Tools of the BBQ Trade

Introduction 

Every famous artist has his medium. Picasso was known for many things, but his true talent was as a painter. For a BBQ Pitmaster, his or her medium is a beautiful mixture of meat, fire, and patience. One of those masters of barbecue is a dear friend to Front Porch Football, Edward Able. We sat down with Ed (like we have so many times before) and talked about barbecue and football. Here’s how our conversation went. Ed, take it away. 

Edward: Thank you guys for inviting me to participate in this series.  I’m not gonna lie, as a long-time supporter of FPF and friend to the Paschal Bros., I was getting pretty frustrated that I haven’t been featured yet.  So this clears a lot of air between us, and I think our friendship will be stronger for withstanding such trials and tribulations. 

What is your first BBQ memory, or has it always been a part of your life?  

Edward: I would not say that I have a first memory of BBQ.  I think growing up in South Carolina automatically exposes you to BBQ from a young age because there are so many good, old-fashioned BBQ restaurants across the state.  For instance, the earliest encounters I can remember with BBQ was going to Shealy’s (Batesburg) and Hickory Hills (Clinton) with my parents and grandparents when I was 2-3 years-old.  From there, though, I don’t remember much about BBQ until my dad, Bryan Able, and his best friend, Homer Elwood, started cooking it when I was in middle school.  I think that every Sunday night when I was in middle school featured a delectable, succulent, smokey protein.  

When it comes to equipment, what are the essentials? 

Edward:  Easy question — fire (preferably red, hot coals) and meat.  I think the problem most people have is that they think that cooking BBQ is some delicate, tedious process that renders a bad result if you make one wrong move and that it requires a bunch of “stuff.”  Just like with anything else, most problems that arise while cooking  can be fixed. 

There are ways to make BBQ better, but if you cook pork, beef, or chicken over hot coals for the right amount of time and in the right proximity to the fire, then it’s likely gonna taste damn good.  Once you get your timing down and how close to cook the meat to the heat source, you can start dabbling in what rubs and injections bring the best flavors out of the meat.  Until then, stick to the basics because at the end of the day you wanna taste the meat anyways.  

Side note, and bonus tip:  Most people don’t realize that BBQ meat (pork shoulder) and most other smoked means (ribs, chicken, brisket) can only absorb so much “smokey flavor” before that flavor becomes a hindrance and makes the meat dry out.  Do you like dry meat that you have to soak in milk to eat? Right, no one does.  After four or five hours of smoking a pork shoulder, take it off the smoker, spritz it with a liquid, and wrap it in foil.  This will trap most of the moisture and the meat will re-absorb that moisture when you take it off the smoker to rest.  

Could you walk us through the purchasing process? (Where do you buy your hogs, how do you transport the carcass, etc.)

Edward:  Process is completely different for whole hog and smaller cuts of meat.  You can buy smaller cuts of meat from any grocery store or any local butcher–ribs, brisket, boston butts, ect.  However, to get a whole hog you typically have to order in advance from a meat market or from a larger scale butcher.  I have purchased whole hogs from Carolina Pride in Greenwood and from Caughmans’s in Lexington. The hog I purchased from Cuaghman’s was very good.  I don’t remember the hog I purchased from Carolina Pride because I drank too much while I was cooking it and was too hungover to care about how it tasted when the time came to feast.  I would like to start purchasing meat from smaller farms though.  There is one farm in Newberry that I want to try out, and you can buy butchered whole pigs and cows.  

Transportation:  Since Caughman’s is so close to my house (35-40 minutes), I go pick it up and put it in the back of my car.  The hog will come wrapped.  When I get it home, I put it in a cooler with ice.  I typically pick up the hog the same day I am gonna start cooking it so proper storage isn’t really an issue.  I recommend that because it would be too hard to store and preserve a whole hog for multiple days without a meat-hanging cooler.  

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When it comes time to smoke the pig, what does that look like?

Edward:  The most important part of smoking a whole pig is making sure the temperature is perfect.  I like to get the pit very hot and then bring the temperature down.  I think this is the natural sequence anyways since when you start a fire it will burn hot and then die down some and get a more constant temperature as the wood turns into coals.  This is all assuming the smoker has a burn box on the side where you actually feed wood to the fire to keep it going while you are smoking (I call these smokers stick burners).  If you have a traditional pit made of cinderblocks or one dug in the ground, common practice is to have a separate fire burning that produces coals, and as the coals get hot enough the pitmaster shovels the coals under the pig as it cooks. 

