It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt.

So fire up your grill, light the.

Charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios in Portland, here's jt.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the nation.

That's Barbecue Nation.

I'm jt.

My co host, hall of famer Leanne Whippen is out on special assignment this week.

So she's missing out on this show because guess who's back.

Yep.

Meathead from AmazingRibs.com a fellow hall of famer.

There's.

And we're going to be talking about Labor Day.

Maybe some dishes, some seasoning, some tips, upping your grill game for the holiday.

First, we'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef, beef the way nature intended, and also the Oregon Dungeness crab commission.

From seed to plate, if you've never had Dungeness crab from the west coast, and I'll say Oregon's is better, of course I would, but try some.

You know, you can order it online and you be the judge, but Oregon Dungeness crab is great stuff.

Well, like I said, he's back.

Our good friend, my good pal meathead from AmazingRibs.com.

how are you there, man?

Oh, you're breaking my heart talking about dungeness crab.

About 20 years ago, I had some soft shell crab in Florida and I, I got my, my throat started contracting and, oh, a couple of weeks later I had another batch and I got some welts in my mouth and learned right then and have since defined that I have an allergy to crab, shrimp, lobster and crawfish.

And, you know, I mean, I contemplated suicide.

If I can't eat crab, I mean, there's not much reason to live.

You know, it was, it was a terrible disappointment.

But, and Dungeness, I, whenever I hit the west coast, that was like the first meal.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'd love to order some of that.

And you know, you wanted to talk about Labor Day.

I mean, gosh, you know, some, some, some soft shell crabs on the grill.

Oh, my goodness.

Shrimp on the grill, lobster on the.

Grill, oysters, the whole works there.

Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Well, then I won't tell you that I got it two TV segments to film next week and I just ordered three pounds of crab.

So I won't tell me that.

I won't tell you that.

Anyway, we' big Labor Day coming up for a lot of people that marks the end of summer.

Kitties are going back to school.

You know, parents, parents get a Breather.

So the kids have already gone back to school where I am.

Yeah, they started this week or some of them started last week.

It's just crazy.

It used to be for me.

I don't know about you.

We, we came back after Labor Day.

Right.

I'm in the Chicago suburbs and they're back in school already.

It's crazy.

Yeah, we like you.

It was usually like September 5th or 6th, whatever the calendar day was.

Right after Labor Day.

Right after Labor Day.

Yeah.

And it was a short week because it was always Tuesday through Friday.

And you know, we, we did kind of look forward to that a bit.

But yeah, they've.

Some of them around here in, in the Portland city proper have gone back.

Others, they, they kind of stagger them.

I think more will come back this week, next week, and then the week after that.

Everybody's back.

So anyway, I want to talk about some grilling ideas for Labor Day.

I was looking around and doing some research and stuff like usual when we do this, there's a lot of great recipes out there, but I want to start again.

We always do this when you're on the show and people love it.

We got to give them some basics.

If they're first time listeners or something, when they're going to hit the grill and if they're going to, you know, even if they're doing steaks or dogs or brats or chicken, we got to give them a few tips and then, and then we'll dive into some special stuff.

So there's a couple of basic techniques and skills that everybody needs to learn right off the bat.

And the first one is, is you need a digital thermometer that you cook with a thermometer, not a clock.

Throw a steak on the grill and cook for four minutes on one side is a recipe for disaster because it, the thickness of the steak determines how long it takes to cook.

Right.

And medium rare steak is 130 to 135 degrees in the center.

Not a penny more, not a penny less.

So you need that digital thermometer.

Otherwise you're going to be standing at the head of the table going, I'm kind of, kind of got away from me.

I'm sorry.

And your expensive steaks are going to be overcooked.

Yeah, but you'll never overcook with a good digital thermometer.

And I say digital.

There's a bunch of dial thermometers out there on the market.

They're not accurate, they're not reliable.

The digitals are accurate.

They are reliable.

You can Get a really good instant read that'll give you precise, accurate number in five seconds or less.

