What is Franklin NOT telling?

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SaintJohnsEgger said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

lousubcap said:

@The Cen-Tex Smoker- You must have pics to get all that insight.  I did not push the envelope when I was there and thus came away with nothing new, even though I did talk with the Pope for several minutes.  

He has a lot of press clippings on the wall, including the magazine that started it all by calling his the best barbecue in the world. As you stand in line and read them all, they all say different things. subtle but pretty funny. I don't think he's trying to throw people off the scent. Every cook is a little different- weather, meat, etc. The one thing I have serious doubts about is that he only uses salt and pepper. John Lewis told Cazzy to his face when he was running LaBBQ that he has never made a brisket with only salt and pepper. He gave cazzy his rub recipe and has posted it online in several places as well. He was Franklin's pit master when he received all those early accolades

Do you have a link to that rub recipe?

I remember it like this:

8 parts course black pepper
3 parts kosher
3 parts lawrys
2 parts granulated garlic. 

Thats how ive been doing it for years.  I think cazzy told me the salt was atually less but i like salt so i do it this way. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

SaintJohnsEgger said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

lousubcap said:

@The Cen-Tex Smoker- You must have pics to get all that insight.  I did not push the envelope when I was there and thus came away with nothing new, even though I did talk with the Pope for several minutes.  

He has a lot of press clippings on the wall, including the magazine that started it all by calling his the best barbecue in the world. As you stand in line and read them all, they all say different things. subtle but pretty funny. I don't think he's trying to throw people off the scent. Every cook is a little different- weather, meat, etc. The one thing I have serious doubts about is that he only uses salt and pepper. John Lewis told Cazzy to his face when he was running LaBBQ that he has never made a brisket with only salt and pepper. He gave cazzy his rub recipe and has posted it online in several places as well. He was Franklin's pit master when he received all those early accolades

Do you have a link to that rub recipe?

I remember it like this:

8 parts course black pepper
3 parts kosher
3 parts lawrys
2 parts granulated garlic. 

Thats how ive been doing it for years.  I think cazzy told me the salt was atually less but i like salt so i do it this way. 

This is fantastic on chicken and burgers too. It'sa great all purpose rub. I like it on spatch chicken better than brisket 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

And i can tell you this- once i started resting my briskets and waiting until they came doen in temp to where they were easy to hanlde bare hands before slicing, it made a bigger difference than anything else i have ever tried. Including wrapping/not wrapping. If i could hive anyone a single piece of advice it would be this. 

slovelad

Let them rest wrapped or unwrapped (assuming you do t have a steam oven lol)

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slovelad said:

@The Cen-Tex Smoker that's what I'm talking about.

any way to re-create this at home?

This will get you there for under $50

Hans61

Does the pickle juice do something or is it just not being wasteful and a way to stretch the mustard 

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Hans61 said:

Does the pickle juice do something or is it just not being wasteful and a way to stretch the mustard 

I beleive he told cazzy it was just to be resourceful and keep the mustard costs down. There is a lot of vinegar in pickle juice and mustard so to say it does nothing is probably not accurate. I did not notice any difference between that and mustard or using nothing at all. 

cazzy

It's just cheaper than using straight mustard.   One thing he did say was that using a binder is more needed when cooking with a draft.  Through our discussions, he didn't find it necessary to do so with an egg (my only smoker at the time) because there isn't a draft and lack of moisture isn't a problem.  At least for me, his theory proved true once I started experimenting on my Vault (reverse flow).  Binder vs no binder did have a noticeable impact on how supple my bark was.  It is also easier to create bark with a draft...which is why John told me to experiment with simple syrup misting with briskets made from the egg to nudge the bark along the way.

The variable that everyone needs to remember, is that Aaron and John cook on traditional offsets...take the info with a grain of salt and dial in your method on the egg.

lousubcap

@thetrim - I trim and slather the night before tossing on the BGE.  Add the rub then as well.  May add more rub just before feeding it to the fire but usually not.  
Great insights above about trying to keep with the same routine and only tweaking one thing at a time-however, the biggest variable for me is the cow.  And so it goes-  
Enjoy the cook.

thetrim

@lousubcap thanks for the info.  I'm gonna add the mustard/pickle juice but stock with the 50/50 SnP.  We'll see what happens.  Going for a midnight start or maybe 5/6am.  

MaskedMarvel

Yellow mustard is super cheap here- less than 70¢ a squeeze bottle. 

