we’ll say, yeah, it started in 2020, but we didn’t really recover from until 2022.

Gregg Rentfrow: 07:02

And so we did a beta test this last summer. And I just invited administration. I figured you’d keep administration happy by keeping their bellies full, right? And we beta tested it and we decided, I talked with my Brock Billingsley, my meat lab manager, and how we’re going to organize it. Because like I said earlier, we don’t necessarily have a barbecue style in Kentucky.

Gregg Rentfrow: 07:27

But what we’re going to do is it’s going to be we’re going have your own little culinary tour. So a friend of mine, Doctor. Lyda Garcia, up at Ohio State University, she is from South Texas. When I say South Texas, it’s like 20 miles and it’s Mexico bordered, you know? She’s going to come up and talk about brisket.

Gregg Rentfrow: 07:43

And we’ll cook three different types of brisket. Kind of similar to what Doctor. Hansen does at NC State. You got one that’s like Wagyu, Prime, and then Choice, and then cook the same and taste test those. She’s going to do that.

Gregg Rentfrow: 07:58

Then we’re going to go to North Carolina. We’re going to talk about the pulled pork, go off to Memphis, talk about ribs in Memphis, go to Kansas City for the burn ins. One of our researchers at the USDA ARS, he’s big into doing tri tips. So we’ll go out to California for tri tips. And so we make a kind of a culinary tour of all the major barbecue stops so that we can have fun with.

Gregg Rentfrow: 08:25

And I think for you guys up here, man, you make a heck of a smoked salmon, you know, that you gotta do that as well. But, we’re really looking forward to it now because Kentucky, we have to end it the way we end everything in Kentucky. And so last year we did this, it was really popular. We’re going to do it again is we’ll go over to our distillery and have our master distiller go through a bourbon tasting. And we one of the things we talked about last year, we’ve been kind of been kind of some fun research to do is what bourbons and what bourbon drinks.

Gregg Rentfrow: 09:00

So like an old fashioned or a Kentucky mule that mixes, that pairs very well with certain types of bourbon. And so we’re working on that as well. So we’re looking forward to doing it this summer ourselves. Looking forward to going out to NC State for theirs as well.

Colt Knight: 09:19

And so when we talk about barbecue, and we mentioned this earlier, you know, barbecue in different regions means different things.

Gregg Rentfrow: 09:26

Oh, absolutely.

Colt Knight: 09:27

Absolutely. But historically, barbecue was just a way that people could prepare food that didn’t have a lot of equipment. And then it became more of folks that didn’t have a lot of money could take the least expensive parts of an animal, but prepare it in a very delicious way. Oh, absolutely. And that’s the

Gregg Rentfrow: 09:56

one thing a lot of people don’t realize. You’re absolutely right. You hit the nail on the head that you took these cheaper, inexpensive cuts that were, I hesitate to use the phraseology, I don’t know how politically correct is, but the poor or the more economically challenged people would buy and they figured out how to cook them and make them really good. And then all of a sudden barbecue went from poor people food to redneck food and that’s gourmet. You know, you actually go into I’ve got a presentation that Dana gave me where you see four and five star Michelin chefs doing barbecue, you know, whereas it was, like you said earlier, like a little hole in the wall.

Gregg Rentfrow: 10:38

Mean, I remember first time I went to NC State with Dana, we were doing some research together. He says, I got this place for us to eat lunch. And we were going down this, I mean, barely gravel road, pulled up to this place, looked like a bunch of pallets stacked, you know, for a restaurant, you know, and it was the best pulled pork I’ve ever had. Yeah, you’re right. It was used to be that, but now it’s gotten to be gourmet.

Colt Knight: 11:03

Mhmm. And so when we think about traditional cuts of meat that we use for barbecue

Gregg Rentfrow: 11:09

Yep.

Colt Knight: 11:10

I think the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is ribs. Yes. Ribs. Barbecue ribs, And then some then we’ll probably get into pulled pork. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 11:21

Pulled pork, and maybe some smoked chicken. Smoked chicken is a big deal. Of course, nowadays brisket is a really big deal. And, you know, brisket was such a popular choice for barbecue because that’s a big, tough muscle that you really can’t do much with. Here in the Northeast, they would have made corned beef, pastrami, that kind of thing out of it.

