48 Hours at the Best New BBQ in North Carolina

We get a lot of folks that'll come by and they love our food and they can't believe how good it is but time and time again it's it's how consistent it is and they're like every time I come it's good and I think that's what's been the key to success like everybody anybody can make a good brisket like every now and then but it's being able to put good food on a plate every day that makes a business successful. News and Observer for Raleigh has posted about us quite a few times and they've kind of written us about us throughout the whole journey like when we were doing pop-ups. Recently they put out a like top 20 barbecue place in the greater triangle area and so we were number five on that list and that was that was a big honor right behind some some real big heavy hitters and to be ranked that high especially as a food truck I mean like we're the only food truck on the list not everybody's willing to travel for a food truck. So Danforth Barbecue is located in Phillips Farms which is a family fun activity area and we're located right inside of the farm. Our relationship with Phillips Farms we've known them for about a year and a half now feels like way longer but we've known them for about a year and a half. June 2022 we started doing pop-ups here and we were kind of doing pop-ups here every other weekend they'd have they have food trucks out here every every Saturday during the spring and we would be out here with like six other food trucks and I don't know what happened but something wild happened and it just started to click and we would have a two and a half hour long line. I mean our customers we ask a lot of them to come out here and put up with the weather and put up with the rain or the cold or the snow or whatever and they do it and it's it's really just because of them. So the Danforth name obviously our last name it means steam in German there wasn't really much thought put into that when we chose to use it as the name but it just kind of worked out well but it really it really came by it's just a fun play on words it kind of separated it you see it online or you see it on a on an advertisement or something it kind of sticks out. We get a lot of German folk that come and get food and they're always asking questions about it so it's always a fun topic of conversation. Only like 56 percent or 60 percent of our followers are actually in the United States. It's funny people see like 30,000 they're like man that's a lot of followers you guys must be killing like yeah but 15 of them are in Europe. Bluegrass is very popular in North Carolina just this whole region it's very it's like kind of like the music that is from here and so that's what we play at the restaurant and that's what we usually like have playing while we're like prepping and getting ready and so I've come to be pretty I like it. Thursdays we usually get it around six as close as we can to six and then we'll get briskets on. So our most popular is definitely the brisket so we sell a disproportionate amount of brisket compared to everything else so we're going through between 60 to what 72 briskets a week is like on average. So fun fact all of our briskets actually come from North Carolina. I tried to get creek stone like everybody else but it didn't work out. So we buy from Meyers Natural Angus. It's red angus so it's not black angus. If you look up online or talk to anybody they'll say there's no difference but we've noticed the difference. So like this stuff is all upper choice. I mean you can just see I mean the marbling that's in these guys. We've noticed it's just really really really good. The fat has a little sweeter like sweeter flavor to it and then it renders a lot better. We cook all of our briskets unwrapped the whole time from start to finish but when we're seasoning our briskets we do a little bit more pepper or a lot a bit more pepper than most than most places do. It feels very Texas but I think we do some things that are just they're different. I like your really heavy pepper crust. It's delicious and it kind of became like our signature thing that I just I don't think we could really step away from now. Kosher salt all the way around and then we season the tops with a Fiesta brand seasonal. We stopped using Lowry's because Lowry's is too salty too. You can actually like lick this and it doesn't burn your tongue like Lowry's does and so it actually got it's got a good flavor. I like brisket because there's a lot of things have to go right through the 14-hour process to make it be what you want at the end and I like that. This brisket in particular like this is like two slices in from the beginning. Yeah it's just like retaining so much moisture. All right I got here a burnt end from a damn good brisket. So this is my very first bite of brisket. I have no idea how it's going to taste but I was watching him slice it and I already know it's going to be amazing so here goes. So beefy. Yeah man it has like a nice like sweetness to it and then he like peppers that thing up so you get that nice like peppery the sweetness the beefy the smoke. Damn good barbecue. Then all of our wood so all of our wood comes from a guy up in Wake Forest about 35 minutes away and it's all most of it's white oak. There might be some red oak in here like I think this week but most of it's white oak. How many cores you go through like in a week? We're probably going through two bags a week. We're going through a decent amount that's why we like this guy goes through a lot less wood. We've got