I Learned REAL Texas BBQ

When I think of barbecue, I think of one place in the world, Texas. And not only have I never been to Texas, that's not true. I just remember that there's an amazing art behind barbecue. I've heard it's a food that only tastes good if it's made with love. And I actually feel that way about a lot of food. But come along with me today to learn classic Texas barbecue. For those of you that don't know, before I head to the airport, we are catching up to Gordon himself. So if you haven't already, you know who you are. Smack that subscribe button. It is currently 430 in the morning. We have touched down in Texas and not gotten much sleep, but we're ready to go make some barbecue. We are here at Cadillac Barbecue. Let's head inside and see what's in store. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Todd Davis. Todd, Nick. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. This is Manny. Nice to meet you. How are you? You didn't fire him yet today, right? You can fire him later. Welcome to Cadillac. It's early. It's early for you. We start early. First guy here today was probably here at 3 o'clock. You've got to have that passion. If I came to this mill every morning, I'd have that. This is Big Mama, our first smoker. It's been inside the building since the day we came here. We name all our smokers. Manny, maybe you'll have a smoker name by the end of the video. This is our pit room. You've got Brutus, Buckwheat, which is hot. Be careful. Bandit. This is Bubba. And you've already met Big Mama. This is Bam Bam. Oh, my God. This has pork steaks on it. Holy s**t. This is Andrew. How you doing, man? This is Babe. Babe was the first pig cooker we bought. Not quite big enough for big pigs. Big hawks. That's what she said. This is Bubba. So this is the beast. This is where we make our own coal. I can see why it's called the beast. It's over a thousand degrees. All we're doing is trying to make those fresh coals. And then we're going to put that on the fire directly underneath the food. The flavor that's in those ashes, it's coming out in that smoke. My arm is burning. Why do people want coals versus more direct sort of flames? If you put a fire like that underneath the meat, you would just scald it. Coals give you the same smoky flavor, but with more of a sort of gentle, slower cooking process. Some people will cook hot and fast. I just feel that it comes out better if you cook low and slow. We have a friend named Guga who always tries to skip ahead and cook hot and fast. That's right. Shame on you, Guga. You can do it. For us, it works better low and slow. It smells so good. You know that kind of smoky smell in the middle of the winter? Maybe you're sitting in front of a fire. This is basically a giant version of that. Even over here, I'm feeling heat off of... Hold on, let me think of the name. Brutus. Damn it. Brutus was the very first one. See, that was your first love. I meant Big Mama. Big Mama first. Yeah, that was my first love. Big Mama. Not in Big Mama's house! Come on in here. This big cooler here is all of our meat storage. So just when I thought we had a big freezer of Wagyu, he's going to show us up right now, Manny. This is what's left over from the week. These are our oshi briskets. That's a nice brisket, huh? Yes. And now we're cooking some pork steaks. It's a direct cook. Usually about halfway through, we start to mop them to kind of give them a little bit of a glaze, a little bit more flavor. Is that tool actually called a mop? Why don't you grab a mop? So this sausage, we make ourselves. Grind it, stuff it, everything. This is our mild 17. The reason it's called 17 is it took us 17 tries. This was the first sausage we ever made. They're all beef and pork and then all kinds of great flavors. This is our whole hog. We vary in our size of pig, typically around 150 pounds. I just swallowed that whole. It's good. It is now 7.24 a.m. We can see that things are starting to come together. We're finally starting to get to taste things. They must have a little vinegar in there or something. Gets you in the eyes a little bit. It's got a ton of different flavors in there. Not at all overpowering. You're just getting a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's a journey of flavors. So they just brought us out some of these pork cracklings, chicharrones. They're still making that sort of crackle sound from after you fry them. Lightly sort of fatty flavored rice cake. It's just delicious. Hmm. Those are good. Sausage time. Hey Todd, quick question. You got the smaller sausages right here and the bigger ones. Which one do you like more? When I'm snacking, I eat the smaller ones. So sausage is a three day process. The first day you're grinding it, stuffing it. The second day you're going to do a cold smoke. Cold smoke means like you're cooking it at like 140 degrees or so. On the third day, we're actually finishing them off right now. You really need that entire process to get that good, smoky, snappy sausage. That sort of pop when you bite into it. Right, right, right. It's a fun thing because there's just so much to it. So they have the coolest design details here. These knives right here are going to open and close the vent. I mean, I love that. These are all thousand gallon propane tanks that have been decommissioned. If you look at this tank inside, you get inside. They're all inside there, man. Going all the way in. So you're just going to hang out here now? I'm watching how my fire is doing. Good barbecue is all about fire manners. It's taken us days to get to this point. I don't want to screw it up at the end. Time for some ribs. Ooh. So that was like four hours of smoke. And this is an hour and a half of tenderizing. If it's perfect, you should be able to bend it in half. Bend and no break. That's like a perfect rib. It's awesome. They're going to blaze for like another 30 minutes and then they'll be ready. These come out really easy. Oh, whoa. They just come out. Wow. That's freaking awesome. It's usually a chore to keep them in. They have the opposite problem than most people do. It's hot. Oh, I forgot. We're going to shoot back outside and check out those sausages. So the sausages are finishing up. They do look different. They have more of a kind of shine to them. They've gotten a little bit darker, right? You see how tight they're getting? It's crazy. How plump they're getting because they're tightening it up. So tight. You see what I deal with? Do the smaller ones get tighter than the bigger ones? Sometimes they will, depending on where you put them. Sausages! Be careful