It’s been a blockbuster year for Texas barbecue, and Houston is staking its claim as a smoked-meat mecca. Alison, Chris and Greg discuss the highs and lows.

Ryan Zboril of Pitts & Spitts, one of Texas’ leading makers of custom smokers and grills, schools Chris and Greg on pellet smokers. Pitts & Spitts is rolling out next-gen high-tech pellet smokers that will appeal to backyard barbecue...

Chris and Greg visit with the young owner of Pinkerton’s Barbecue, a Texas Monthly Top 50 barbecue joint. Pinkerton, who cut his teeth as a weekend cook-off warrior (including smoking meats in his parents’ driveway), discusses how he cooked for...

Chris, Alison and Greg talk about the influence of the Pappas restaurants in Houston, especially the brand that started it all: Pappas Bar-B-Q. Pappas chef Michael Verlardi and beverage concept director join them in the studio.

One smokes the best Central Texas-style brisket on Planet Earth. The other is the country's foremost practitioner of whole hog barbecue. Both deal with fire, day through night. And, wouldn't you know it, they're buddies who were in Houston recently to...

Before Southern Smoke in Houston, which gathers some of America’s best chefs and pitmasters, event founder/James Beard Award winner Shepherd sits down at his Underbelly restaurant with the Chronicle crew and his visiting barbecue pals from Austin...

Jim Goode was an avid backyard barbecue enthusiast before he got the chance in 1977 to be an honest-to-goodness pitmaster when he purchased the former Red Barn on Kirby. From those humble beginnings he fashioned a culinary legacy that has spawned some...

Wesley Jurena, who worked the barbecue competition circuit before opening his Pappa Charlies Barbeque near downtown Houston, joins Chris, Greg and Alison in the studio. He also discusses his plans to relocate his restaurant.

One of the last of Houston’s old-school barbecue barons, Felix Powell talks about the Southeast Texas-style barbecue he smokes at Powell Bar-B-Q in Sunnyside, where you can still get the iconic, heavily spiced, fat-dripping beef sausages he grew up...

Live from Beaver’s on Westheimer, which since it opened earlier this year has been making waves in Houston’s craft barbecue scene. Chef/pitmaster Arash Kharat joins Greg and Alison to chat about his background, barbecue techniques and his plans...