50 years of goodness!
Tennessee.
This is going to be interesting. Again.
The age of the pit is important but it all makes a difference including cut of meat, cook time, wood type, temperature, sauce either before, during or after, how long the meat relaxes. It all matters.
We have a place here that built a helipad for the guard troops who flew between camps for summer maneuvers. I don’t think the owners have spent a dime on the place in three generations. Not moist by any means but not dry either, brisket is thin sliced, sauce is OK but the beans and trimmings are the best.
Place in Wichita Falls, Texas is well aged and their product tastes it, really good.
There is lots of good BBQ across the nation. As long as it is not greasy most of it is at least passable.
My impression is Texas BBQ is usually beef, and they aren’t really big on sauces. Just salt and pepper, maybe a rub, but definitely not sweet. They’re not known for their BBQ pork.
Kansas City BBQ covers the gamut of almost all proteins. They typically use tomato-based sauces in their recipes.
If I were given a choice, I would choose Texas for beef, and KC for anything else. I like sauce with my barbecue.
Coming to bookstores soon: “How to Piss Away a Three-Touchdown Lead and Lose By 20 Points” by Bill O’Brien, former head coach of the #HoustonTexans .
Barbecue is a matter of civic pride in both areas. KC can have the barbecue crown. Texas has prettier girls (and better weather).
BBQ has its roots in the poor, who used available woods and available meat, slow cooking tough cuts to make them more edible. BBQ in any one area isn’t better or worse, just different.
KC, for a plethora of reasons. Moist, sweet, smoky, just enough sauce to keep it wet. Down here in Alabama, they think a dry rub of cayenne and and seed seasons on a nasty dry pig part and burning it over a fire is the height of cuisine. They also think humping their first cousins and spawning a slopehead is calling it a family. Buncha friggin’ social welfare Klingons.
We know who’s better in football!!
I’ve taught myself to cook good BBQ on a green egg. I can now enjoy what I want cooked any way I want. I mostly use dry rubs. Do like sweet on meat. Have recently been experimenting with vinegar mops and marinades.
50 years of goodness!
Texas Brisket
KC Burnt Ends
Memphis Ribs
Carolina Pulled Pork
Wait, they have barbecue in Houston?
Tennessee.
Love KC BBQ the best... but I would never turn away any BBQ... that delicious smokey flavor is the best...!
BurnCo, Tulsa.
The most important ingredient of cooking brisket is patience.
Get a packer’s cut brisket. Cook fat side up. Get the inside temp to about 185F. However long that takes.
Is KC seasoning normally hot (spicy)
Went to the local food outlet and they had KC ribs on special - bought 4 packs, fixed the first pack and we could not eat it SO SPICY.
So the other 3 packs I had to wash off the spice before I could cook them.
Is this normal?
Georgia.
Australia
Having grown up in Alabama and lived in Texas now since 1978, I give the title of Best BBQ to both. It just depends on what you’re talking about.
Alabama wins in the Pork category, hands down. For them, Beef is only a side-line. Bob Gibson’s in Decatur is rated as one of the top 10 BBQ places in the country.
But Texas wins in the Beef category, without a doubt. In fact, it’s only been in the last 20 years or so, that Texas seemed to learn what to do with Pork.
When we moved to Houston in ‘78, we went to a local BBQ place and I ordered a Sliced Pork Sandwich. What I was a couple of slices of Ham, grilled and dunked in BBQ sauce.
Well, it was Pork, I guess.