Colt Knight: 11:48

Down in Texas, they started slow smoking it and making Texas style brisket. And it has now escaped Texas and more and more people are getting a taste for that Texas style brisket. And whereas barbecue cuts used to be really cheap. Mhmm. Now they’re really expensive because barbecue is popular.

Gregg Rentfrow: 12:11

It’s popular. And and now now I I think, doctor Knight, what we need to do we’re talking about barbecuing and not grilling. Yep. There’s a big difference. And I think people we use this term, broad term barbecue, but we’re talking about low temperatures, long periods of time.

Gregg Rentfrow: 12:31

And so we’ve got to be careful, you know, when we when we talk about barbecuing versus grilling. Grilling is a higher heat, shorter period of time, like we grill steaks, you know, that kind of stuff. And and yeah, you know, barbecuing, you know, down in Texas, that brisket, you know, that slow and low. But, you know, the one thing that I would caution people on, you know, and doctor Hansen and I’ve talked about this, when you first start getting into this, ribs are really easy to learn and perfect. And then you graduate up to the pulled pork.

Gregg Rentfrow: 13:04

Brisket, perfecting brisket takes a long time. It really does take a

Colt Knight: 13:10

long time to first and instructing folks would be to use chicken.

Gregg Rentfrow: 13:15

Yeah. Chicken.

Colt Knight: 13:16

Yeah. Because that’s cheap. That’s $5, $6 for a whole chicken. Yep. And it only takes about two, two and a half hours to smoke a chicken.

Colt Knight: 13:26

Yep. And it’s really hard to screw up because unlike a lot of our other barbecues, you can do chicken at a much higher temperature. And the hardest thing in my opinion about barbecue is learning how to temperature control your smoker or your Yeah.

Gregg Rentfrow: 13:43

And you also get into, you know, it’s one thing for us to talk about the meats, Then you talk you get into the actual cooking apparatus to where it could just be like we we we purchased two Kettle Weber grills. Alright? That barbecuing slow and low is a different style than a Traeger or a pellet grill or a Pit Boss where you wanted to. Or you get into what the barbecue people call the stick burners, where it’s like you said, the offset where you put actual firewood in there. Then all of a sudden, you know, I think I think Doctor.

Gregg Rentfrow: 14:22

Hansen says it best, you go with ease, how easy it is. Like if you do a pellet grill, you just fill it full of pellets, push a button, come back a few hours later, check on every once in while. That’s pretty easy. But it’s not as high quality as you get in a stick burner, but a stick burner is going to give you a higher quality end product. But it takes manning it constantly.

Gregg Rentfrow: 14:46

You know, like when you start the fire, you know, you wanna

Colt Knight: 14:49

get You have to babysit those things.

Gregg Rentfrow: 14:50

Gotta babysit it. Now you’ll hear these guys talk about the gray smoke, the black smoke versus the blue smoke. You want make sure you get the blue smoke rolling before you put anything in there. And, you know, so, you know, you go from meat and then you go from that to the actual how you’re gonna cook it, you know, and so on. That makes it even more of a challenge.

Colt Knight: 15:12

So let’s let’s say we’re just starting out. Yeah. And we want to get into barbecue. We we’ve been traveling around. We’ve been eating some good barbecue, and we want to do that at home.

Colt Knight: 15:24

We don’t have an expensive smoker. Yep. But you don’t need an expensive smoker. No. You don’t even need a smoker.

Colt Knight: 15:32

Like you said, those those kettle grills.

Gregg Rentfrow: 15:34

Yep.

Colt Knight: 15:35

Any kind of just regular gas grill or anything

Gregg Rentfrow: 15:38

Yep.

Colt Knight: 15:39

Can become a smoker as long as we cook over indirect heat.

Gregg Rentfrow: 15:44

Indirect heat.

Colt Knight: 15:45

Yeah. And we formulate a little bit of smoke, which we can do pretty easily. So if we’ve got a propane grill sitting out on the deck Yep. We can turn the left burner on. Mhmm.