And they're all over in the hardware and grocery stores and online Amazon, we have on AmazingRibs.com a electrical engineer who tests thermometers and rates them.

So if you want to see the highest rated ones, come to AmazingRibs.com and look up the thermometer ratings.

I mean, the top of the lines run a hundred dollars plus, but you can get a really nice one for 20 bucks or so, right?

That's the first thing you need.

The second thing you need to do is you need to learn two zone cooking.

Now, a lot of folks still pour the charcoal in or turn the gas burners all the way up on all the burners.

And that's, that's a mistake.

Cooking is all about temperature control.

So you need to be able to control the temperature.

What you want to do is you want to have a hot zone and a non hot zone.

And that means you turn on one burner or two burners and leave one or two burners off.

Or you push all the charcoal to one side, not two sides, as some manuals show you, but push them all to one side.

Now you've got a hot side, and if you cook on that hot side, you're cooking with infrared radiation, and that is really intense energy, and that's what browns the steak.

What's what makes chicken skins crispy.

But if you cook on the other side, you can cooking with convection airflow because it's not directly over the heat, not directly over the flames or the coals.

And so it cooks more gently, it cooks slower.

And you need, and we got guys, particularly guys, you got to dial it back.

You're cooking too hot, you're cooking too fast.

You don't want to cook it as fast as you can.

I mean, how many times have we gone to picnics where the chicken is black on the outside and raw in the center?

Raw chickens, a health hazard.

So you want to hook your chicken on the indirect side, away from the flame, warm it gently until it gets up to about 150 degrees.

Then you move it over the direct side and crisp that skin.

Get it done at about 160 degrees.

And now you've got safe and tender and juicy center and crispy exterior.

So digital thermometer two zone cooking.

I mean, there's a lot of other science and techniques on my website and in my book, but if you can learn those two techniques, you're way ahead of the game.

Oh, absolutely.

And I would.

And I would submit that if you're new to the barbecue slash grilling slash smoking game, whatever you want to call, whatever method you're using, I would say don't try to show off.

If this is your first big bash, stick with dogs, burgers, something simple.

If you're confident you can go out there and cook nice big juicy steaks or ribs or whatever, great.

But if you've not done it before, start a little slower.

And like Meathead just said, that way you're not standing at the head of the table kind of with a hang dog face going, I'm sorry, your steak is, you know, either burnt or still mooing out there.

So that, that's my two cents for it there.

Along those lines, too.

Don't try to do too much.

Even experienced guys, they say, well, let's see, I'm gonna do a brisket and I'm gonna do a turkey and I'm gonna do, you know, simplify the menu.

You're not a Chinese restaurant with a hundred recipes on the menu.

It's really tricky juggling.

Now, if you've got a smoker, then you can do brisket on a smoker or ribs on a smoker.

And then if you've got a grill, you can do burgers and Brato over there.

But juggling all that stuff, you know, especially all your buddies are going to be hanging around with a can of beer and they're going to say, hey, it's time to flip the stakes.

You know, supervising.

And just don't, don't try to show off.

Don't try to do more than you can.

Keep it simple.

You know, chicken, just, you know, just cook chicken.

You don't have to do chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers, right?

Just cook chicken or just cook hamburgers.

You don't need to do 16 different entrees.

Well, and you touched on a little few minutes ago.

And I think it's great advice when somebody told you, do, you know, six minutes aside, get that out of your brain.

Don't go there.

When you're thinking about cooking a steak or a pork chop or whatever, don't do that.

Rely on your thermometer.

Like Meathead said, there's some great ones on the market for under 30 bucks.

It's a nice Labor Day gift to yourself, if you will, to get that out there.

But I think it's true because I was years and years ago, somebody told me that when I was kind of first starting and I tried it and it was a train wreck.

And so of Course, beef wasn't, you know, costing a third mortgage in those days, and we raised it ourselves, but still, I ruined the meat because it not ruined it.

It just wasn't done for people.

