Franks adventures

pgprescott

Hey @lousubcap give us some rundown. High points at least from your trip to the promised land. I understand not your first. It might help many future travelers hit the home run and avoid the traps. Help please. 🥃

lousubcap

In the interest of spreading my limited experience with chasing brisket in Central Texas I will offer the following:
First my summary from a power dense trip in June 2019:
9 different brisket venues (Franklin's twice-and talked with the Pope) and I have decided on two simple categories; Bark taste and Texture/Goodness (my subjective term for all other than texture).  (1 is top of my list).
Bark: (remember I like pepper...) 1-Salt Lick (cayenne for the win); 2-Valentinas;  3 Louie Mueller; 4 Franklin; 5 Mickelwait; 6 Snow's and Truth (tie); 8 Smittys; 10+ (intentional downgrade) City Meat Market.
Texture/Goodness: 1 Franklins; 3 (intentional drop below 2) Valentinas; 4 Louie Mueller; 5 Truth; 6 Mickelwait; 7 Snow's; 8 Salt Lick; 9 Smittys; 10+ (by design) City Meat Market.  
Obviously the reason Snow's is rated as the best BBQ is not their brisket:  I talked with Tootsie and the brisketeer (Clayton).  They get grass fed lean briskets well-trimmed around 7 lbs before cooking.  As soon as they get to the friggin jiggle (there it is again...) they wrap them in foil and then hold til serving.  The brisket comes straight from the foil to you and is pretty bland flavor-wise but tender (would not go so far as pot-roast).
Truth:  Talked with the founder for a bit before they opened (rub is S&P-not to the level of salt like Franklin) and start with 12-14 lb grain fed briskets.  Cook til they get the bark they want then butcher paper until the jiggle.  Then held around 145 til serving (same process as Franklin).  
One thing that really stood out was that the quality of meat going in was a huge driver in the outcome even at the "pro" level.  Some things you just cannot finesse.
Of course in the lines at Snow's and Truth it was predominantly local so I was given lots of other suggestions for great Q including what to order besides brisket as many places specialize in other meats.   Next time  "

And a quick assessment from the latest completed brisket-wise bender on Saturday:
First let me say that all the brisket I had was great texture wise, so the assessment is purely personal.  You cannot go wrong with any (save one-see below) , and the more the better meat coma! 
Intersteller at the top (ranked #2 in the state), talked with the pit master and their pepper forward rub is great. 
Brisket-wise I would place Burnt Bean second (another pit master conversation)  Their rub and finish has a definite abodo flavor that was unique. #4 in the state. 
Overall #2 however was LeRoy and Lewis but for the beef cheeks.  Bark and rub were exceptional. #5 overall in the rankings.
Louie Mueller's in Taylor is #4.  Great brisket, great bark and flavor.  Got around a minute or so with Wayne Mueller.
#5 was Franklin- the brisket was incredible (as always) but I am not a fan of the higher salt content of the rub.  ( Did get around 3 minutes with the Pope).
#7 (intentional drop) Micklethwait-brisket was almost an order of magnitude below the others but if you go, get the jalapeno cheese grits.  Worth it.

Separate comment: Valentina's Tex-Mex is the only place that does not open at 11 AM.  Opens at 7:30 AM and the Real Deal Holyfield breakfast tortilla with an over easy egg, slice of bacon and slice of great brisket is about the best breakfast food going.  (Ask for the breakfast menu).  Spent some time with the pit master.
Valentina's cook on mesquite, all other post oak.  
Definitely worth the road trip.  FWIW-

Botch

Bookmarked; thanks Cap'n.  I still want to make this pilgrimage soon.  

dmchicago

Wait. You were in Austin???

Langner91

dmchicago said:

Wait. You were in Austin???

Awkward!

lousubcap

@dmchicago- Yep.  Arrived last Weds night and met @The Cen-Tex Smoker and TFJ at Loro.  Then began the meat coma run.  Posted my daily findings.  Left Sunday AM.  
As Arnold once said, I'll be back!"  Forewarned is forearmed.  

Botch

dmchicago said:

Wait. You were in Austin???

Hard to hear the phone with the bidet running on High....  

dmchicago

First Navy wins, now this. 

lousubcap

@dmchicago - I had every intention of letting you know on the Zoom call of Dec 3rd but you were too busy with well deserved birthday festivities.  Staying power demonstrated that evening for sure!

Botch

lousubcap said:

@dmchicago - I had every intention of letting you know on the Zoom call of Dec 3rd but you were too busy with well deserved birthday festivities.  Staying power demonstrated that evening for sure!

Did he get his candle blown out?!?  