Colt Knight: 15:55

We can put a little cast iron skillet or even sell little stainless steel boxes. You put some wood chips in there and put that over the fire. It’s gonna generate smoke. We’re not gonna turn the other burners off. We’re gonna put the meat on the opposite side of that.

Colt Knight: 16:09

And then that indirect heat is going to slowly prepare that meat over time. And we’re going to get a pseudo smoked barbecue from that with stuff that we already have.

Gregg Rentfrow: 16:22

Exactly. And then you could look at take it a step further, you know, maybe you don’t have a propane, you know, grill at home, and you have the kettle grill, the Weber’s or whatever brand you want to put in there. And one the things we’ll talk about is, yeah, there’s one thing we always have is charcoal. And so those charcoal briquettes, instead of just piling it in there like you would for grilling, it takes a little bit of time. But if you do it like you would Domino’s, you stack them up you make Snake method.

Gregg Rentfrow: 16:55

Yeah, the snake method. Exactly. And you light one and that’s an easier way to control the heat and still maintain, you know

Colt Knight: 17:04

If you’ve got a standard 22 inches Weber kettle grill, you can take you you you stack them three wide by three high around the perimeter of the base of that grill, and you you get them about almost touching about six inches apart. And we just light the fire on one end. Yeah. And then every once in a while, you just put some chunks of wood or some sawdust on that snake, And that’s gonna cook for maybe six to eight hours if you’ve got your airflow just right.

Gregg Rentfrow: 17:37

Yeah. Quite a bit.

Colt Knight: 17:38

Quite a So you can put your meat right in the middle. And six, eight hours is enough to barbecue a lot of different things. Chickens, ribs, smaller pulled pork cuts. Yep. Yep.

Colt Knight: 17:52

Smaller briskets. And we can accelerate that even more if we wrap

Gregg Rentfrow: 17:58

that Exactly. And one of the things that we’ll we’ll talk about, you know, because you’re right, you know, because Lyda Garcia, my friend up in Ohio State, she she cooks all her brisket on a Weber and she uses that snake method. The one thing that I learned about ribs from Dana is the the three-two-one method. Where it’s, you know, three hours, then you wrap them and then for two hours and they’re in the foil and then you pull them out and kind of finish them off for another hour before you serve them. And works really well.

Gregg Rentfrow: 18:32

That’s a good five hour, six hour

Colt Knight: 18:36

deal We’ve got some nice meaty ribs. Mhmm. We’re gonna put them on that smoker. The smoker’s gonna be about 250 degrees.

Gregg Rentfrow: 18:43

Yep.

Colt Knight: 18:44

Cook it for three hours. We’re not gonna open the lid. Nope. If if you’re looking, you’re not cooking as the old expert.

Gregg Rentfrow: 18:52

There you go. Licking not cooking.

Colt Knight: 18:55

But at three hour mark, we’re gonna pull those out. I’m gonna wrap that in foil, might put a little butter or you like to use the margarine in there.

Gregg Rentfrow: 19:03

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the hardcore traditional agriculturalists to come at us with this saying using margarine. The reason why they use margarine is because it has a higher smoke point than butter does. And when butter butter burns real easily. And so at those temperatures, you can burn the butter, but you won’t with the margarine.

Colt Knight: 19:23

Yeah. And then we’re gonna put it back on another two hours.

Gregg Rentfrow: 19:25

Yep.

Colt Knight: 19:26

And essentially, what happens is it steams in its own juices, and it really softens up all those fibers, loosens up all the membranes, loosens up the bones from the ribs. Yep. And then after the two hour mark, we’re gonna open that foil up. Now my personal opinion is we collect all the juices that come out of that foil, and that’s what we’re gonna use to make our barbecue sauce. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 19:52

Yeah. Or or if nothing else, that’s what we’re gonna add barbecue sauce to those drippings.

Gregg Rentfrow: 19:56

To those drippings. Yep.

Colt Knight: 19:57

And then I’m gonna, you know, with my Kentucky roots Yep. I also put a little bourbon in it.

Gregg Rentfrow: 20:04

You got to.

Colt Knight: 20:05

Yep. And I’ll take one of those silicone brushes or a horsehair brush, and I’ll paint them ribs with that sauce I just made. Mhmm. Put it back on the smoker. And I my smokers, I I usually can’t leave them the full hour Yeah.