three offset smokers so behind me I've got the dual thousand gallon primitive on a trailer and so that's that's what we that's really what we built our name with. Then we've got the Syntex. If we can we try to fit all of our briskets on the Syntex. We just really like it pulls really well it pulls real gentle and it's got a nice airflow. Mike that got it on Syntex you know he's always asking me like are you sure like is it really that good because like I think he thinks I'm like trying to like puff them up or something. Yeah. But I'm really not. These blocking logs have been in here for weeks and they have not burned. I don't know what Mike did over there but the way it renders fat it just it cooks really really really well. So that's where we try to cook all of our briskets on that if we can. You see that? You can actually get a reading on this Typher Sync through this quarter inch thick steel smoker and that's because the Typher uses Bluetooth version 5.4 which is cutting edge on the market. So this is the all new Typher Sync which is the brand new wireless thermometer that I've had the pleasure to use over the last few months and I can confidently say that this is a game changer for everyday home cooks. Each Typher Sync comes with dual five sensor probes with a matching four-in-one device base providing an unparalleled blend of reliability and accuracy in wireless temperature monitoring. So the probes inside the smoker connect to the stand and then the stand connects to the wi-fi so you can check the temperature no matter where you are. So for me when I'm barbecuing at home a lot of times I like to run the fire especially at the beginning of the so I have a lot of time in between when I need to put on the next log so I usually go out and I'll like run errands or something. Now not only does the Typher Sync measure the temperature inside of the meat but it also does the ambient temperature inside of the smoker so basically when I'm out and I'm running those errands I can see exactly when the temperature starts to drop so I know exactly when I need to rush home and get another log on so my cold beds will never die again. And because every smoker has hotter and cooler spots inside because it can do an ambient temperature reading you can actually learn exactly where those temp zones are instantly. So I've been using Typher products in general for over a year now and I've been able to take them with me on incredible barbecue places like this one and I can say that I'm very excited to partner with Typher because of how much I love their products and I know that you guys are going to love the Typher Sync. Just click the link in the description to check out the Typher Sync and get yours today. Thank you Typher for sponsoring this video. A burn barrel you're essentially just making your own charcoal let's say a giant like 55 gallon steel drum. You cut a hole out of the bottom and then you punch holes in it all the way around so you can put rebar in to hold the wood up above where the coals fall. Once it's down you just smack the side of the burn barrel and the coals will fall and then you just scoop them and keep on going. But even like the best store-bought lump charcoal you could buy it's not going to replicate what the burn barrel can do. So the pork steaks are one of like the St. Louis things that we do. Literally just a steak cut from the pork butt um really really really good. So we do them pretty simple just salt pepper and a little bit of seasoned salt. So the pork steak is real fatty it's real there's a lot of collagen it's real flavorful if you cook it right. We cook them over the on the bq it still takes a long time like it cooks for like three hours over direct heat. So we'll shovel coals under the pork steaks and that heat and smoke from the coals is cooking and smoking it but you also get that element of the fat dripping down into the coals and it creates its own smoke. That fat renders out and it caramelizes and it just creates this really intense sweetness but that coupled with the the mop and the sauce kind of glazed on the of it it's just like a really good like salty sweet savory steak. So I got interested in barbecue me and my brother Bryce so we grew up in kind of all over the place we've been around a lot of good barbecue being in St. Louis being in Texas now being in North Carolina we just had a ton of barbecue influence in our life. My brother brought me a Weber for our wedding and that's kind of where it all started and so we started on the on the Weber we did our first pork butt on that and my wife bought me a chargriller which is sitting right behind you. Yeah we used that to make our first brisket and that was that was a wild experience. At like one o'clock in the morning we got hit with like a flash storm that just like came down like crazy and this little smoker is not built to handle that and so we had the bright idea of setting up a tent over the smoker so we're out there in the wind and the snow in the rain trying to set this tent up and we finally get the tent up and get it weighted down so it doesn't blow away and then we realized that there's smoke is just filling up the tent and so we're in this tent suffocating trying to cook this brisket. The brisket actually came out pretty it came out pretty good I mean like compared to what we're doing now it's garbage but like at the time like a lot of people say like their first brisket was inedible like ours was not inedible it was good like everyone enjoyed it and we had a good time and it encouraged me to keep going so. Smoking