GregW

@lousubcap - Have you tried Blacks in Lockhart?

nolaegghead

Botch said:

lousubcap said:

@dmchicago - I had every intention of letting you know on the Zoom call of Dec 3rd but you were too busy with well deserved birthday festivities.  Staying power demonstrated that evening for sure!

Did he get his candle blown out?!?  

I guess so, although de-nice could have just been really, really drunk....

"12/3 is my birthday. I’m hoping to get drunk and/or laid. If I show up, you’ll know only one of those has happened. "

xfire_ATX

I am going to throw out what I consider a Hidden Gem out here by myself and @The Cen-Tex Smoker thats not far from Interstellar and thats 
http://jimssmokehousebbq.com/

I am generally not a brisket fan- its either amazing or meh for me.  Ive had it everywhere in this town and Valentinas and Jims are the best IMO.

@Jims-
Angus Brisket amazing
Baby Back Ribs- dont really like Baby Backs usually but amazing.
Mac N Cheese supurb
But generally his soup of the day is what I go for.

lousubcap

@GregW - No as I was steered to Smitty's in Lockhart by a local and highly respected source.  I only had time for one stop in Lockhart in 2019.  Maybe next time...

GregW

@lousubcap - I tried Blacks a couple of years ago. I thought it was outstanding, but I don't have a lot of experience with other places. The owner and family were very hospitable and gave us a tour of the cooking area.

dmchicago

nolaegghead said:

Botch said:

lousubcap said:

@dmchicago - I had every intention of letting you know on the Zoom call of Dec 3rd but you were too busy with well deserved birthday festivities.  Staying power demonstrated that evening for sure!

Did he get his candle blown out?!?  

I guess so, although de-nice could have just been really, really drunk....

"12/3 is my birthday. I’m hoping to get drunk and/or laid. If I show up, you’ll know only one of those has happened. "

A lot of you guys are thinking way too much about my "candle".

nolaegghead

I've been to Smitty's. Pretty good but whoever I was talking to never heard of burnt ends.

lousubcap

@nolaegghead - Not surprising as in Texas they don't sacrifice the point to the burnt ends devil.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

GregW said:

@lousubcap - I tried Blacks a couple of years ago. I thought it was outstanding, but I don't have a lot of experience with other places. The owner and family were very hospitable and gave us a tour of the cooking area.

very good folks. It has been very hit an miss for me out there but I always enjoy my visit. Lockhart was the undeniable mecca of TX bbq 15 years ago but it's an afterthought for most locals now. All the cities have "top 5" places so the need to travel is not really there anymore. Of the places in Lockhart, Smitty's and Blacks are the best. I usually get ribs and sausage or chopped beef sandwich. Eating in a 100 year old building with a post oak fire on the floor 5 feet from where you order is a good way to spend a day in my book so I don't worry about perfect brisket when I go. If your expectations are in line, it is still a "mecca" type bbq visit.

Fun fact about Blacks, they par-cook all of their briskets and the blast chill them for days. Then they finish them off in 4 hours when they open for service. Salt Lick does it the same way but they cook in massive gas ovens. The badass warming pits at Salt lick are pretty much for show but they do get some post oak on the meats right before you eat them.

JohnInCarolina

dmchicago said:

nolaegghead said:

Botch said:

lousubcap said:

@dmchicago - I had every intention of letting you know on the Zoom call of Dec 3rd but you were too busy with well deserved birthday festivities.  Staying power demonstrated that evening for sure!

Did he get his candle blown out?!?  

I guess so, although de-nice could have just been really, really drunk....

"12/3 is my birthday. I’m hoping to get drunk and/or laid. If I show up, you’ll know only one of those has happened. "

A lot of you guys are thinking way too much about my "candle".

I was just assuming the candle here was a scented one you deployed in the bidet room.  Is that incorrect?

nolaegghead

...unless he has a "crappy" (I mean, crappy, not just regular crappy)  bidet, you don't need candles as the carbon filter and air circulation takes out the crappy scent. 

Although who doesn't like the sweet fragrance of vanilla strawberry cheesecake drifting out of a yankee candle while they're trying to give birth to the beast born of the cheese tasting two days ago?

bonus:

https://www.pinterest.com/saleatherland/rejected-candle-scents/

Legume

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

GregW said:

@lousubcap - I tried Blacks a couple of years ago. I thought it was outstanding, but I don't have a lot of experience with other places. The owner and family were very hospitable and gave us a tour of the cooking area.

very good folks. It has been very hit an miss for me out there but I always enjoy my visit. Lockhart was the undeniable mecca of TX bbq 15 years ago but it's an afterthought for most locals now. All the cities have "top 5" places so the need to travel is not really there anymore. Of the places in Lockhart, Smitty's and Blacks are the best. I usually get ribs and sausage or chopped beef sandwich. Eating in a 100 year old building with a post oak fire on the floor 5 feet from where you order is a good way to spend a day in my book so I don't worry about perfect brisket when I go. If your expectations are in line, it is still a "mecca" type bbq visit.