And so.

And, you know, some people say, well, I don't want to stick a thermometer in there.

The juices will all run out.

They're not all going to run out.

At the most, there's a couple of drops.

Maybe a quarter or a half a teaspoon comes out.

Let's take a filet mignon.

Typical Filet mignon is 8 ounces.

A steak is 75% water, so that's 6 ounces of water.

If you lose half a teaspoon, you haven't lost anything at all.

It's hardly noticeable.

You can stab it with a thermometer half a dozen times and it's not going to dry it out.

Well, now, if you start cutting it open to look inside now, you can be losing some substantial moisture.

And you can't always tell by the color because the color changes when it's exposed to oxygen.

And, you know, if you're cooking at night, the light bulb that you're using, incandescent fluorescent LEDs, they're different colors and so they can be misleading.

The one and only way to know if your food is ready is with a digital thermometer.

On AmazingRibs.com, we have a chart, a table, that gives you all the correct times.

You can print it out.

Meathead and I are going to step away for a minute and do a little business on the air.

We will be back here on the Nation in just a minute.

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It's Jeff here.

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Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with Meathead from Amazing Ribs.

Today, Ms. Whippen is on assignment.

She's taking care of some stuff down in Florida and up in the South Carolina region this week.

She's cooking, doing that.

So she should be back here in a couple of weeks.

Also, some upcoming guests we've got Amy Mills will be coming up with us here in a couple weeks.

And next week, Jess Priles will be on the show.

So, yeah, Jess, Jess is a lot of fun to talk to.

We have a.

Because every time I see her, I say fair dinkum, because I've been to Australia a bunch of times and, and she gets.

I know the incumbents then.

Yeah.

So anyway, we're talking about Labor Day here.

One of the things.

And I, and I saw you do this on another show.

I caught it.

And I think it was, it's reasonable to bring up on this show when you talk about seasoning and salt being the main seasoning for most people.

It is for me and I think probably for you on most dishes.

But when you're, when you're seasoning your.

Let's start with steaks.

I'm a guy, I'll just tell you what I do.

And you already know this about me, but I bring them out, I salt them, I let them sit there for 20 minutes, a half hour, whatever, and then I go put them on the grill.

They're already salted.

And then I put the pepper or whatever else.

I'm going to do it on there.

What, what are your thoughts on that?

Pre seasoning like that.

And then we're going to talk about using other seasonings and rubs like yours, that right above your right shoulder there on other, other types of proteins.

We need to, we need to put salt in a class all by itself.

Salt is unlike any other herb and spice.

Salt is the magic rock.

And we've talked about this briefly before, but I'll, I'll repeat gently and quickly.

Salt is two little atoms, sodium and chloride.

And when they get on meat, they get wet and they start to vibrate, they get electrically charged.

It's called ionized.

And they move towards the center of the meat.

When they get there on their way, they alter the shape of proteins.

Proteins are very large, complicated, twisted, mangled molecules.

And salt changes their shape somewhat so that they can hold moisture better.

So salt improves moisture retention.

The other thing salt does is it amplifies flavor without altering it.

Garlic alters the flavor, gives it a garlicky taste.

Black pepper alters flavor.

All your herbs and spices alter, alter the flavor, often for the better.

But still, salt does not.

Salt just amplifies it and it improves moisture retention.

And you don't need a lot.

You're.

If you're on a restricted salt diet, you don't have to worry.

I use only Morton coarse kosher salt, but you can use any salt.

All salt is sodium chloride, even these fancy exotic Hawaiian black salt or Himalayan pink salt.

You might be able to taste, taste the difference if you taste them straight, but it's very, very subtle.

And there's no way you can taste the difference when you're seasoning a meat or a chicken or something like that.

There's just no way.

So salt is important, and just use a little tiny bit of it and it will do the job.

My ratio is a half a teaspoon of sodium chloride or salt that.

Excuse me, Morton's coarse kosher salt per pound of meat, a half a teaspoon.