Colt Knight: 20:21

For the $3.02 1. Yeah. But I will leave them on there until that barbecue sauce gets sticky.

Gregg Rentfrow: 20:28

Yes. Yes.

Colt Knight: 20:29

And I will pull it off. And then what’s the most important thing when we are cooking meat, especially barbecue and steaks? You gotta let them rest.

Gregg Rentfrow: 20:39

You gotta let them rest. And that’s one thing that Doctor. Griffin taught me because I had some email correspondence with Doctor. David Griffin down in Texas A and M University. These competition barbecue guys, they’ll rest those briskets four hours.

Gregg Rentfrow: 20:55

Yep. They’ll put them in a in a cooler, whether, you know, it’s a Styrofoam cooler, just a regular, you know, cooler from whatever grocery store or or department store you buy it from, they’ll rest at least four hours.

Colt Knight: 21:08

But what’s really happening when we rest that meat?

Gregg Rentfrow: 21:10

We’re really just calming things down. We’re letting the cooking stop and we’re doing it slowly. So that’s where a lot of people make their biggest mistake when grilling, especially as soon as it comes off the grill, they immediately serve and start cutting into it and don’t let it rest. And so the meat is still cooking and then you cut into it and then all that juice, you know, if you’re like you and I are medium rare steak type people, all that juice and flavor in there just kind of spews out. But if we let it rest, it stays in there.

Gregg Rentfrow: 21:44

The cooking process slows down and you’re gonna get a juicier product if you let it rest.

Colt Knight: 21:51

All that moisture is just gonna equally distribute. Yes. And then I find it also distributes the flavor with that juice. Absolutely. I agree If you eat it straight off the grill, all the flavors on the outside Yep.

Colt Knight: 22:04

And if you let it rest, it’s gonna draw all that. Because just through osmosis and stuff. Right? It’s just gonna start drawing that in. And like you said, you’re not gonna lose that moisture when

Gregg Rentfrow: 22:15

you either pull it or cut it. And that’s and that whole moisture thing is the sole reason I shouldn’t say sole reason. It’s one of the two big reasons why your barbecue brisket guys talk about the bark. Yes. You know, the bark is flavor.

Gregg Rentfrow: 22:31

But the other thing is it creates a seal to keep that moisture in there.Colt Knight: 22:35

And that’s why things like chicken are so easy to barbecue because they got the skin on, and that’s a moisture barrier.

Gregg Rentfrow: 22:41

That is. Yep.

Colt Knight: 22:42

You know? Our ribs are really easy to screw up because they’re so thin. Yeah. So if it gets too hot and you overcook those ribs, you lose all your moisture. And as soon as you lose all your moisture in barbecue, you’re done.

Gregg Rentfrow: 22:55

Yeah. You’re done. You’re You

Colt Knight: 22:57

can’t add it back. It’s it’s just No. You’ve won’t that product.

Gregg Rentfrow: 23:00

Yeah. And you’re gonna have to use a lot of barbecue sauce to get it down too. Mhmm. And now you say ribs. We had this discussion yesterday.

Gregg Rentfrow: 23:07

So the reason I’m up here at UMaine is we’re doing a meat cutting school. And we were doing pigs yesterday. We had the discussion on the whole concept of that connective tissue that a lot of people on the back of those ribs call paper, whether we take that off or not. And that is, you know, that’s almost a big discussion and causes more fights and then people discussing Chevy versus Ford or two sports teams or whatnot, you know? And you and I are under the impression that you just leave it on, doesn’t matter.

Gregg Rentfrow: 23:40

If you cook it right, it’s gonna dissipate anyway. When we go to NC State, we’ll have people pull it off just where they have something to do. But even Doctor. Hance is like, yeah, it’s not that big of a deal to leave Because if

Colt Knight: 23:54

you watch your videos and your TV shows that are about barbecue, like the secret, the perfect ribs is you gotta pull this membrane off.

Gregg Rentfrow: 24:05

Yeah. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 24:06

And in my opinion, that’s just voodoo. It it is. That membrane adds some flavor because it’s gonna break down. And if you cook your ribs right, it’s gonna be just as tender as the rest of it. And it’s like it’s not even there.