Fun fact about Blacks, they par-cook all of their briskets and the blast chill them for days. Then they finish them off in 4 hours when they open for service. Salt Lick does it the same way but they cook in massive gas ovens. The badass warming pits at Salt lick are pretty much for show but they do get some post oak on the meats right before you eat them.

Don’t say an f’n word about Santa.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Legume said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

GregW said:

@lousubcap - I tried Blacks a couple of years ago. I thought it was outstanding, but I don't have a lot of experience with other places. The owner and family were very hospitable and gave us a tour of the cooking area.

very good folks. It has been very hit an miss for me out there but I always enjoy my visit. Lockhart was the undeniable mecca of TX bbq 15 years ago but it's an afterthought for most locals now. All the cities have "top 5" places so the need to travel is not really there anymore. Of the places in Lockhart, Smitty's and Blacks are the best. I usually get ribs and sausage or chopped beef sandwich. Eating in a 100 year old building with a post oak fire on the floor 5 feet from where you order is a good way to spend a day in my book so I don't worry about perfect brisket when I go. If your expectations are in line, it is still a "mecca" type bbq visit.

Fun fact about Blacks, they par-cook all of their briskets and the blast chill them for days. Then they finish them off in 4 hours when they open for service. Salt Lick does it the same way but they cook in massive gas ovens. The badass warming pits at Salt lick are pretty much for show but they do get some post oak on the meats right before you eat them.

Don’t say an f’n word about Santa.

Sorry kid but your dad should have told you about the gas pits at Salt Lick by  now. You are way too old for this sh*t. I'm doing you a favor so the kids on the playground don't tease you.

Legume

I really bought into the loaves and fishes miracle of their open pits. 15 briskets, a few racks of ribs and maybe 20 sausage rings for a typical Saturday night, and the number of briskets on the fire never changes.

Foghorn

I've always been partial to Kreuz in Lockhart - not based on any taste-testing but based on the following true story:


I cared for a victim of a drunk driver from a wreck that happened in Lockhart.  Around the same time I had cared for a trauma patient from a prominent Lockhart family.  This patient ended up on a blood thinner and I had to adjust his dose regularly.  

When the DWI case went to trial in Lockhart I was listed as a witness because I had to describe the injuries the victim sustained for the jury.  The prosecuting attorney told me I would go on the stand at 9 AM on a Tuesday so I blocked the day to drive out to Lockhart to testify - because I know that court appearances are somewhat unpredictable.  I arrived in Lockhart about 8 AM.

Sure enough, the defense attorney pulls some stunt that moves the timing around and I'm not going to be allowed to testify until the afternoon.  I'm told that he is actually hoping that I'm too busy to stay all day and that this will mess up the prosecution's case.  It was a nice spring day so I went to a park in downtown Lockhart and parked under a tree and got out some work I needed to do.  The lab result from the patient on blood thinner had just come back so I needed to call him to adjust the dose.  I call him and as I'm on the phone he tells me that he thinks that he has had a hernia recurrence in his groin where he had a hernia repair over 20 years ago.  As I was telling him that he would need to call my clinic for an appointment, it hit me - he lives in Lockhart.  So I asked him for his address and told him I'd be there in 5 minutes.  He and his wife were very surprised when I showed up in a suit and examined him in his recliner chair in his living room to confirm his recurrent hernia. After chatting with them for a while I told them I needed to head back toward the courthouse and that I was thinking I would go to Black's (I had seen billboards) for some lunch before I had to testify.  They told me that I should go to Kreuz because they liked it better.  So I did.  It was 11:30 AM on a Tuesday and there were probably 50 people in line and they were ringing up orders at 2 cash registers as fast as they could ring them.  I reminded myself that Lockhart only has a population of 11,000 as I saw a sign that said the seating capacity at Kreuz is 280 (I think - something like that).  

When I got to the front of the line I placed an order that only a few of us (including @SGH) could possibly finish as a solo act - a pound of brisket, a pound of ribs, a half pound of prime rib, half a pound of sausage, and some other stuff.  As the lady taking my order is about to ring it up, Roy Perez, the pitmaster, grabs her hand and looks at me and says "Dr. ___. Your meal is on the house".  

Here is Roy:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/the-soul-of-a-pitmaster/

I looked around and realized that there weren't any other 6'6" white guys in suits in the line so I was pretty easy to pick out.

