Best BBQ Show

This week I sit down with Derek Wolf aka OverTheFireCooking on Instagram. It’s his birthday btw so if you’re listening to this in real time go hit him up and say happy birthday to him!   We met up at the Jack Daniel’s invitational while he was slinging burgers with a new Jack Daniel’s sauce.

Derek started his instagram account with a few shots of his food taken by his lady of the interesting ways they cook meat. Derek loves open fire, open flame pits and uses different tools to hang meat right over the flame.

Derek is all about bringing people together. He wants us all to sit around wood fires and share food with each other. He wants to expand the amazing people in the bbq family. You all know why we’re here, because we love bbq and I can tell you 100% this man loves BBQ.

Derek is a self taught man and an aspiring asadore. He’s learned tons of techniques while traveling the world meeting other meatmen along the way.

Have you ever hung food to cook it? What kind of flavors are you looking for? As always tag us in your photos, grams, tweets and snaps so we can share your delicious food or favorite restaurant with the rest of the bbq family.

Enjoy this episode with Derek Wolf, @overthefirecooking and a great part of the BBQ family.

You’re listening to the Best BBQ Podcast. Today we have more coverage from Texas Monthly weekend or what I like to call the international BBQ convention. There were pitmasters from all over texas and beyond including Bryan Furman from B’s Cracklin in Georgia.

In this episode we spoke to LeighAnn Bakunas, BBQ and Beer marketing manager for Yeti. She’s going hard every day connecting more pitmasters and brewers with Yeti’s amazing products. They’re not a sponsor of the show, YET, but they have great products that are designed right here in Austin. I’m friends with some of the designers and they’ve always got something interesting and new coming out.

Matt Van Orden also hopped on the mic for a minute. He’s been at Franklin a long time and just got an instagram so check him out. Matt was cooking beef ribs while Bryan was cooking ribs and some hash.

I truly enjoyed the time I got to spend with Bryan this past weekend. He is a driven #meatman and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a few more restaurants by this time next year.

Enjoy this episode and don’t forget to tag us in your posts! I love featuring photos and videos from around the world so tag me and I’ll show your work to the Best BBQ fam. Also, shirts and phone cases are still available at www.bestbbqshow.com. Enjoy the show.

You’re listening to Best BBQ and I’m your host, Yoni Levin. If you’ve been on our instagram this week you know it is Texas Monthly BBQ weekend. What does that mean? It means I just spent the last 3 days eating and hanging out with pitmasters from all over the world.

What else does that mean? Well, if you saw our wild weekend on our social channels you’ve seen where we’ve been hanging out. You’ve seen who we’ve talked to and today we’ve got a great episode of pitmasters and enthusiasts from California to New York who love Texas BBQ.

It takes endurance to be part of something as hectic as TM BBQ weekend. It’s not easy eating all that meat and driving to so many destinations that we went to over the last 4 days. I see it as a test, the test of a true meatman. The test of a true bbq enthusiast and the kind of man or woman who can handle being surrounded by meat and smoke.

While being surrounded by smoke is nice, adding some smokey pit masters is an added bonus. I showed up to Snow’s this last Saturday expecting to see a few familiar faces and what was actually there amazed me. A crew of people that truly love BBQ and cook it often and well. We had a slew of cooks, owners and talking heads, so many in fact, that if I had had 10 mics it wouldn’t have been enough.

In this episode we talk to Joey Victorian the king of tri-tip, Abe Delgado the cheerleader of all things bbq and a regular at Moo’s Craft BBQ who was also there so pay attention, the mics move around fast.

After Andrew and Michelle Munoz of moos I had a Chat with Robert Jacob Lerma photographer extraordinaire, and Mallory Robbins of Evie Mae’s.  We talk about the struggles of cooking Central Texas BBQ in the pan handle and an email list that you’ll all want to get on for Evie Mae’s prime rib dinners.

Mallory passes it to Arnis, does it sound like I’m doing a football play by play? Sorry. Arnis and Andrew have a chat before we get a quick word with Matt from Mill Scale. John Brotherton and Joey Victorian face off for a little smack talk and Clay pokes in to make jokes.

Before the episode ends we get some wise words of wisdom from Russell Roegels who has been dubbed the Commissioner of BBQ. I hope you enjoy this episode and all the great people that joined us to talk bbq. I’ve got to go wash my mics, they’re covered in grease. Enjoy!

