When Porter Kinney moved back from Greenville, South Carolina to Richland where he grew up he brought back two things with him. First, his beautiful wife Kate and also a passion for the craft of making real barbecue. Now Kate and Porter are dedicated to bringing locals a taste of the South! So glad you asked! Here is a crash course guide to what we believe real barbecue entails. This information w
ill arm you with the ability to never eat bad barbecue again. The next time you go out and buy some BBQ we encourage you to ask questions and verify your getting the real deal. Labeling food as barbecue is loosely used the farther away you get from the South. At it's core, it has nothing to do with sauces, seasonings, back yard grills, or hot dogs. Don't get me wrong, I love to grill out back, but grilling is not barbecuing. When you grill food, your using direct heat. Meaning the food is directly in the path of heat from the fuel source. Real barbecue refers to cuts of meat cooking low and slow (200-250 degrees) using the indirect method. The meat is not in the direct path of the heat, which is provided solely by hard woods. When large cuts of meat are skillfully cooked for hours on end, in clean burning flavorful smoke, something profound happens. A once tough cut of meat is transformed into tender, juicy, smoke kissed barbecue. Different regions of barbecue will have variations on serving styles, sauces, rubs and preferred hard woods to cook with. They even debate on whether barbecue should be pork or beef. The one and sometimes only thing all real barbecue has in common is the practice of cooking low and slow with hard wood fuel. If barbecue isn't made solely with hardwood as fuel it might as well be prepared in an oven. The flavor that comes from wood is not replaceable. Some folks will try to do just that by adding liquid smoke, using propane augmented with chunks of wood or plane old charcoal. It's just not the same, and it's just not real barbecue. We use a commercial pellet smoker that we customized ourselves. Many folks who barbecue at home may have a residential version of these somewhat popular types of smokers. While the product they produce is not really comparable the principle of how they work is similar. These pits use 100% hard wood for heat and flavor. It also allows Porter to create a custom blend of up to 7 different hard woods for a flavor profile and finished result that we think is quite special. It's got to have a smoke ring. When barbecue cooks for hours in a smokey environment it develops a deep redish purple ring around the edge that you can see once you cut into the meat. This is your first indication your getting real barbecue. The smoke ring should be very apparent on ribs and slices of brisket in particular because each serving is a cross section of the whole cut that was smoked. Let's talk about dry rubs. For those who don't know, a dry rub is a blend of seasonings that goes onto the meat before being smoked. This rub caramelizes into the meat and becomes what we in the barbecue world call "bark". Folks new to barbecue will often look at a pork shoulder or brisket that's been cooking for more than 12 hours and think it looks burnt, it's not my friends. That bark is some of the best eating in barbecue because it's contains a super concentration of flavor. It's on the front lines where the smoke, seasonings and meat all combine. Any self respecting Pitmaster with an ounce of pride will produce his or her own dry rubs instead of buying something off the shelf. It takes YEARS of trial and error to nail down a perfect recipe but boy is it worth it! Personally we have several different rubs that are tailor made for each type of meat we smoke and can be quite complex. Our pork rub for example has a blend of more than 10 different spices and herbs. It's a balancing act of savory, salty and sweet. The rubs we use play a significant roll in our unique flavor profile so only Porter prepares them and has the recipes committed to memory for safe keeping. Much like dry rubs, any self respecting Pitmaster will produce their own sauces. The same balancing act with the dry rub applies and finding the right blend of flavors is no easy task. Our sauces are completely unique but they were inspired by the barbecue styles of Kansas City, North and South Carolina. Speaking of barbecue sauce, one surefire way to spot bad barbecue is being served meat drenched in sauce. We all have our personal preferences and there is certainly nothing wrong with eating saucy barbecue but the meat should taste great on it's own. If it's served soaking in sauce, they obviously want you to taste that rather than the poorly cooked barbecue under it! Real barbecue is served with a conservative amount of sauce to accent the quality and flavor of the meat itself. This leaves you the choice of saucing it up further or taking more of a purist route and using little to no sauce.