If you're using table salt, it's more concentrated, so you want to go to a quarter of a teaspoon per pound of meat.

And you, you use the salt based on the weight of the meat because it has to be distributed throughout the meat.

For example, on a, a rib, a rib slab.

If you sprinkle salt on a rib slab, it doesn't have to go very far to get to the center, right?

I mean, rib slab is maybe at most an inch thick, so it can travel to the center a half inch way.

In just an hour or so, it'll be at the center.

But if you do a pork butt, which is the shoulder muscle, not the rear end.

But if you do a pork butt, which is five to seven pounds or more, and it's a big round bowling ball, it takes a long time for the salt to get to the center.

Hours overnight is best, but you need more salt because there's a larger mass.

So you apply the salt based on the weight.

The other thing is, is your, your spice rubs.

If you buy a spice rub, here's an example, one with my ugly face on it.

If you buy a spice rub, chances are there's salt in it already.

Almost all of them have salt, and it's usually okay for stuff like chicken and ribs.

But if you're doing a big, thick, fat piece of meat like pork butt, you may need to add more salt at the start based on the weight.

I have recipes on AmazingRibs.com for rubs that you can make yourself a lot cheaper than buying mine in the store.

And they don't have salt in them because I want you to apply the salt and the Spices separately, because the black pepper, the sugar, the thyme, the rosemary, the molecules are way too big to penetrate.

They may get into the little tiny pores and cracks and crevices on the surface.

They may go a sixteenth of an inch or maybe even an eighth of an inch down, but they're not getting to the center like salt does.

Salt is the magic rock.

It gets all the way in.

Nothing else does.

So you apply the salt based on the weight of the meat and then the other spices on the surface area.

So the more surface area you have, the more rub you need, and you sprinkle it on.

Usually a rule of thumb is cover it nicely, but at least be able to see the meat through the rub.

Don't cover it so that you can't see the meat.

Right.

And away you go.

And I have recipes for everything from fish rubs to pork rubs to beef rubs.

All of that's on AmazingRibs.com and none of them have salt, which is also handy if you are on a restricted salt diet.

But I show the math there.

There's so little salt in my.

My formula that it's not likely to endanger your daily allotment.

Well, we've got about a minute and a half here, but I want to ask you, what about fat?

And I'm not talking about me personally.

I'm talking about you.

You get a nice ribeye, or maybe you buy the, you know, the.

The whole rib and you cut your own steaks, which I do.

You do like that.

And I live.

I leave a little extra fat on the outside.

I happen to like it.

Okay.

Is that molecular process the same on fat as it is on the meat tissue?

Yeah.

If you like the taste of the fat, then leave it on there.

It'll cook and it'll get tasty.

And I, you know, I like a little bit of it, but fat is oil.

Meat is 75% water.

Oil and water don't mix.

Right.

So that fat cap, the outside layers of fat, is not getting into the meat.

It's not penetrating the meat.

It's not enhancing the flavor or in any way improving the taste of the meat.

Now, if there is marbling, which is those little streaks of fat within the muscle inside the meat, that's a.

That's highly desirable because then that melts.

That's full of flavor.

It mixes in with the juices and the meat and that you want.

But the surface fat, you buy a pork butt.

I just bought two yesterday for doing some pulled pork.

There's a big old fat cap on One side, a brisket, huge fat cap on.

On one side.

You put your rub on top of that fat cap, and it's not going to touch the muscle.

It's not going to touch the meat.

So you're not.

And the first thing you do when you serve meat with a lot of fat on it is many people will just cut it off and there goes your rub.

So I recommend that you remove as much of the fat cap as possible.

Maybe leave a quarter or an eighth of an inch because during cooking it will shrink and people will eat a very thin layer of fat cap, but they won't eat a thick layer of fat cap.

And fat does have a lot of flavor, but there's just no way that the, you know, people are.

People all know the statement fat is flavor.

Fat within the meat is flavor.

Fat on top of the meat does nothing for you.

No.

