Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto [A Cookbook] Hardcover – April 7, 2015

Franklin Barbecue by Aaron Franklin and Jordan MackayI thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. If you want a barbecue cookbook that has lots of unique, creative recipes, this is not your book. This book is for people who enjoy smoking and eating meat and who enjoy reading about the experiences of someone who learned how to smoke meat and soon opened an extremely popular restaurant. There are four barbecue recipes, and they don’t start until page 147. The recipes are for brisket, pork spare ribs, beef (plate) short ribs, and turkey breast. At page 174, he’s on to other topics. There are also recipes for four sauces and three sides. He winds up with recommendations for beer to drink with your barbecue.Chapter One is Aaron’s life story – how he learned how to build and adapt things, including barbecue smokers, how he bought used equipment and started his restaurant on a shoestring budget. And he reviews some of the great BBQ restaurants in Central Texas.Chapter Two gives a brief description of several types of smokers – the original pits, the offset smokers, and the upright drum smoker. He does not mention the Weber Smokey Mountain or any similar vertical types that have a fire chamber in the bottom, a water pan above that, and food grates above that. I suppose I could consider these to be variations of the upright drum smoker. All of Aaron’s smokers are offset. He started on a very cheap, flimsy New Braunfels Hondo. After that all of his smokers were offsets homemade from 500 gallon or 1000 gallon propane tanks. He briefly mentions the Big Green Egg and similar kamado style cookers. Not surprisingly, his cookers have names – Number One, Number Two, Muchacho, Rusty Shackleford, MC5, Nikki Six, and Bethesda. Then he tells quite a bit about how to build your own offset smoker – how to procure a used 1000 gallon propane tank, add doors, grates, legs, chimney, and fire chamber, including the necessary welding and cutting equipment. Not many readers of this book are going to take this on, I’ll bet. The most useful information here is his recommendation for a thermometer – the Tel-Tru Barbecue Thermometer BQ300. (p 62)Chapter Three is Wood. All of Aaron’s smokers are made to burn wood, not charcoal. He likes all kinds of hardwoods but mostly uses post oak, because he likes it and it is plentiful around Austin. He started out shopping for wood in Craig’s List, and found that a lot of sellers were dishonest. They would stack wood in such a way to make to look like a cord when it was much less. Then he found a seller who was honest and dependable and stayed with him. There is a glut of oak available in central Texas because the drought is causing trees to die. It is best to cut down a live tree, cut and slit it into smaller pieces, and let it dry for 6-12 months, until it is about 20% water. But sometimes you go with trees that died from drought. Mesquite is pretty strong. Hickory is strong, but not as strong as mesquite. Fruit tree wood is milder. Wood should be dried for a few months, or it will be too green, it will have too much water in it, and won’t burn well. Green wood is heavier and you can feel that it is heavier.Chapter Four is Fire + Smoke – how to start the fire and keep it going with good smoke. Aaron lights a few charcoal briquettes in a chimney starter, puts them in the fire chamber, and puts some wood on top of them, and they light. He only uses wood for cooking. You don’t get smoke from charcoal, gas, or electricity. You need wood for smoke. Most other books say to use charcoal plus a few chunks of wood to get the smoke. I do that with my Weber Smokey Mountain and I think it works fine. Smoke contains solids, liquids, and gases. The gases are invisible, but they do the most to penetrate into the meat and give it flavor.Chapter Five is Meat. Aaron always gets Angus, grade prime, which is ethically raised, with no growth hormones or antibiotics, not frozen and never been frozen. Freezing breaks down fibers and makes the meat floppy and mushy. The lesser grades, in order, are choice and select, and they have less marbling fat. Aaron keeps his briskets 14 to 21 days after the packing date before he cooks them. Dry aging means hanging it or putting it on a rack to dry. Wet aging is done in a vacuum-sealed package. You don’t want dry aged for barbecue. Aaron doesn’t want a lot of rock-hard fat on the outside of the brisket – it is a sign of growth hormones and antibiotics. Yellowish, not white, fat indicates grass-fed beef. There are three cuts of beef ribs: chuck, rib, and plate. Ribs 1-5 are chuck, 6-12 are rib. He says “We go for the plate ribs 6, 7, 8 – right in the middle of the rib cage, which have the longest, widest, meatiest bones, like brontosaurus ribs.” Aaron really doesn’t like pork ribs that have been “enhanced” – injected with water and salt. He likes pork from a hybrid heritage breed – a mix of Chester White and Duroc.Six is the