He reads the letters after midnight · A new one every Tuesday
After Dark BBQNot for daylight · with Dutch Cobb
I spent twenty-two years on the competition circuit, handing my meat to strangers who took one bite, wrote down a number and never called again. Then I quit.
Fourteen hours on one brisket, and six strangers spent less than two minutes with my meat before they scored me from two to nine. I wanted the long part back. The slow part. The part before anybody shows up, when it is just me, the fire and something big that needs handling gently.
Now I do it alone, by moonlight, off a state highway I am not going to name. There is just something about rubbing my own meat under the stars, with nobody watching and nobody rushing me. A brisket takes twelve to sixteen hours whether I am in the mood or not, and somebody has to stay up with it.
The good stuff happens after dark, because nobody tells the truth about their meat at noon. I keep it low, I keep it slow, and I never pull out early.
People write to me. Late, mostly, and in more detail than they meant to. They confess the night it got away from them — the one they should have walked away from and couldn’t, the rack they swore they ruined by handling it too much, the brisket that stalled at 154 and stayed there so long they stopped believing in thermometers and started believing in prayer. I read every one at the pit, and I answer the question they were too shy to ask out loud.
I have opinions about when to wrap it up that I consider settled law. Stay long enough and you will feel every one of them.
Ask me if I’m ready for round two. The fire’s still going.