We're going to take another break.

We're going to be back with Meathead from Amazing Ribs here on the Nation.

I'm glad you're with us today and please stay with us.

We got a lot more coming your way right after this.

Hey, everybody, it's JT and I have eaten.

If you've ever looked at me, you know that.

But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon and our Dungeness crab.

If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.

Check it out.

Welcome back to the Nation.

I'm JT along with Meathead from Amazing ribs dot com.

I left off the dot com last segment, but I always have faith that Meathead will.

Will remedy the situation for me.

He does.

But I'm a radio guy, you know, we talk fast and think very little.

We'd like to thank the folks.

Like to thank the folks at Painter Hills.

I gotta clarify because I.

The reason I had asked you to refer to us as AmazingRib.com is when people hear Amazing Ribs, they think I'm a restaurant and they call me in the middle of the night and ask if we still open and do we deliver.

No, we're a website.

Amazing rib.

Dot com.

Yep.

Painter Hills beef, the way nature intended.

Oregon, Dungeness crab.

I think it's the best crab in the world.

And I've eaten soft shells and I've eaten stuff all over the world.

And all of it's pretty good, but it's hard to beat Dungeness crab from the West Coast.

We'll do that.

So we're talking with Meathead from AmazingRibs.com today, and we're talking about Labor Day stuff coming up and upping your game a little bit for the holiday.

What's your favorite thing to cook on Labor Day?

I mean, we've always talked over the years.

You know, you've got Father's Day and you've got 4th of July and you've got Memorial Day and we've kind of tied things in like 4th of July with ribs and others with burgers and brats and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that.

But what's your favorite thing to kind of.

That's an interesting point.

I mean, for Thanksgiving, we cook turkey for.

Right.

Fourth of July, I think ribs are required.

Father's Day, a steak, Mother's Day, maybe some chicken.

I don't have any specific favorite for Labor Day other than my neighbor across the street who plays a really great banjo and he and his musician buddies all get together on Labor Day and we do a big cookout and everybody brings a dish to pass.

And there's maybe 30, 40 people there and they all bring instruments except me.

And I bring the apron and we fire up the grill.

And I just stand there at the grill.

He, he's got two grills, a gas grill and a charcoal grill.

And I cook.

Maybe I just got done warning people, don't try to do too much.

But I, I'm doing pork chops, flank steak, hamburgers, bratwurst, chicken, all of it.

I've got them going on all burners and sweating like a pig, usually on a hot day.

And the dish that I choose to bring is something I can prepare in advance.

And I used to a smoked turkey, but it wasn't enough for this crowd.

They ran out of it in a hurry.

So now I'm doing pulled pork.

There you go.

And I, so I do you know that then I can start up the day before or the night before overnight cook or early in the morning and have it ready for a three o' clock party.

And everybody loves that.

So I'm doing pull pork from pork butts.

And I actually must confess, I cooked them yesterday for the, for the Labor Day, I cooked them yesterday, I shredded them, I put them in a vacuum sealed bag, I froze them.

And then on Labor Day with the parties at three or four, I'll put them in a sous vide bath.

That is a Warm water bath at about 145 or 150 and gently re therm it is what they call it.

Bring them back to temperature but not too hot.

And it'll take a few hours to get them back up to temp.

And they'll be tender and juicy and moist as if I just cooked them.

No sauce on them yet.

I put them in a crock pot and mix in just a wee bit of sauce.

And then we serve buns and the sauce on the side.

And it's always a hit.

It's tender and juicy, and nobody knows I cooked it a week in advance.

No, I'm with you on that.

One of the things I like to do for Labor Day is we've.

You and I have talked and Leanne has talked on the show about grilling vegetables and stuff, and it's a great time of year to do that.

I also really like to grill fruit, and I like to make little concoctions of fruit, kind of fruit kebabs, if you will.

You know, you can, you can take some pineapple or you can apples or peaches or, you know, there's.

It's all coming in ripe now in the fall, these fall fruits, the pitted fruits and stuff like that.