Colt Knight: 24:19

Yeah. So why go through all the trouble and hassle to pull it off Exactly. When it and I’ve run experiments where I cooked, pulled membrane and membrane on side by side, had people eat it from both sides of the argument, and everyone was always like, oh, wow, it didn’t matter.

Gregg Rentfrow: 24:39

Yeah. Well, and, you know, it’s interesting too. It’s like we were we’ve we’ve talked about this before is that people say, well, you can’t get your barbecue rub to stick there if it’s on there. And I’m like, Well, there’s no meat on the back of that rib anyway. So what does it matter?

Gregg Rentfrow: 24:52

If you

Colt Knight: 24:53

pull that membrane off, it’s gonna be 75% just the back of the bone.

Gregg Rentfrow: 24:56

Exactly, I

Colt Knight: 24:58

don’t think that argument holds water

Gregg Rentfrow: 25:00

it doesn’t. And you know, and I brought up something that we probably need to talk about with the time we got left is the one thing that Doctor. Hansen does that you’ll learn a lot about is he has his people make their own barbecue rub. And I found out when our beta test, people had a blast trying to do that. It was really fun.

Gregg Rentfrow: 25:20

And so what we ended up doing was we got a couple of rubs that we use in the meats lab there at UK. And we say, okay, here’s the basic recipe. Add what you want to it to create your own. And that barbecue rub can be as simple as salt, pepper, and garlic powder, or it can be as extravagant as you want it to be.

Colt Knight: 25:39

I would simplify it and say just salt and pepper.

Gregg Rentfrow: 25:41

Salt and pepper. Yeah. Well, and that’s what, you know, down at Texas A and M, Doctor Griffin said, they just do salt and pepper. Now what’s funny is the other argument you get into barbecuing, because we could probably sit here and talk about barbecuing for the next four hours, is the wood. Some people say, Oh, you gotta do post oak with brisket.

Gregg Rentfrow: 26:03

You gotta do fruit woods with pork and so on and so forth. And it was really kind of interesting. Dana, Doctor. Hansen there, Dana Hansen at NC State, they did taste tests where they cooked it with different woods. Nobody could tell the difference.

Gregg Rentfrow: 26:18

So there you go.

Colt Knight: 26:22

Well, one of the things that we should talk about is the different types of smokers.

Gregg Rentfrow: 26:28

Yes. Yes. And we alluded to really go into them.

Colt Knight: 26:32

I’ve got a lot of experience with small smokers. You’ve got experience with more commercial type smokers. Yeah. You know, these days, most people are not don’t wanna spend a fortune on a smoker. No.

Colt Knight: 26:48

And there’s a lot of options available at your local big box store. Yeah. You’ve got your you’ve got your your pellet grills. Yep. You’ve got your Weber style.

Colt Knight: 26:59

Yep. Like the tube ones, like the Smoky Mountain or just or just a kettle type grill that you can make into a smoker. You’ve got your your ones that look like filing cabinets. They’re either propane or electric. Yep.

Gregg Rentfrow: 27:12

And then you got the big green egg. Then you’ve got your

Colt Knight: 27:14

ceramic egg type. The ones

Gregg Rentfrow: 27:16

that look like r two d two. Yep.

Colt Knight: 27:18

Yeah. And there are pros and cons to all of those.

Gregg Rentfrow: 27:21

Yeah. There there is.

Colt Knight: 27:22

So with a pellet grill, those are just set it and forget it.

Gregg Rentfrow: 27:27

Pretty much.

Colt Knight: 27:27

You load that in there. You you turn a digital dial to the temperature you want. And for the most part, it maintains that temperature with plus or minus 15 degrees.

Gregg Rentfrow: 27:37

Yeah. And maybe not even 15 degrees sometimes on these

Colt Knight: 27:40

real high level. Aspect of those is you’re not getting a lot of airflow and you’re not getting a lot of smoke. Nope. No. And so you don’t get a lot of character from those pellet grills.

Colt Knight: 27:50

But, you know, to be honest, the convenience can be worth it. And the other thing is, it’s not just convenient, it’s consistent.