Further, I like to inject my meat and let it rest for a time before putting it over the heat.  So it’s important to make your injection well in advance so you are ready to inject the meat when you pick it up.  Then the best part: cracking a cold beer, getting the meat on the smoker at that perfect temperature, and then hanging out with friends all night while you keep the fire going.  

The Able family has competed (and won) in numerous barbecue competitions. Do you have a favorite one?

Edward:  My dad and Homer do most of the cooking and most of the competitions.  By association, I get looped into the competition talk. They have a successful team, Hey Good Buddy Competition BBQ, and I do help them occasionally, but mainly I go to spend time with them. They are two great role models, and I look up to them a tremendous amount. While I am at a competition, though, I get to partake in the subsidiary benefits–learning tricks of the trade and eating tasty smoked meats. 

But if I had to decide, my favorite cook that I have been to is in Columbia at the Farmers’ Market, hosted by the SC Pork Board.  The event was discontinued a couple years back, but I liked it because it was in early March when it is still cold outside, and they always had a good band playing on Saturday during the turn-ins.  BBQ, and the many aromas that accompany it, penetrate the soul, the taste buds, and the nostrils much better when it’s cold outside.  Shout out to the Commando Joes for rocking so hard at that cook.  

The pig offers a variety of meat. After roasting an entire hog what does the pig pickin’ process look like?

Edward:  Let the hog rest for a few hours.  This serves multiple purposes: 

1) Allows the meat to re-absorb and maintain its moisture. 

2) Allows the meat to continue to cook internally. 

3) Allows the meat to cool off some.  

Believe me, even if you have gloves on, when you start pickin’ meat too soon, you will know it, and you can’t get your gloves off soon enough because it feels like your hands are melting.  Regarding the actual meat, I do not sort out the hog–I think that would be cool to do so people can taste the different types of meat, but I have only cooked whole hogs for parties, and people at parties don’t care; they just want good BBQ meat to eat.  My process is having multiple foil pans while I pick the meat.  Put the good meat in one pan and fatty, bad meat in the other pan.  I also am not a chopper of meats; I like all the meat pulled.

Follow up question: What is your favorite part of the pig?

Edward:  While I don’t separate the meat parts as I am picking it, I do taste all the different parts while I am picking it.  Without a doubt, the best, the most flavorful, and the most juicy part of the pig is the belly.  THE BACON.  After it cooks for eight hours, it doesn’t look like bacon you buy at the grocery store, but it still has the fat content and the savory tones everyone adores about bacon.  However, it has a kicker, a smoky flavor that puts it over the top.  You can literally pull the strips, the protein strands, of bacon from the belly and put it directly into your mouth.  It is truly incredible.  

Where do you stand when it comes to barbecue sauce? 

Edward:  I am from South Carolina: Mustard Sauce, brothers.  I like to taste the meat, though.  So, in general, I am not a huge sauce guy.  Judge the meat for the meat, not the sauce people douce it in.  

How do you eat your pork? (straight up, sandwich, with rice, etc.)

Edward:  Day of pickin’: I eat it straight up–it doesn’t need any help.  Leftover/next day:  eat it with a good ol’ white, sesame seed bun or kings hawaiian with slaw (mayo based slaw, naturally).  

Favorite Football Memory? 

Edward:  I played pretty much every sport Laurens High School had to offer other than track and field.  Football was my favorite.  When the weather cooled off in the upstate, walking out to practice or a game and smelling the crispness of the air and the grass is something I remember vividly.  The downside is that I played for Laurens, and we were an absolutely miserable team–we stunk and we played an uneventful boring style of football.  In my varsity career, I think we won eleven games.  Out of three and a half years of football, playing eleven or twelve games a season, those numbers ain’t too good.  Therefore, I don’t have many great memories associated with winning. 

However, I do have several great memories of whipping the man in front of me.  I was a tight-end, having the great fortune of blocking and catching passes.  My favorite plays were sweeps to my side, particularly when the defensive end didn’t line up outside of me.  I enjoyed climbing to the next level and placing my facemask firmly into the Mike or Sam linebacker’s chest and running him straight into the ground.  I also loved a good stiff arm after catching the ball in the flats and turning it up field.  My best memory though, if I had to choose, was playing in the SC North-South game and winning big.  It was nice that my career and hard work culminated in a big W (still bitter though because I was way better than the guy they chose for the Shrine Bowl).