I let my meat rest, foiled heavily and wrapped in warm towels, in a warmed engel hot box. Longer the better. I leave the maverick meat probe in and wrap the grate probe in the foil around the meat so I can monitor temperatures carefully. 

tl;dr-- Rest for for at least an hour - longer is better. 

Hans61

Bet he leaves the briskets wrapped in the paper during the holding phase. Steam would affect bark too right?

Botch

I'll bet 50/50 mustard/pickle juice wouldn't be a bad sauce (used sparingly) for pulled pork sammiches.
I'd always dumped pickle juice down the garbage disposal to "freshen it up"; will have to hang on to the next jar.  

BBBQ

He definitely isn't telling the temp he cooks at, probably because he doesn't really even know (I've found 275 at the grate of the BGE to be a bit too hot, and that's what he cooks at). He just knows how the fire is supposed to look and feel, I think. His pits are one of his true "secrets." They are basically built just to cook briskets in. Each is one of a kind, truly custom. Plus, he burns post oak that is very locally sourced, and he's a master of knowing just how much greener wood vs. more aged wood to put in there. He knows every nook and cranny of those smokers, and therefore where to put the briskets and how to position them.

You also cannot overlook the fact that he gets all of his brisket from one provider. It's prime brisket, never frozen. He is big on humane treatment of the cattle. That is not a small issue. A more stressed animal doesn't taste as good as one that is less stressed.

And the guy is a true artist. He doesn't compromise on any step of the process. 

Finally, way too much is made about Franklin as compared to the other great brisket masters in Texas who have been doing this for a century+. You ever had a Terry Black's brisket? Many Austinites I know consider it to be even better. There is a true art to brisket in the Texas Hill Country.

thetrim

And don't forget, he only serves left side briskets.     

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Hans61 said:

Bet he leaves the briskets wrapped in the paper during the holding phase. Steam would affect bark too right?

He does for sure. 

lousubcap

His Q pit temp the one time I was there was at 275+/- a bit on all the ones I saw.  His operation goes thru 5 cords of wood a week or so I was told by their pit master.  

cazzy

thetrim said:

And don't forget, he only serves left side briskets.     

SGH

I'm going to share two words that Franklin has kept secret. Alto-Shaam. The ones Franklin has start at 20 grand. 

jak7028

BBBQ said:

He definitely isn't telling the temp he cooks at, probably because he doesn't really even know (I've found 275 at the grate of the BGE to be a bit too hot, and that's what he cooks at). He just knows how the fire is supposed to look and feel, I think. His pits are one of his true "secrets." They are basically built just to cook briskets in. Each is one of a kind, truly custom. Plus, he burns post oak that is very locally sourced, and he's a master of knowing just how much greener wood vs. more aged wood to put in there. He knows every nook and cranny of those smokers, and therefore where to put the briskets and how to position them.

You also cannot overlook the fact that he gets all of his brisket from one provider. It's prime brisket, never frozen. He is big on humane treatment of the cattle. That is not a small issue. A more stressed animal doesn't taste as good as one that is less stressed.

And the guy is a true artist. He doesn't compromise on any step of the process. 

Finally, way too much is made about Franklin as compared to the other great brisket masters in Texas who have been doing this for a century+. You ever had a Terry Black's brisket? Many Austinites I know consider it to be even better. There is a true art to brisket in the Texas Hill Country.

I think this does the best job summing up Franklin's success.  He treats it is an art and has studied almost every aspect of the process.  

influencing his beef supply to how the cows are raised
Being selective with wood 
Custom building and modifying smokers to improve each one
Wrapping and storing briskets
Temperatures to serve at 
etc....

He pays attention to every detail he can.  He even admits he made awful briskets when he first started.  He pursued perfection and kept learning from mistakes.  

slovelad

@The Cen-Tex Smoker let me know of that steamer basket does the trick, I saw your post about it the other day.

if this makes a huge impact on the serving quality it is well worth the investment.

slovelad

SGH said:

I'm going to share two words that Franklin has kept secret. Alto-Shaam. The ones Franklin has start at 20 grand. 

@SGH So you are saying there's a chance? Lol

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slovelad said:

SGH said:

I'm going to share two words that Franklin has kept secret. Alto-Shaam. The ones Franklin has start at 20 grand. 