Gregg Rentfrow: 28:00

It is. It

Colt Knight: 28:01

is. And so you’re not gonna overcook No. Stuff No. With those pellet grills like you will other types. So let’s say that, you know, you get busy for an hour and you forget to go check your your Weber kettle grill, but all of a sudden, for some reason, all the charcoal caught on fire instead of just going around a little and it got 500 degrees in there and burned everything black.

Colt Knight: 28:21

That happens.

Gregg Rentfrow: 28:22

Yeah. It does. It does. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 28:24

And so but the good thing about a Weber kettle grill or a Smoky Mountain, they’re just thin sheet metal. So if it gets too hot, you can open the lid and it’ll just cool right down.

Gregg Rentfrow: 28:34

It does. It does.

Colt Knight: 28:36

If we’ve got one of those egg grills, we have to bring that up to temperature super slow. Yeah. Because it doesn’t lose any heat ever.

Gregg Rentfrow: 28:46

No. They don’t. They don’t. You can bake in those things.

Colt Knight: 28:48

I mean, people are baking

Gregg Rentfrow: 28:50

in them.

Colt Knight: 28:50

We get that to, like, the 225, 230, we put the meat on, we close the lid, and you just can’t open it. Because if you open it, it introduces more oxygen Mhmm. And it’s gonna get to 300 degrees, but there’s no way to cool it down. No. No.

Colt Knight: 29:03

And so with those, I really love those here in Maine, because they’re windproof. They’re snowproof. They’re rainproof. The cold weather. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 29:14

I cannot barbecue on Weber kettle in the Middle Of Maine.

Gregg Rentfrow: 29:17

No. You can’t.

Colt Knight: 29:17

I can on those ceramic egg things. No. There’s no airflow on those ceramics. Nope. So

Gregg Rentfrow: 29:23

you don’t get bark. No, you don’t. You can

Colt Knight: 29:25

get a good smoke ring, but you can’t get bark.

Gregg Rentfrow: 29:27

Yeah. And and I’ve never been able to get a smoke ring off a pellet grill either. And you’re you’re right there. And like I said earlier, higher quality, more more effort into cooking.

Colt Knight: 29:37

Yep.

Gregg Rentfrow: 29:37

And easier, lower quality. Then I say lower quality doesn’t mean it’s inedible. It’s just a big difference. A big difference.

Colt Knight: 29:47

And and the other thing that I really like about those ceramic grills, they do not use a lot of fuel.

Gregg Rentfrow: 29:52

No. They don’t.

Colt Knight: 29:53

Like, two fistfuls of charcoal and, like, three chunks of wood, cook for twelve, sixteen hours. Do an entire brisket, can do an entire pull port. Yeah. Never have to touch the fire. No.

Colt Knight: 30:04

That That is super nice. Yep. And because there’s not a lot of airflow, those always come out juicy and moist.

Gregg Rentfrow: 30:12

Yeah, you’re right. And, you know, even with the charcoal, what you’ll find out when we go down North Carolina, there are some people that the lump charcoal is the way to go and others the briquettes are the way to go. And then you get into arguing about name brands, this, that and the other. And so so, you know, we we’ve tried to sum up 200 years of barbecue acknowledge or more in what, a half hour or so, you know. And we tried to dump a bunch into this episode to get people started and get people interested.

Gregg Rentfrow: 30:48

But if you’re looking for a hobby that is just as expensive as golf and just as frustrating as golf, here you go. Barbecuing can be that way because as you say, I look at things that you gotta graduate up to it. Know, if you run up and think you’re gonna cook the perfect brisket the first time, you got nothing coming. You’ll ruin a bunch of briskets. And briskets, like you said, anymore, you know, I I saw one in the grocery store a while back.

Gregg Rentfrow: 31:19

It was a hundred bucks for brisket. You know?

Colt Knight: 31:22

And we we keep we keep saying brisket, and we keep saying how difficult it is to cook. And and the reason for that, brisket has a ton of connective tissue, big swabs of fat through there. So we have to render that stuff out without drying it

Gregg Rentfrow: 31:38

out. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 31:40

And I think some a term that folks might hear is what we call the stall. Yes. So as that meat gets to cooking, what is it, around a 50 degrees or so Yeah. The evaporation Stops. Yep.