man. We're very maniacal about making sure that the sides are cooked consistently. We spend about 17 hours on Wednesday just making sure that the sides are executed well. How are the bristles looking today? They look good. Oh yeah man I love them. So we've got a small team we all work long hours to make this happen. Andrew McNeil he's been with us for a year and so Andrew has about 15-16 years of restaurant experience. I'm from Massachusetts so I'm used to the grind you know what I mean so 70 hours a week catering you know what I mean it took us a little bit but we're getting there. And so he's really helped us kind of dial stuff in make sure it's done consistently and just been there for us you know like when it was because it's just me and my brother and my cousin and so he was our first person that was outside of the family and so he really kind of became like a brother and having him around has been instrumental. So Perry Ward he's been with us for about three months now and a real funny story he's a so he's a veteran so he used to be a Marine. I found Nick on Instagram my girlfriend had actually told me about about Damp It BBQ. They just posted a story that they were looking for help you know within an hour I'd reached out to Nick and we'd kind of hit it off pretty well and a couple days later I was able to come in and that that same day I started working with him so. What I like about or appreciate about what Perry does he just because he's a Marine he's got that like grind mentality so he just keeps on going man he just everything I need him to do he does and doesn't complain you know helping me get on my hands and knees and scrub the floor and like stuff that like no one else wants to do but he's like first one there like let me help you do I appreciate that. That's a good shot right there yeah those look really good. Bryce Damp so me and him have been doing this since the beginning I can trust him you know like he's he's my brother like I know him and I know he's not going to do anything to to hurt us and hurt the business and Bryce Bryce is funny man. You know Bryce's nickname is the bean queen. The bean queen. How did you get that name? I came up with the bean recipe. The bean queen. Why do people call you the bean queen? So the bean queen came around like literally Halloween. Perry who's one of our new newcomers he was gonna buy me a shirt for Halloween that I was gonna wear and it said the bean queen he was gonna get me a hat. You almost bought it huh? Oh yeah it was only like 20 bucks I was like I got it. I never did. Maybe for Christmas. So you didn't get the hat but the name stuck. The name stuck. Now I just get called the bean queen. So the beans are I would the brisket the brisket's really what makes the beans come alive and just the spices and stuff we put in there. You can taste the brisket. Okay. You like the beans. I love the beans. I like the beans. It keeps it light-hearted. I think we can't can't do this job and be too serious it just it'll it'll rob you of all the joy you might have you know so I think that's keeps us young. We're probably gonna bump into you like a hundred times. Don't worry about it. Just let it happen. Just let it happen. So like lines are small. Yeah. It's just usually the line in the kitchen aren't one. It works. We get a lot done in this little space. The three of us are family so I got my brother Bryce and my cousin Hunter. It is a very family business and I think that aspect of the three of us being related has made Andrew and Perry feel like more like this is a family. All right five burgers for you. Have a great day. Thank you so much for coming out. You know and I would never recommend anybody like jumping into doing this unless they really really enjoy it because it is I mean you've got some days where it's it's grueling. There were days earlier on when we first started doing three days a week where I was here from 6 a.m. I'd be here till five and then I'd go home hang out with the family for a little bit put the kids to bed I'd come right back and I'd be here till three. Fully shut down and like done for the day by like 9 30 and then Hunter's here running the pits and making sure food is cooked and briskets are coming off. What are you feeling for? I just I feel the lean. You always check the lean and I'm just feeling just around the lean parts how squishy it is with this one's going. When we wrap our briskets we pull them out of the smoker we wrap them in foil and we do not use any tallow so we wrap without tallow and the we do that is in our experience we just don't like the way the tallow like mutes out the flavor of the bark so we work really hard so you can taste the pepper you can taste the salt you can taste the fat the crust. I don't want to dump tallow on it and cover it all up. Which is I'm here till like two or three a.m. but usually just depends on how the cook's going during the day and how it does at night I guess. Hunter like not to discredit what anybody else does but Hunter is the most important piece of like what we do because he gave me like my life back you know like he gave me time back with my kids and time back with my wife and I was I can't even express how much I am thankful for that. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others. Philippians 2 3 through 4 we chose the bible verse because one of my big things with getting into this industry was treating people right make sure that they feel at home here they enjoy coming here it's something that they look forward to coming for it's not they put up with us because the food's good we want it to be a good experience and not be mr macho man all the time and sometimes there's a place for empathy and a place for putting yourself below somebody else you know to because that's what that's what Jesus did and I want we want to advance the gospel I want to share our faith with the folks in our community. People are getting here early yeah on the world it's 10 15. They're fun we got a we have a really diverse group of folks that come out to the truck a lot of which we've kind of become good friends with and I would just I would say they're patient they're funny they're kind and they put up with a lot of our crap so it's I'm very thankful for it hey brother what can I get for you man two rubens yeah man uh for the turkey do you want to do a half pound or do you want to do uh the blt all right perfect what side would you like bud those will almost be ready always we always have so much going on that we're always open in maybe five minutes late or something and people are always so patient so um we're just we've got good customers we are a texas barbecue joint we do central texas style barbecue and so all of those things you would expect to get at a place in texas you can get here so I chose like to do texas style barbecue over like north carolina barbecue partly because we like just moved to north carolina and so we're still kind of getting acclimated to the area and I didn't want to do disservice to it um texas barbecue we were a lot more familiar with and I love the intentionality behind cooking the proteins and making them as good as possible and I'll grab that beef rib in one second buddy and so we've added a lot of sandwiches to the menu because people we want people to have an affordable option someone can come here and they can get a sandwich and a side for 12 bucks you know and so they can come in and get a good meal and it can be something that's affordable this is a chicago classic right here oh yeah man don't dip chicago is where I spent the majority of my life so I was in chicago for from the middle of eighth grade up until I got married and we had our first kid and then we moved down here and so we make a smoked italian beef and then we slice them real thin on a deli slicer after they've cooled overnight in the fridge and then we reheat it in a nice smoky jus and then it goes on a french roll with garnier and all that kind of stuff it's who we are we love chicago and that's that's what we love fridays we do the half pound smoked brisket burger and there's a 100% ground brisket burger so we don't add any chuck or anything to it we just make as many as we can and then we just that's how many we have for service so we we use our hands to make the patties instead of like a burger press because I think it creates a little bit more of like a like a fluffy not so like condensed burger and then we smoke them for usually about 35 minutes and then when someone orders one we take it throw it on the flat top with a little tallow and sear both sides y'all doing burgers tomorrow too no okay it's just today that's it it's off your road it's the last two we'd love to stack up against any of the places down in texas um I mean that's who we compare ourselves to we don't compare ourselves to any any local businesses we really want folks to come here and kind of be transported back to texas really okay let's see it this is a whole brisket that is so cute we got 17 briskets dude you can just eat that like yeah let's slice it yeah um I got here about 8 15 or so here we are sitting at 8 54 but it's all for the love the love of the barbecue that's what it's for for the people the thing that separates like north carolina from everywhere else is whole hog so when we started getting started um we always got tripped up because people would walk up to the tent or wherever we were and say I want can I get a pound of barbecue and we're like what barbecue do you want they're like barbecue they're talking about whole hog or pork you wanna crack my back real quick ant we lost the trotter so when you get a real good whole hog why it tastes so good the different muscles just like on a cow like you're not going to get the same beefiness from a flank steak you're going to get from a brisket or a chuck roast or whatever and so you get that same thing with a hog and so you get your ham you get your belly you get your ribs you get your shoulders you get everything on that pig all mixed together so the way what we'll do it and it's pretty standard but what's called is banking the coals so we'll put coals underneath the butts and the hams now they're different though so the ham is lean so ham is a lot leaner than the pork butt is and so you got to be mindful of that as well you don't want to blast the hams like too much as you dry them out and they won't they won't be very good just checking around to make sure the skin's starting to release you can start to see it's doing it maybe just a little bit right in the front but everywhere else is very stiff not much movement it's still got a long way to go with this we're starting to beat that down and then at about six hours through we're going to flip it and we won't flip it until the skin is soft to the touch everywhere around to let them know the meat has released hardest part about hogs flip it when it's time to flip it I think people are starving to like find a place where they can go spend money and feel good about it when people come for the first time I hope they walk away like shocked that they just ate the best barbecue of their life