Davey Griffin and Brogan Horton talking about the various pork ribs at Barbecue Summer Camp
The Barbecue Summer Camp, co-hosted by Foodways Texas and the Meat Science Section of the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University, was held on Friday, June 8th through Sunday, June 10th, 2018. The camp is coordinated by meat science educators, Davey Griffin, Ray Riley, and Jeff Savell, and activities were held at the Rosenthal Meat Center and O.D. Butler Animal Science Teaching, Research, and Extension Complex. This was the ninth Barbecue Summer Camp with the first one held in 2011.
Pre-camp dinner at Kreuz Market, Bryan
On Thursday night, before the camp began, participants and instructors gathered at Kreuz Market in Bryan, Texas for some great barbecue and a glance at one of the newest barbecue establishments in the Bryan/College Station market.
Introductions to Barbecue Summer Camp
On Friday morning, Marvin Bendele of Foodways Texas and Jeff Savell, meat science professor at Texas A&M University welcomed about 60 participants to the camp. Before the participants spent some time introducing themselves to the the instructors and to the rest of the camp, Savell introduced the grad and undergraduate students and staff who would be serving vital roles in the camp.
Texas A&M University grad students who helped with the camp were Clay Eastwood, Brogan Horton, Jill Jobe, Hannah Laird, Kathy Modrow, Katy Jo Nickelson, and Chandler Steele. Staff and student workers at the Rosenthal Meat Center who helped included Kyle Phillips, Joseph Dickschat, and Hayden Blumberg.
Marvin Bendele, Executive Director, Foodways Texas
Here we go! #bbqcamp #tamubbq pic.twitter.com/Sgtul7MMxC
— Foodways Texas (@foodwaysTX) June 8, 2018
Pit design and maintenance
The first panel was on pit design and maintenance, and another great group of pitmasters and pit manufacturers were led by Davey Griffin, professor and extension meat specialist at Texas A&M University. The panel consisted of Kerry Bexley, Snow’s BBQ, John Brotherton, Brotherton’s Black Iron Barbecue, Brett Boren, Brett’s BBQ, and Coy Christoffel, Pitt’s and Spitt’s. The panelists talked about the pits they use or have used, proper design for creating good, clean smoke, and how to get the best performance out of them. In addition, the panelists discussed proper break-in, maintenance, and cleaning to get maximize performance.
Davey Griffin leading the Pit Design and Maintenance Panel at Barbecue Summer Camp
Kerry Bexley, Snow’s BBQ on the Pit Design and Maintenance Panel at Barbecue Summer Camp
Brett Boren, Brett’s BBQ, discussing pit design at Barbecue Summer Camp
Coy Christoffel, Pitts and Spitts, talking about the airflow in an offset pit
Texas Barbecue history and culture primer/tour of Martin’s Place
A long-standing tradition at Barbecue Summer Camp is to go to the historic Martin’s Place in Bryan. Pit master and owner, Steve Kapchinskie along with his wife and daughter do a great job of showing off the wonderful brick pits and feed everyone a great lunch of brisket, ribs, and sausage to get the camp started off well.
Steve Kapchinskie, Martin’s Barbecue, being interviewed by reporter
Robb Walsh, noted food historian and writer, answered questions from the participants about the history of barbecue and included a reading from his book, Barbecue Crossroads, which features a segment about Martin’s Place in it. This tradition is so great because reading this segment in the actual setting of Martin’s brings everything to life.
Robb Walsh reading excerpts from his books at Martin’s Place
Meat safety and thermometers
After returning to the Rosenthal Meat Center after lunch, Davey Griffin gave an overview about food safety and proper food handling. One item of special emphasis this camp was to discuss the issue of small particles of wire brushes breaking off and getting ingested. There have been a number of cases of emergency surgery due to the presence of these metal fragments in food, and Davey recommended using great care when cleaning grills and grates so as to not introduce these physical hazards into cooked products.
Davey Griffin talking about food safety and thermometer calibration
Davey also showed how best to calibrate thermometers. His recommendation is to be sure to use the best and most accurate thermometers possible so that proper cooking and cooling temperatures can be met.