And it's great to do.

I think pineapple on the grill is one of the best things ever on the grill.

It's like candy.

I like it as well as I do a steak on the grill.

I mean, pineapple on the grill.

Pineapple itself, if it's ripe, is just marvelous.

But when you grill it, the sugar is caramelized.

It gets new flavors.

It's warm.

It's fantastic.

Peaches on the grill.

I'm pretty sure my website has a really nice recipe for peaches with a rum brown sugar sauce on top of vanilla ice cream.

And also I notice in the background you've got a picture of a grilled sandwich.

And I. Grilled pound cake and peaches on vanilla ice cream on grilled pound cake.

Grilled peaches with this rum sauce.

Boy, that is ever good.

You can also grill peaches.

Excuse me.

And use one of those little, like if you go to Baskin and Robin's little waffle bowls, you know, you can put it in there.

You can almost make like a grilled peach cobbler with fresh ice cream on that.

Of course, it's.

It's very low fat with brown sugar and butter and all that, but.

All that.

But I, I saw something this morning, though, that I really thought was interesting.

They.

They created.

I don't know who did this.

I didn't follow it up.

I just saw it before we came on the show.

But whoever did it made a honey and balsamic fruit glaze on that.

And I'm.

I'm gonna mess around with that and see.

See if I like.

Sounds like a winner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The other thing I like to do is, is like I said, we're.

We're a lot of pitted fruits up here, if you will, and pears.

And I like to take pears, cut them in half, skin them, cut them in half, remove the seeds and stuff.

And I'll put a little butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on it.

And you can.

You can make crumbles on the top too, if you want, but.

But grill that and then serve it with ice cream.

So.

And it's quick, it's easy, it's not hard to do.

You can kind of whatever type of flavorings you want.

If you want more brown sugar or less or more butter or no butter, whatever, you can design it.

Your.

But it's a very simple thing to do.

Well, you're also, you know, we're talking about fruit, but you're also deep into vegetable season.

And I have a really great recipe for eggplant parmesan on the grill.

Now, normally you do eggplant.

You.

You dip it in egg, and then you dip it in breadcrumbs, and then you fry it in a quarter inch of oil in a frying pan, and it just soaks up all that oil, and that's marvelous.

But what I'll do is I'll take the eggplant and cut it either into planks or into cross sections about a half inch to 3/4 inch thick.

Give it a very light paint of oil, sprinkle of salt, throw it on the grill until it's gotten a little golden and maybe a couple of grill marks.

And then I'll put a big old dollop of thick tomato sauce on top.

And usually I make the tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, which come in around the same time as the eggplant.

I take Roma tomatoes, which are more meaty than juicy, Cut them in half, grill them on one side, flip them over, grill them on the other side.

Once you've done that, the skin pops right off.

Grind it up, hook it down a little bit in the pot so it's really thick, add some oregano or some thyme or some garlic, and make a good tomato sauce out of it.

And then I scoop this tomato sauce on top of the eggplant, and then I take a slice of fresh Mozzarella or, and.

Or a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano and put it on top and you've got yourself a really excellent eggplant parmesan with a lot less oil than when you do it indoors.

And it has all those marvelous flame roasted tomato and grilled flavors.

I love that.

I really do love that it sounds.

But I want to ask you about you making.

When you're reducing your tomatoes like that, how long do you do that?

It's.

It's.

If people don't know what he's talking about, he's grilled him, he's popped the skin off of those.

He's mushed them up, if you will.

Do you do it by hand?

You put them in a food processor to, to grind them down or throw.

Them in a pan, a saucepan.

Yeah.

And maybe mash them up with a potato masher or something.

Once they start bubbling and boiling, they, they break down pretty quickly.

A potato mash, it doesn't matter if they got lumps in it.

Yeah, it tastes fine.

And you just, you know, kind of crunch it down or use a fork and there's.

It depends on the breed of tomato.