because they're going to be really hot. Wow. Oh my gosh. That's so juicy. I have never loved sausage. In fact, I've never liked sausage. But this right here, I didn't know it was possible for a sausage to be this juicy. There's no movie magic going on here. The sausage is squirting all over me. I have to say. So this is a tray of beef belly burnt ends. Yes, sir. So these are only halfway done. These are about... These are only halfway done. It's literally like you're eating a piece of candy. They're making so much good food here. This is... Banana pudding? So much good food. So... Thanks, Ivan. Andy, you're fired. Get out. I tell him that all the time. The next stage of finishing these burnt ends, Jacob's going to put them back in the smoker for one last smoke. Get them caramelized. They're going to get to lay down for a while, think about their future as a burnt end, and then they're coming back out. After all the hard work, it's finally time now to taste what I would kind of call the king of all barbecue, which is the brisket. Absolutely. Check out all that juice. The flavors are melting on my tongue. Especially in Texas, we're all about that beef. It's one of my favorite things to try every time. You ready for this, Manny? I'm ready. This is separating lean part from the fatty part. And that's what comes out of it. Wow. And look at how perfect the smoke ring is. We don't go for that smoke ring. We achieve it. All the time. Catch it, a slice, right from the center. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've learned in the test of the brisket, you want to kind of hang it over your, is that one test? Absolutely. And if you just tug on it lightly, it's going to pull apart. Perfect bite. Wow. Holy cow. See what I did there? You said, holy cow. Oh. Holy s**t, that's good. Holy cow. So it's 830, and they're already starting to line up. And how long is he going to wait? Close to two hours. He'd be so jealous that we're already getting to taste it. If you knew what that rib that I just had tasted like, you would sit out there with a chair too. So I'm going to start building this Toddfather. You start with Martin's bun. Some of the best potato buns you can get. Could not agree more. A little homemade barbecue sauce. Put a little brisket on there. Is this your sandwich, the Toddfather? This is our signature sandwich. We're going to put a little bit of our homemade pulled pork. One of our hot links here. And we're going to take some Ivan's homemade coleslaw, put it on top. Martin's bun back on there. A homemade dill pivel. And that's Andrew's lunch. That's the Toddfather. Andrew's hungry. This is probably the best slice of meat that comes off that brisket. Now that, that's ridiculous. Instead of the edge where you have the separation of the fat and the meat, that's almost a perfect blend of fat. The ribs that were inside getting all happy are now coming out and getting ready to go up front. Look at this. Oh my gosh. Wow. I might like that better than the brisket. Ready, take a bite. Oh my God. And that's the Texas trim. You've got the sausage, the brisket, and the ribs. I'm moving to Texas. Yee-haw! The only bologna I've ever seen is in that little yellow and red pack. And it tastes like, I don't even know what to say. This is the first time I've been excited to eat bologna and it's really good. I am so full. So now they have like a red color to them from all the sauce and like the smoke that's poured into them. Todd, can we have you taste a bite and talk about it? Oh, did I not tell you I was a vegetarian? Oh man. Like, we keep eating stuff and then I think I have the best thing and then it gets better. These are plate beef ribs. And that, again, Wagyu beef. Beef ribs are big. That's about the size of your head. It's a big rib. So it is extraordinarily tender. Again, you don't think of this as a rib because you're not eating it off the rib like that, really. But that might be the more tender thing that we have today. You could eat this with no teeth. You'd gum it to death. Do you think that you're able to make such incredible barbecue because you love it? It's all about how great of an experience can we make this for the people coming in? There's love in the food. You can taste it. Some of these things take days. To still keep that same passion, it takes a lot. I'm gonna slice up part of this pork steak for you. But it's like a ribeye with pork? Yes. Wow, I never had anything like that. It's extra, extra smoky compared to all the stuff we've had. He just made us a nice big tray. Let's see what this thing weighs. Over five pounds of food right here. These people stand like that for hours, just peeking through the window. We got it all right here. Kind of like at Salt Bae's, we got this entire place to ourselves. It is dead empty. Salt Bae might have just dry-humped all the customers away. We are the only ones in the restaurant, once again, other than Salt Bae himself. I don't understand how this place is in business. But I've been able to eat the entire day. Handy, give me the camera. Nick's a little boring, so man's gonna review the food now. I'm gonna quickly go through each item and give it a rating out of 10. All right, so we got the brisket right here. Get a quick bite. 10 out of 10. Beef rib, 10 out of 10. All right, this is the pork rib, 10 out of 10. Is it really good? It's really good, yeah. We got the mac and cheese here, 8 out of 10. We got some cracklings, 9 out of 10. This is a banana pudding, 9 out of 10. We got some pulled pork. I'm gonna put some sauce on top. 10 out of 10. We got our pork steak. I'm gonna dip it in this plum sauce. 10 out of 10. All right, this is the crack cake, 11 out of 10. Now we're gonna take in the cornbread. You don't eat a cornbread with pork and ice. 10 out of 10. All right, we got burnt end beans right here, 10 out of 10. All right, to finish it off, we got the Hatz chili and cheese sausage, 13 out of 10. This is Nick and Manny. Hi, nice to meet you. Nick and Manny. I'm the personality of the place. So this is how it starts. We always try to let the people in early and we'll let them keep coming in, coming in until we run out of food. And this guy here waited the full two hours. How is it? It's worth the wait, definitely. Todd, I have to say before this day, I don't think I've had true barbecue. So thank you on behalf of me, Manny, everybody for showing us true Texas barbecue today. I'm just glad y'all could enjoy the Texas experience. I have never said wow that many times in a row in my life, tasting food. So welcome to Cadillac Barbecue, guys. Who wants barbecue? Woo!