Rubs and marinades
Ryan Heger from Adams Flavors, Foods & Ingredients once again gave a great overview of the different types of seasonings available along with current trends in food. Ryan discussed the importance of shelf-life of particular products such as black pepper, and he spent a great deal of time talking about how to add heat to flavors without exceeding what people might enjoy eating.
Ryan Heger, Adams Extract and Spice, talking about seasonings
Ryan provided a variety of seasonings for the participants to experiment with, and the students assisted them in seasoning briskets, pork Boston butts, pork baby back ribs, and beef chuck short ribs that would be cooked either overnight (briskets and pork butts) or the next day (pork baby back ribs and beef chuck short ribs).
Products provided to participants by Adam’s Extract and Spice
Samples from Adam’s Extract and Spice
Seasonings provided by Adam’s Extract and Spice
Kathy Modrow helping with rub preparation
Emily Bush helping with rub preparation
Rub preparation
Participants preparing rub
Barbecue wood and smoke panel
One of the more popular panels at Barbecue Summer Camp is the one on barbecue wood and smoke. Texas is known for having four basic woods for smoking: oak, hickory, pecan, and mesquite. Panelists included Patrick Feges, Bryan Bracewell, Russell Roegels, Joe Riscky, Dr. Nick Nickelson, and Homer Robertson. Each panelist gave their thoughts about their favorite woods to use in smoking meats with most of them using post oak because of its availability in the part of the state they are cooking in.
Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ, on the Wood and Smoke Panel, Barbecue Summer Camp
Homer Robertson on the Wood and Smoke Panel, Barbecue Summer Camp
Bryan Bracewell, Southside Market and Barbeque, on the Wood and Smoke Panel, Barbecue Summer Camp
Russell Roegels, Roegels Barbecue, Houston, Texas
Dr. Nick gave a great overview of the science behind smoke and the importance of properly seasoned wood. He helped provide some background for a recent post on seasoning wood for barbecue that has been of great use in understanding why smokers should use this rather than green wood.
Dr. Nick Nickelson on the Wood and Smoke Panel, Barbecue Summer Camp
Homer Robertson’s background makes him an important contributor to this topic. Homer not only is a world champion chuck wagon competitor who does a lot of cooking using coals from burned-down logs, but he is with the Fort Worth Fire Department and knows quite a bit about fire and smoke. Homer’s suggestion about the role of oxygen in making a clean-burning rather than a smoldering fire supports the concepts often mentioned on this panel about the importance of having properly seasoned wood burning in a pit with a good supply of oxygen to allow for complete combustion to impart the wonderful things we want from smoke on the items that are being cooked.
Brining basics
Brandon Burrows, Kerry Ingredients, discussed the chemistry of meat and how brining works. The major feature of this presentation was that brining without some form of injection or vacuum tumbling is not an effective way of increasing the introduction of brine.
Hog preparation for whole hog barbecue
Ray Riley prepared a brine for injection into a whole pig carcass that weighed about 85 pounds. Ray made up a two-gallon brine that contained 1 cup of Kosher salt and 1 cup of sugar. The target pump was about 20% of the weight of the carcass.
Ray Riley
Ray Riley injecting the pig with brine
Dinner and refreshments
Bryan Bracewell and the crew from Southside Market and Barbeque provided an outstanding meal of brisket, baby back ribs, and their famous hot guts beef and jalapeño and cheese sausage for the evening. The meal was topped off with the choice of blackberry cobbler or peach cobbler along with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.
Special thanks go to the Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner, Texas for providing Shiner Bock beer for the Friday and Saturday evening meals.
Bryan Bracewell, Southside Market and Barbeque, describing the method of cooking used to prepare the meal
Whole hog cookery
This year, Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ, came to the camp to prepare the whole hog using his unique cooking set up. As mentioned before, the pig weighed 85 pounds and was splayed so that it could be cooked skin side up for most of the cook before turning over to allow the skin to become crisp.