Colt Knight: 31:55

Actually causes it to cool down.

Gregg Rentfrow: 31:57

It does. It does.

Colt Knight: 31:58

And so it actually just stalls. So you might you might get to a 50 degrees in a couple hours, and then it just stays at a 50

Gregg Rentfrow: 32:04

degrees for hours. And your your inkling is to go increase the temperature when that’s the worst thing you could do.

Colt Knight: 32:10

Yeah. And so what we do in that case is when we the Texas crutch is what it was called back in the day, you wrap it in aluminum foil. Yeah. Nowadays, everybody likes peach butcher paper because that’s the that’s the in fashion thing to do. Yep.

Colt Knight: 32:24

Yeah. But what that does is that slows that evaporation and basically we’re steaming it.

Gregg Rentfrow: 32:30

Yeah. Steaming it. And it does, you know, like you said, the stall is the big thing. And you’ll still get a stall on those peach wrap briskets as well. It’s just not

Colt Knight: 32:39

as long.

Gregg Rentfrow: 32:39

It’s not as long. And that’s the one thing if you I encourage folks listening. If you’re curious about that, reach out to us, reach out to other extension personnel, you know, and, you know, learn about barbecue and go into it. Know? Yeah.

Gregg Rentfrow: 32:54

There’s a bunch of things online. You can do that as well. But it is a neat hobby. It’s a fun hobby, you know? And I will say this, and I think it’s affected you more so than me.

Gregg Rentfrow: 33:07

If you start getting at it, getting doing it, it can be a little dangerous because then all of sudden somebody else wants you to come and do an event for them. You end up

Colt Knight: 33:16

doing like I’ve done extension meetings, faculty meetings, county fairs, open houses. I did a wedding last year for 200 something people. And I’m I’m kinda obligated to do barbecue now at at at most events.

Gregg Rentfrow: 33:35

That’s the way we are. I am thoroughly convinced if the college, the Martin Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Kentucky gets together, it has to be the meat specialist that has to cook everything. As you buyer beware, I guess, when you get into barbecuing.

Colt Knight: 33:54

And so we really encourage everyone that wants to get into barbecue to just to get your hands wet, try it. Start off you don’t have to spend a lot of money. Remember, that is the heart of barbecue is people didn’t have the money. Yeah. And so I don’t go out and buy expensive stuff.

Colt Knight: 34:11

Don’t go out and buy expensive cuts. Work your way up slowly until you figure out how to keep that grill at two twenty five or two fifty for eight, ten hours at a time Yeah. With no more than twenty, thirty degree temperature swings, that you’re you’re not you’re not gonna get the handle of it. Yep. And there’s no use wasting expensive meat until you figure that

Gregg Rentfrow: 34:34

part Exactly. And the other thing too is we have those those thermometers we put on the doors, you know, they only measure right there, you know, and so

Colt Knight: 34:45

Well, we should probably talk about that too. Yeah. The thermometers that come on your grills are terrible. Yeah. And they may be 100, one hundred and 50 degrees off of what they say

Gregg Rentfrow: 34:55

they They’re not calibrated. They’re not calibrated at all.

Colt Knight: 34:57

So don’t go by those.

Gregg Rentfrow: 34:59

Yeah, don’t rely on those. Know, if one thing, if you say, Okay, I’ve got this in my deck or my backyard, that’s cool. You can use that. But I would encourage people to go out and buy something that you can put in there that’s going to read the temperature close to the meat that’s going to give you the most accurate

Colt Knight: 35:18

We cook barbecue to temperature, not to time. Exactly. No two pieces of meat will cook the same length become the same internal temperature.

Gregg Rentfrow: 35:27

And I I think Dr. Hanson said it best, barbecue’s ready when barbecue’s ready.

Colt Knight: 35:34

Yeah. And so if you’ve got a big event, let’s say you promised you got a 05:00 barbecue. Yep. And you think you read online that it takes twelve hours to cook a pulled pork or brisket or whatever.

Gregg Rentfrow: 35:53

Yep.