Now, if you've got better boy and big boy tomatoes, which are baseball size, there's a lot of liquid in them.

But if you've got Roma or Marzanos, which are kind of egg shaped, there's much less juice in there, there's more meat in there.

So they'll cook down.

Now, when we talk about cook down, I think probably your audience has an idea what we're doing.

Let's make sure they know what we're talking about.

Cooking down means you simmer food until the water boils off and that thickens and concentrates it.

So you take this tomato that you've smashed up and it's got a lot of water in it.

It's very thin.

If you put it on a burner in a pan and bring it up to about 190 so it's not boiling, it's simmering.

Radio will reduce until it's thick.

And then you can scoop it and, you know, thick like you want to get it like ketchup or something.

Right.

And then you can scoop it on top of these eggplant slices and put your cheese on top and away you go.

All kinds of things are good by reduction.

You mentioned balsamic.

Most of the grocery store balsamic has a lot of sugar in it.

And if you take that and pour it into a pan and again, you don't want it to boil.

You want it to be a low simmer.

If you cook that until it gets thick, like a syrup, it's fantastic.

It's.

It's a bulk.

It's a sweet vinegar syrup, which is really great.

I.

People.

People put it on strawberries, on ice cream.

Mm.

And it's really great.

You drizzle it on fresh tomatoes.

Fantastic stuff.

So cooking down liquids is always a cool technique.

It's also very good on Brussels sprouts.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, boy.

Absolutely.

Brussels sprouts with reduced balsamic.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It'll.

It'll make you smile, I guarantee it.

We're going to take one more break in the show, and then Meathead and I will be back on the nation to bring you more food information, especially about.

About outdoor barbecue grilling and smoking.

And I'm talking about smoking the proteins, not smoking something else.

Anyway, we'll be right back.

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Hey, everybody, J.T.

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Foreign.

Welcome back to the nation of Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT Ms. Whipping is on the road this week, but we've got meathead from AmazingRibs.com and we've been talking about Labor Day.

Upping your game a little bit for Labor Day, and we touched on Some seasoning and some favorite dishes that he has, he likes to do.

I like to do whatever you like to do at home.

It's one thing I wanted to emphasize in this show, what, what Meathead and I talk about and what our other guests talk about.

These are tried and true things that we've done.

You're the master of your own grill or smoker at home, so take these as emphatically praising suggestions.

And if, you know, if you want to burn your steak to 215 degrees, don't call us, but it's your choice.

So anyway, there, there you go.

Well, I mean, no, taste is still a matter of taste.

Absolutely.

There are good techniques.

There are techniques that work better than others.

You know, I, I, I, I, you know, go on social media and people talk about their favorite recipes.

I will offer suggestions on how to improve it.

But do it your way, you know, I mean, if, if you like it your way, don't let anybody intimidate you into doing it another way.

Even if I tell you it's wrong.

Yeah, well, me dad, I'll tell you, I grew up and when I grew up, my, my dad was a quote unquote meat and potatoes guy.

He was part of the greatest generation and all that stuff.

He liked his steaks pan fried.

That's how we grew up.

Cast iron, skillet, steak in the skillet.

When I really started getting into cooking, I don't know, I was 12, 13, 14.

I started to broil the steaks and he wouldn't eat them.

Now.

They were medium rare to the best of my ability.

We didn't have the good thermometers and stuff back in the Pleistocene era.

But what I'm saying is we tried to, I tried to make it grilled because I was watching people on television, you know, picking up stuff, reading books, whatever, but my dad wouldn't do it.

He didn't like a medium rare.

He didn't want that piece of meat still bleeding and mowing, you know, and it wasn't.

But I would always end up just if I was doing a grilling something or broiling something, I have to set it way down low, the rack way down low and just make his really brown in the middle.

And then he would eat it so.

Well, you know, there's an awful lot of people who prefer their steaks well done.

Yeah.

And well done is about 155 and it's gray or brown in the center.

And the reason I think that most of them want it that way is they think all that pink Juice is blood, right?