Thank you again for listening and as always tag us in all of your meat posts and if you see people getting a little too friendly with their bbq, remind them #dontsqueezeyourmeat! Tag us in anything that's fit to see, meat, family, fun. Don't forget to use #meatman and keep spreading the love in the BBQ world!

Do you like great BBQ? I do. I set out over a year ago now to create a show about barbecue. About tasting it, about the people who cook it and all the amazing places that serve delicious, wood fired, low and slow Texas BBQ.

Texas Barbecue is unique from many other states. It’s actually descended from the German’s who moved here almost a century ago. They had a simple recipe to cook cheaper cuts and all it took was time and some salt and pepper. Originally Barbecue wasn’t even the main event at most of these meat markets. It was a way to preserve meat that the butcher hadn’t sold yet, the way your local grocer cooks rotisserie chickens to get a few extra days out of their meat case

And now, The funny thing is Texans are going to Germany to teach them how to cook BBQ. In fact, Texans are flying all over the world to spread the gospel of Texas BBQ. There’s smoke houses in Tokyo, Toronto, Copenhagen, Adelaide and even London advertising Texas BBQ. I can’t tell you much about those restaurants, but they’re on my list for future episodes. As I’ve said before, @bestbarbecue in all your favorite posts, it’s how I’ve discovered half the Texas BBQ joints all over the world.

I didn’t realize when I began the show that I would be posed with a problem. A problem that is almost insurmountable for one person. A challenge that only a true meatman can handle.

Not the problem of places to cover, if know anything about BBQ you know there’s a new BBQ joint springing up every week. Now that the word is out, people are working their butts off to create barbecue that rivals the greats.

The problem isn’t quality either. In the last decade the amount of GOOD Barbecue, just in Texas, has probably quadrupled. Between youtube, amazingribs.com, and all the books coming out, the techniques of Texas BBQ are not a secret. In fact, the next undiscovered pit master could be listening to this show right now. Secretly cooking the best briskets none of us have ever tasted, just waiting for their moment to drop their perfect bark and masterfully rendered fat right in our laps. Whoever is out there researching for the Texas Monthly top 50 has their hands full in the next few years. Maybe they’ll round it up to a top 100.

I thought the problem would be access. I stressed about all these pit masters working hard might not be friendly. They may not want to share their story or worry about competition. If you listen to this show, you know we have all been happily surprised at the openness of my guests. The people who cook barbecue love talking about it. They welcome us to their pit rooms, their small offices, or their huge patios and we often talk for hours before and after the episode is recorded.

The problem is choosing what to cover! Who should I talk to this week? Do I talk to an amazing pitmaster or the famous owner of the same restaurant? Do I talk to an up and comer or do a take a left turn and hang out with a competition team at one of the loca rodeos? Do me a favor, send me the people you’d like to hear from. Tag me in their social media and say “Hey, interesting person! You need to be on the best bbq show!”

I’ll be at the Jack Daniel’s invitational this weekend hanging out with The Shed and a ton of other competition teams, so if you’re going to be there, send us an email or a message. If you know a team or a pit master who would like to be on the show, send them my way. Some of our best interviews happen from a comment on our instagram or twitter from a fan and I am grateful for all these connections. So don’t be shy

To give you a look behind the scenes, I talk to tons of BBQ people every week. I talk about what’s next and who’s cooking new and different things. The borders between Texas and the rest of the US are melting away. Honestly, the borders between Texas and the world are melting away. I’ve got a big fan cooking in the Philippines. His name is David Peralta and he cooks at a place called rubbed and smoked. They fly USDA choice black angus briskets from Star Ranch across the Pacific and put them into Barrel Pro’s which are, as you probably guessed, Texas style offset smokers. I’ll post a few pictures of them this week so you can see what they’re working with. ::: They cook their briskets with DRAGON FRUIT AND TAMARIND INDICA wood. I wonder if that tastes different from post oak… They even have their own line of BBQ sauces. If no one has told you yet, bbq is taking over the world…

Every week is a challenge. I look for the best news and the most interesting people. Having said that, I’ve got a few new ideas that you’ll start hearing about in the coming months. Steak cook offs are taking off and I might even start competing in them. I was first turned on to them at the NBBQA convention this year. It’s a simple contest, you get two steaks and you have to turn one in. It has to be perfectly medium and you usually need a few other things like nice grill marks. I’m excited about the simplicity of it.