Colt Knight: 35:53

And you think, well, I’ll just back off twelve hours and start then. That is a recipe for a bunch of upset people because everybody’s gonna sit there and ask when is it ready? Is it And it might take another three hours.

Gregg Rentfrow: 36:06

Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with planning ahead and getting it done a couple hours beforehand and wrapping it in foil, putting it in cooler, and letting it rest.

Colt Knight: 36:16

And it actually will turn out better. Exactly. You wanna give yourself on a brisket, maybe a six hour buffer. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 36:26

Pulled pork, couple hour buffer at least.

Gregg Rentfrow: 36:28

Yeah. At least. Yeah.

Colt Knight: 36:29

Ribs don’t have to be that bad.

Gregg Rentfrow: 36:30

Yeah. Ribs are a little bit more predictable. Jiggins aren’t bad. Chickens are a little bit more predictable.

Colt Knight: 36:33

But for a big cut of meat like a brisket or a pulled pork, you wanna get done way ahead. I’m gonna wrap it in aluminum foil. I’m gonna wrap it in a towel, and I’m gonna set it in a cooler. Yep. It doesn’t have to be aluminum foil.

Gregg Rentfrow: 36:46

It could

Colt Knight: 36:46

be Saran Wrap. Something to keep the joyous juices from

Gregg Rentfrow: 36:49

the moment You just want to keep the moisture inside there.

Colt Knight: 36:51

And you would be surprised if you do that. That will keep for six or eight hours. Oh, yeah. And still be food safety temp safe. It’ll still be over 145 degrees when you pull it out.

Colt Knight: 37:03

You’ll still almost burn yourself pulling the pulled pork after it’s been in

Gregg Rentfrow: 37:07

a Exactly. That’s why they got those claws you can buy, you know. Another thing that I would encourage folks to do if you get into this and you’re doing it for a group, whether it be for a Christmas party or a fourth of July party or whatnot, don’t get it done, let it rest and then slice it and then wait another hour to serve it. People well, hey, that’s a bad idea because it dries out. But the other thing is people want to see you slice you know, and that’s part of the show as well.

Colt Knight: 37:38

I bought a knife that is just ridiculously long. It’s like 16 inches long. Yeah. Not because you need it, just because it looks cool

Gregg Rentfrow: 37:45

when I’m slicing my Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Colt Knight: 37:48

People love it. Yep. And while while they’re they’re smelling it and their their mouths are watering, I’ll get the steel out and, like, run that big old knife on that steel, and then you just see the drool coming

Gregg Rentfrow: 37:58

down and everybody’s mouth. It’s just as much show as it is the food.

Colt Knight: 38:02

And and like we said, there’s so much voodoo involved with barbecue. Yes. People love the mystery. They do. They do.

Colt Knight: 38:10

You know, they they love the the secret recipe or the the secret this or that. And everybody’s got one.

Gregg Rentfrow: 38:16

Yep, everybody’s got one. And I think everybody wants to be as I love Dana said this, if you want to be the king of the cul de sac, you know, learn to barbecue. It’s like we were talking about the other day, the redneck anthem of the South is free bird from Leonard Skinner, you know, boy, it’s the same thing barbecue. If you wanna rule the cul de sac, you wanna rule the neighborhood, learn to barbecue.

Colt Knight: 38:41

Doctor Rentfrow, I had a lot of fun talking to you about

Gregg Rentfrow: 38:44

barbecue.

Colt Knight: 38:44

Great.

Gregg Rentfrow: 38:44

This is fun.

Colt Knight: 38:45

This really was. We need to get out of here. We got classes to teach, actually. I wanted to remind the listeners, if you wanna learn more about barbecue, send us an email and tell us we can have more episodes on this topic.

Colt Knight: 39:01

Like Dr. Rentfrow said, we could talk all day about barbecue, different styles, different cooking practices, rubs, barbecue sauces. If you want to invite us to your house to eat your barbecue, you know, sometimes we’re open to that as well. But if you’ve got questions, comments, concerns, or suggested episodes, email us at extension.farmcash@maine.edu.

Gregg Rentfrow: 39:30

Perfect. Perfect.

Colt Knight: 39:32

I’m getting hungry. I forgot

Gregg Rentfrow: 39:34

the watch was on, you know, same way.