Whole hog cookery by Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ
Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ, applying salt on the pig carcass
Whole hog cookery by Feges BBQ
Whole hog cookery by Feges BBQ
Flipping the pig
Beef anatomy overview
Davey Griffin and Ray Riley spent the morning going over the various cuts that come from beef along with a USDA beef grading overview. Ray ribbed a carcass in front of the participants, which always creates quite a photographic frenzy for those wanting to capture the moment on their cameras or phones.
Davey Griffin
Ray Riley sawing the backbone at the 12th-13th rib prior to ribbing the beef carcass
Ray Riley discussing beef grading
Beef cutting room demonstrations
Various cuts of beef were displayed in the teaching cutting room of the Rosenthal Meat Center with graduate students standing by to discuss the different cuts and their uses in barbecue or other methods of preparation.
Clay Eastwood demonstrating different beef rib cuts at Barbecue Summer Camp
Jillian Jobe demonstrating different beef sirloin cuts
Brogan Horton talking about the different styles of beef briskets
Chandler Steele demonstrating cuts from the beef chuck
Katy Jo Nickelson demonstrating different beef middle meats
Lunch: heavy tasting – meat market style
A typical market-style lunch of smoked meats, cheese, onions, pickles and bread were served to the participants. Individual cooked briskets and pork butts seasoned by the participants the day before were sliced or pulled with the teams of people who seasoned them having the first chance at sampling the cuts. Each team talked about the type of seasonings they used and how they thought the products turned out.
Barbecue Summer Camp would not be as successful as it is without the help of the pitmasters who cook and slice the products the participants season or just come to hang out to visit. Thanks go to John Brotherton, Russell and Misty Roegels, Patrick Feges, Kerry Bexley, Joe Riscky, Brett Boren, Todd and Misty David, and others for this valuable help.
John Brotherton, Brotherton’s Black Iron Barbecue
Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ
John Brotherton, Brotherton’s Black Iron Barbecue, checking beef rib temperatures
Patrick Feges, Feges BBQ, and Todd and Misty David, Cattleack Barbeque
Pork anatomy overview
Davey Griffin presented an overview of pork carcass anatomy and terminology.
Davey Griffin discussing pork carcass evaluation
Pork cutting room demonstrations
Various cuts of pork were displayed in the teaching cutting room of the Rosenthal Meat Center. Graduate students talked about the cuts, and Clay Eastwood and Chandler Steele conducted cutting demonstrations for the participants.
Clay Eastwood and Chandler Steele breaking down a pork carcass
Clay Eastwood and Chandler Steele breaking down a pork carcass
Chandler Steele
Jillian Jobe boning out a ham
Davey Griffin and Brogan Horton talking about the various pork ribs at Barbecue Summer Camp
Poultry sessions
Sunday morning was devoted to poultry, and the activities were led by Brandon Burrows, Kerry Ingredients with preparation and cooking/smoking demonstrations conducted Mark and Leslie Frenzel and Meat Science students. Fajitas, homemade sausage, drumsticks with mayo/spices, were prepared by the participants.
It’s #chicken and #poultry day at #bbqcamp #tamubbq and @BRANDONHBURROWS is teaching us all about facts, fiction, styles, preparation, trussing, injecting, marinades and everything else you can imagine. pic.twitter.com/ykto733ct5
— Foodways Texas (@foodwaysTX) June 10, 2018
Day 3, Poultry! #bbqcamp #tamubbq @foodwaysTX @tamudgriff @jsavell pic.twitter.com/8eNuxedVJo
— Karel Chaloupka (@kchaloup) June 10, 2018
Brandon also presented an overview of current trends in flavor and answered questions from the participants regarding various seasonings and their usefulness for barbecue and other applications.
Summary
The ninth Barbecue Summer Camp came to an end with everyone leaving full of knowledge and barbecue! Thanks for all of the participants, speakers, pit masters, and students who were involved in another outstanding camp! Thanks to Kelly Yandell with Foodways Texas for coming to support the camp and helping to chronicle the activities through her special photographic and social media talents.
Special thanks go to Ty Robertson and Holly Sanders for providing such great logistic support for the camp, and to Wade Baty, Carsyn Burney, Emily Bush, Devon King, and Sandy Martinez, students from the ANSC 117 Texas Barbecue class who volunteered their time to help out.