In competition bbq you have tons of injections and sauces and additives that, I feel, have taken away from the true flavors of the meat. Also, the cost of competition and the equipment has priced out many home cooks and others that may want to dabble. The cool thing about steak competitions is you don’t need much to enter. Some people just cook on small grills. M Grills makes a ammo can looking grill called the C4 which is just big enough for a couple steaks. Go ahead and google it, it’s a pretty cool little travel grill.

I think the average person wants to be able to cook a perfect steak. What better practice than buying a week's worth of ribeyes and cooking them up every night until you’ve got your method down solid? I know I’m happy eating steak every night. Wouldn’t you like to know, down to the second, how long a perfect steak takes?

If you’re keeping up with us you’ll hear all about it. If you’ve heard the show before you know I’ve set out on an adventure that is just getting started. No matter where the barbecue world goes, we’ll be there. To talk about it, to taste it and maybe even try to cook it ourselves.

Before we go I wanted to talk to you about our awesome merchandise. I’ve got #meatman and #meatwoman gear available at bestbbqshow.com. Right now it’s shirts and sweet phone cases for all iPhones and also for most Samsung Galaxies. The sales from this site go directly into producing this show. They help us travel and keep our equipment running. Are you looking for other merchandise? What would you like to see next in the Best BBQ shop? If you’re thinking stickers, don’t worry, they’re already in the works.

Thank you again for listening and as always tag us in all of your meat posts and if you see people getting a little too friendly with their bbq, remind them #dontsqueezeyourmeat!

John Brotherton is someone you don't see frowning very often. He's always up for BBQ and he's happy to meet up and talk about the business. I've eaten more meals in more different barbecue joints with John Brotherton than anyone else. He also won the Austin vs Houston Throwdown last year with Evan Leroy (they tied).

He's a true meatman and makes one of my favorite things in BBQ, he makes great sandwiches. Some places you sit down and they give you a platter, some places might put your food on a plate of some kind, these guys serve bomb sandwiches in the classic boats with checkered paper (I love classic). The pastrami sandwich I ate right before this interview had huge pieces of juicy pastrami on some amazing marbled bread. Check our instagram for visuals to go along with what you're reading.

During this round table I was joined by three of John's pit masters, Alanmykal Jackson, Dominic Colbert and Andrew Stapp. They're young guys in the game but that is only in age. These three gentleman have experience at multiple restaurants even before they met John. You can tell from this round table that they enjoy their work and the culture of Brotherton's.

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and follow us on our social media @bestbarbecue and make sure to use our favorite tags #meatman, #chickenisavegetable and of course #dontsqueezeyourmeat. We need to get the word out on the last one, I still see perfectly good meat being squeezed dry all over the internet and it has to stop!

While you're at it go hit up John Broherton (@briskit_wispuhrer), Alanmykal Jackson (@pitmaster_jackson5) and Dominic Colbert (@pit_ninja). Tag them with a #meatman and tell them you enjoyed the show!

Until next week, go eat some meat and invite your friends along to join you!

If you've ever met Joey Machado, you've probably met him at a cooking competition or event. He probably had at least 3 people with him including his talented son Ty, who has won many competitions himself. Joey and I sit down at SLAB which is an acronym for Slow Low and Bangin'. At the helm of SLAB is Mark Avalos, a man whose love of graffiti and hip-hop is written all over the walls. They even have cookies for their banana pudding shaped like hip-hop legends Biggie and Eazy-E.

If you're in the area and want to meet Joey and many other famous cooks, come down to the Hill Country Cook Off Associations State Championship BBQ Cookoff Contest on October 12th 2018. If you are the first to find me there and mention this episode, I have a free prize for you that includes a $25 giftcard to SLAB BBQ!

Every week you'll hear a new conversation with one of the many interesting people in the world of BBQ. Joey Machado is known for being generous with his B&B Charcoal and all kinds of knowledge. His calendar is packed with Barbecue competitions, cook offs and work with relief organizations. He is everywhere that is good BBQ and often your favorite pit master is using his charcoal and other products.

You can find Joey using #bbqcharcoal and as always tag us in all your social media with @bestbarbecue and use #meatman and #meatwoman wherever you see someone who loves meat!