cook. This pretty much puts it together and gives specific instructions for pork ribs, beef ribs, brisket, and turkey breast. He likes to cook at 275 degrees, hotter than some pitmasters that use 225 degrees. He uses a lot of rub – mostly just pepper (16 mesh) and Morton kosher salt at a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio. He doesn’t like fresh ground pepper. He wants it ground a few days or a few weeks before using, because he doesn’t want the flavor to be strong, but he wants to use a lot of pepper because it helps the smoke to stick to the meat. Before applying rub, you can optionally apply slather – mustard, water, oil, or vinegar. He uses an offset smoker, but always uses a water pan to add humidity. He explains the smoke ring on brisket. He gets slightly technical here, but don’t worry, he is always clear.Chapter 7 is Serving + Eating, and mostly from the restaurant point of view, but helpful when you are serving friends and family.I have read several books on barbecue and smoking, mostly borrowed from the library, and this is far and away my favorite. I liked it so much I bought it after reading a library e-book. It seems odd that I like it so much, since Aaron exclusively uses offset smokers fired with wood, and I use a Weber fired with charcoal, but so much of the information here is going to be useful with any equipment. Another thing that adds to the enjoyment of the book is that you can google Aaron Franklin and find lots of barbecue information on the web, and you can find his TV show on Public Broadcasting – so after a while you feel like you know him personally.

We've all preordered this book and so far, everyone is in agreement: it's a 'must buy' for aspiring pitmasters, whether pros or backyard entertainers. Franklin says that beyond certain cooker features (details), the secret is in being obsessive about other details. His text bears this out. I was quickly convinced that THIS IS THE ONE BARBECUE BOOK YOU MUST HAVE on your shelf (I have others.) We've all seen good barbecue books written by competition pitmasters--the 'secrets' they share focus on rubs and recipes for sides. Aaron Franklin goes the other way and says salt, pepper, quality smoke and wood selection plus unwavering focus on fire consistency go almost all the way toward making outstanding 'cue. Read this and you'll be a believer.Franklin is a brisket expert but his restaurant is also known for its beef ribs (on Saturdays), pork ribs, sausage and turkey. He takes us through all the details on how he serves as much as 2000 pounds of meat PER DAY to happy customers. Readers can tell he sets a killing pace for himself. He has also trained a deep and talented bench to keep up with the volume (and to permit him to be an advocate for barbecue around the country.) This book seems to be just what would be ideal as a training manual for his staff. He begins with a detailed (what else?) discussion of issues in sourcing meat and wood. He describes the cookers he has known, how to 'tune' a typical big-box store purchase and exactly how he has made his own cookers. The biographical aspects of the book make it clear that he has always been a Do-It-Yourself guy and that he has had to wring the most out of every dollar and bit of material he could find in order to realize his restaurant dream. The book deals with how he trims each cut and why, what temperature(s) he cooks at and why; the need to start with a tacky surface and how to best apply a rub; how long to smoke each type of item and how to tell when it has taken up enough smoke; wrapping and finishing the cook; slicing and or serving the meat. Rather than giving a bunch of recipes, Aaron Franklin talks in terms of proportions and 'building your own' rub and then tells how he does his. He gives a few recipes for classic Texan barbecue sides--slaw, potato salad, beans. Again, this is not a book with extensive recipes for separate dishes but anyone who uses this book will know how to create a pretty fine plate of barbecue with sides that satisfy.I've been smoking hams and bacon and barbecuing ribs for years at home and I have a good offset cooker for barbecue or grilling. Reading this book gives me a good few ideas for improving my barbecue...but...I wonder...: Mr. Franklin writes in terms of restaurant quantities and commercial-sized pits. He talks in terms of 'cooks' taking 10 or 12 hours (it's done when its tender and each item takes its own time.) He wraps and continues cooking for quite a while after bark and color are 'right.' And he 'rests' his packages of meat for 30 minutes or an hour or until the meat cools to 140 degrees (say). When cooking for a family or doing a brisket for a party, this timing may not really help. If you've done it like I've done it at home, you will already know a bit about timing. What you can learn from this book is how to be more consistent about pulling your brisket, ribs, etc., at the right stage and about being more consistent in finishing the cook and about resting to retain juiciness.