Over the next 10 years I cared for that patient and several others affiliated with Kreuz and every time one of them came to clinic they would bring 10 or more pounds of BBQ with them.  I would take all the food to our conference room and lay it out for our team.  My partners used to want to know when those patients were coming and why I didn't see them more frequently in follow-up.

Anyway, that's why I'm a fan of Kreuz and haven't tried the other places in Lockhart.  Their brisket isn't in the Franklin realm but I've never thought about complaining about it.

I thought folks would enjoy the story and I'm pretty sure that @lousubcap won't mind having it on his thread by proxy.

lousubcap

Thanks again @Foghorn.  Great read.  Clearly Texas Monthly has changed their content a good bit since 2012-2015 years based on what I have read over the past couple of years. Some much history, so much Q and so little time for us Yankees.  But chasing it brings great enjoyment not to mention meat comas.  

nolaegghead

Great story and article @Foghorn

Refreshingly candid. 

Also loved the line:

"Moby, Eminem, Elvis, and some country. It’s a mixture."

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Foghorn said:

I've always been partial to Kreuz in Lockhart - not based on any taste-testing but based on the following true story:


I cared for a victim of a drunk driver from a wreck that happened in Lockhart.  Around the same time I had cared for a trauma patient from a prominent Lockhart family.  This patient ended up on a blood thinner and I had to adjust his dose regularly.  

When the DWI case went to trial in Lockhart I was listed as a witness because I had to describe the injuries the victim sustained for the jury.  The prosecuting attorney told me I would go on the stand at 9 AM on a Tuesday so I blocked the day to drive out to Lockhart to testify - because I know that court appearances are somewhat unpredictable.  I arrived in Lockhart about 8 AM.

Sure enough, the defense attorney pulls some stunt that moves the timing around and I'm not going to be allowed to testify until the afternoon.  I'm told that he is actually hoping that I'm too busy to stay all day and that this will mess up the prosecution's case.  It was a nice spring day so I went to a park in downtown Lockhart and parked under a tree and got out some work I needed to do.  The lab result from the patient on blood thinner had just come back so I needed to call him to adjust the dose.  I call him and as I'm on the phone he tells me that he thinks that he has had a hernia recurrence in his groin where he had a hernia repair over 20 years ago.  As I was telling him that he would need to call my clinic for an appointment, it hit me - he lives in Lockhart.  So I asked him for his address and told him I'd be there in 5 minutes.  He and his wife were very surprised when I showed up in a suit and examined him in his recliner chair in his living room to confirm his recurrent hernia. After chatting with them for a while I told them I needed to head back toward the courthouse and that I was thinking I would go to Black's (I had seen billboards) for some lunch before I had to testify.  They told me that I should go to Kreuz because they liked it better.  So I did.  It was 11:30 AM on a Tuesday and there were probably 50 people in line and they were ringing up orders at 2 cash registers as fast as they could ring them.  I reminded myself that Lockhart only has a population of 11,000 as I saw a sign that said the seating capacity at Kreuz is 280 (I think - something like that).  

When I got to the front of the line I placed an order that only a few of us (including @SGH) could possibly finish as a solo act - a pound of brisket, a pound of ribs, a half pound of prime rib, half a pound of sausage, and some other stuff.  As the lady taking my order is about to ring it up, Roy Perez, the pitmaster, grabs her hand and looks at me and says "Dr. ___. Your meal is on the house".  

Here is Roy:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/the-soul-of-a-pitmaster/

I looked around and realized that there weren't any other 6'6" white guys in suits in the line so I was pretty easy to pick out.

Over the next 10 years I cared for that patient and several others affiliated with Kreuz and every time one of them came to clinic they would bring 10 or more pounds of BBQ with them.  I would take all the food to our conference room and lay it out for our team.  My partners used to want to know when those patients were coming and why I didn't see them more frequently in follow-up.

Anyway, that's why I'm a fan of Kreuz and haven't tried the other places in Lockhart.  Their brisket isn't in the Franklin realm but I've never thought about complaining about it.

I thought folks would enjoy the story and I'm pretty sure that @lousubcap won't mind having it on his thread by proxy.

awesome story! And I love the part where you were crawling around on a guys floor in a suit (I imagine you crawling) looking at his junk in a recliner before lunch.

nolaegghead

I'm sure the defense attorney regretted the postponement as you had some very fresh, contemporaneous testimony to add.

Foghorn

Two points of clarification:

1)  There was no crawling.  I stood for the entire exam.

2)  The patient on the blood thinner with the hernia was not the patient who was the victim of the drunk driver.  They just both happened to be from Lockhart.

fiber_induced_deuce

So you were looking at his junk.