I want to be honest with you. I've been cooking BBQ for a long time, but I never felt fully connected to the BBQ community til the last year. What was the change? The people.

I decided to start a show. I decided that all these amazing people I was meeting had great stories. I was interested in the stories and I also knew a few of you would want to hear what's going on. Isn't that why you're here? To learn about the scene, see who's cooking what and learn all their secrets? What if I told you they're all right here. They want to tell you everything.

A few weeks ago I went on a road trip. 32 or so hours with Brendan Lamb to a well known BBQ joint, The Shed. At the helm of The Shed is Brad Orrison, a mad scientist in his own way, he might just be one of the happiest men on earth. Brad invited Brendan down to share some equipment with him. As soon as Brendan got the invite, he called me to come along. I introduced the two of them and boy do I love an excuse to disappear for a day to help some friends.

That's what this story is all about, friends. I'm sure all you #meatwomen and #meatmen are out there making friends with your amazing BBQ. You're the friend everyone counts on. The one that knows hard work because you have lived it. The one who will take over the fire or the grill when you know someone isn't treating it right. You're a hero, a force of good in the world of over the fire cooking.

Brendan and Brad are just two of the many heroes I've met in the past year. Enjoy this story and our ramblings as we drive home from Mississippi with a trailer full of gear, bellies full of barbeque and about 5 hours sleep. Who knows, maybe you'll be on your own wild ride in no time.

Brad (@bradorrison)

The Shed (@theshedbbq)

Brendan (@brendan_lamb)

Smiley's (@smileysbbq)

and of course @bestbarbecue! Tag us in anything that's fit to see, meat, family, fun. Don't forget to use #meatman and keep spreading the love in the BBQ world!

When you walk up to Loro you don't expect to run into a bouncer...not truly a bouncer, but there is someone working the door. One thing you wouldn't expect at Loro is, it's counter service. The door person keeps the line from backing up and helps new arrivals navigate the menu. On busy days, they even open an outdoor bar so you can have a drink while you wait.

Bram Tripp and the team at Loro have thought a lot about flavor and taste. For example, their Bavette is a cold smoked, beef fat con fit steak that is finished on a giant wood fired grill in their kitchen. They have karaage, Oak smoked salmon and even a brisket burger topped with a papaya salad. Even the bar menu is thought out so your drinks are fresh and quick. Even after trying half the menu I'll be back to voer the rest.

If you had told me a year ago that I'd be sitting down with a highly skilled chef, who cooked bbq in Houston and then moved to an asian smokehouse in Austin, I might not have believed you. The truth is, the term "bbq" is starting to cover a wider range of food and I'm loving every minute of it. I already make Ramen, Pho, curry and other dishes with my BBQ leftovers. What Loro has done is inspire me to take it even further.

I hope you enjoy this wide ranging conversation with an amazing chef and pitmaster, Bram Tripp.

You can see the menu and hours at loroaustin.com.

As always, tag us in your posts and in the comments @bestbarbecue and pick up your #meatman or #meatwoman shirts at www.bestbbqshow.com!

This week I wanted to take the time to talk to you, the listeners. I love the people, the food, and the hard work of BBQ. The barbecue world is full of great people. I've spent the last year talking, tasting and cooking Texas barbeque with some of the greatest pit masters on earth. It's crazy the opportunity y'all the listeners have given me. I'm thankful for every day I get to host this show and it's all because of you.

#Meatman shirts are available on bestbbqshow.com. As always tag us in your favorite bbq posts, videos, cooking tips or anything else that inspires you to be a part of the #bbqfamily.

Enjoy your week and we'll see you next money with the Best BBQ Show just for you.

Wayne Mueller didn't expect to end up at his father's restaurant. Wayne ended up working with his father, Bobby Mueller, before he died and Wayne took over. Since then Wayne has traveled the world spreading the gospel of BBQ. He hangs out with some of the coolest pit masters on earth. Billy Durney, Sam Jones and many more. Luckily he loves our show and is happy to spend time talking about his experiences and the world of barbecue.

In this episode we talk all about the BBQ world, sports, life, and even what cooking barbecue meant 60+ years ago when his father started cooking. Back then it was more about preserving the meat than being the hot new thing. Now Texas BBQ is taking over the world and we're covering it from all different angles.

Pick up your #meatman or #meatwoman shirts at www.bestbbqshow.com! Show your true colors and support our show!

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