@SGH So you are saying there's a chance? Lol

I bought a used one for $350 a couple of years ago. My brain stopped working for a bit (again) and I was thinking of opening a food truck. I quickly came to my senses and I sold it without ever using it. It was massive. Even the small ones are $4000 new. If you only have one or 2 briskets you can get similar results at home with a cooler or similar set up. 

SGH

slovelad said:

@SGH So you are saying there's a chance? Lol

Absolutely. What one man can do, another man can certainly equal or better if he puts his mind to it. 
If we're being honest here, very few of Franklins ideas or techniques are actually original. Quite the contrary. If you doubt this in anyway, look up how he got his start. Look at who he emulated, who he got his first offset from. 
Now don't take that out of context. In no way am I disrespecting or trying to discredit Franklin. I think that he is a heck of a good dude and a heck of a Q cook. He is also one of the ones that is willing to offer up tips and info. A true all around great person. But like most people, he started out watching someone and emulating their techniques and methods. 
Now what he has done in spades is come up with a way to be very consistent on a large scale. However this is achievable by anyone through time, repetitiveness, and trial and error.
Franklin took several different methods that have been around for a long time and combined them into a method that works excellent for him. 
Examples:
Wrapping with paper. Most of our grandmothers were doing this back in the 40's with paper bags. At the time, we thought that they were nuts or just wasting a perfectly good bag. 
Cooking over live fire. Man has done this in one form or another since time immemorial. In true Texas tradition, Franklin does it on a wood fired offset. 
Resting the meat. Several folks, along with many restaurants were advocating this long before Franklin came along. 
Cooking under a high draft with a relatively high humidity (during the cook and rest). Myron Mixon (along with many others) was certainly promoting the humid cooking environment (under high draft conditions) long before Franklin. This is not even debatable, it's simply a fact. 
High humidity holding. Most high end restaurants hold all of their meat in humidity induced ovens/warmers of some type. They have being doing this since at least the 50's. Possibly even earlier. 
What Franklin did do is combine all of this into a method that works spectacular for him. The man had a dream and he went for it. He devoted his life to make outstanding Q. He is now justly reaping the rewards of his hard work and dedication. But to directly answer your question again, absolutely, anyone can do it if they put their mind to it. It just takes two things, time and money. Just my thoughts my friend, so take them for what they are worth.  

On a side note, I am curious about the actual "finish" of his cooks. What I mean is this. We know for sure that he incorporates the convection/steamer into the cooking process somewhere along the way. My question is this, does he use the steamer set at a low temp under a specific humidity setting for holding and resting only? Or does he pull the Brisket off the smoker at a predetermined internal temp and finish cooking in the convection/ steamer and then drop temp to hold. Keep in mind that with the brisket already wrapped, the finish in an oven (or whatever) would not affect or alter the taste of the final outcome. Which ever way he does it, I'm fairly certain as to the "why" he does it. In modern high end convection/steamers, humidity can be precisely controlled to within 1 percent for the duration of the cook and/or the hold. Temp can be controlled to within 1/10 of a degree due to cool water circulation and/or water injection. This my friends is what is known as precision control at its finest, and it can not be replicated by any other means. You simply do not have this kind of precise control over a smoker, grill, standard oven, cooler or cambro. 
Of course this is just speculation on my part, but my guess would be the former. He is using it for just the holding process. His choice of humidity level is anyone's guess. But I would wager good money that it's a very, very high humidity setting, 75% or higher. Probably in the mid to high 90's if I were forced to bet good money. 
For the most part, all the above is just me rambling and thinking out loud. Something I often do when sedated. Sadly I'm a victim of my own vivid imagination at times, so I may be off by miles my friend. But it sure does make for a good conversation piece and leaves us all something to ponder while pursuing the perfect Brisket. On that note, standing down for the night. Good night, and God bless. 

drgordon

I had a pit master tell me that vacuum seal there briskets for a few days before serving.  Improves the flavor. I'm trying it tomorrow.

Legume

Few days?

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Legume said:

Few days?

Salt lick and blacks bbq in Lockhart both do this. Par cook them, blast chill for a few days (I don’t know that they vac-seal) and finish them in the smokers before they serve them a few days later. 

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drgordon said:

I had a pit master tell me that vacuum seal there briskets for a few days before serving.  Improves the flavor. I'm trying it tomorrow.

I’ve done this several times. I didn't find any noticeable improvement, but even better, I didn’t notice any degradation either. Sure makes cooking a brisket easier when you can do it in 2 shifts. Especially if you are cooking on something you have to tend (which is my preference for low and slow cooks).