But it's not, it's not blood.

It's, it's, it's water.

Remember, steak of 75% water.

It's water that is tinted slightly pink by a protein in the meat called myoglobin, and scientists call it myo water.

But if you think about it, animal blood, beef blood, chicken blood, lamb blood and human blood is pretty much the same.

It's all very, very dark red, almost black.

If you, I mean if you cut yourself and you look at the, the blood coming out, it's really dark red, it's black and it's thin, thick and it coagulates, coagulates rapidly in the air.

And this stuff that comes out of your steak is thin, it's pink, not red or black.

It's runny, it doesn't get thick.

It just sits there in the bottom of the plate.

And that's because it's water.

And so the pink juices that come out of a steak are not blood.

And every time you call it blood, somewhere in Indiana a teenager becomes a vegan.

So we need to stop.

Anybody want blood on their steak?

It's not blood.

Don't say that, it's juice.

Just said you want juice on your steak, fine, it's, it'll moisten the meat, it's great.

But I think if we can overcome the fear that we're eating blood and even so, if you cook it to done, what happens to all that so called blood?

It doesn't.

Is it absorbed by the meat?

Does it evaporate?

Well, I mean, you know, it's still, that juice is still not right.

Well, I'll tell you, I'm a heathen and we've talked about this on the show, I think a couple times, but pull the steaks off the grill, you put them on a platter, you bring them in the house, they dishing their food like this.

When I always, I'm always the last guy to make my plate, if you will, because I'll take that blood off the steak plate and I pour it on my baked potato because I love it.

It's, you know, it's very seasoned, it's very tasty.

It's like that.

And I put some of that on my baked potato.

Now some people have questioned my parentage on that deal, but I'll tell you, it's, it's, it's, it's very, very tasty.

And you know, it's not, it's not blood.

I still to this day, with all the people I invite and cook for And I will still have people say, I don't like all that bloody red stuff on the.

On the planet.

It's.

It's not, you know.

But.

Well, we also.

I know the scientists there.

There is a branch of the science is called food science, and food scientists, particularly meat scientists, are deeply involved in research on food and meat, and they have equipment.

For example, I have a gadget called the Warner Brachler machine.

The Warner Brachler machine is essentially a metal tooth.

It's an artificial tooth, and they put a piece of meat under it, and then they can apply pressure to that tooth, and they can measure precisely how much pressure it takes to cut into the steak.

And that's how they measure tenderness.

They also can measure juiciness.

And we know that tenderness and juiciness is optimal on a steak in the 130 to 135 range, which happens to be medium rare.

So if you're going to take it well done, you're taking IT up to 155.

It is by definition tougher and less juicy.

Yep.

Well, you cooked all the good stuff out of it at the end there.

That's what I think.

Anyway, you said earlier you made some pulled pork for your Labor Day bash.

What else?

We got a couple minutes here and we'll pick it.

We're going to do a short after hours today, not our usual marathon, but.

What are you going to serve with that?

Well, I'm just bringing the pulled pork to this big old party with 40 people, and there's one guy who makes a great coleslaw.

I mean, we've been doing this now for, like 20 years, and everybody has sort of settled upon the crowd favorite.

And there's a little of everything.

There's salads, there's coleslaw, there's potato salad, there's cornbread.

There's just.

It's a huge spread.

There's 30 or 40 people, so everybody brings something.

Oh, and the pies.

There happen to be some really good pie bakers in this crowd, my wife included.

And Jeff, the host of the party, is a great pie baker, and he.

He's his girlfriend is a pie baker.

So there's just, you know, boy, you got to save room for pie.

And it's just a lot of fun.

And it.

And the music.

I mean, they all.

They all bring folding chairs and they sit in a circle.

If you can imagine 30 or 40 musicians sitting in a circle.

And.

And they play a lot of folk music and country and hillbilly music, and there's some old fashioned Stringing instruments.

It's just a, it's just a hullablue.

It's a lot of fun.

And so I'm, I'm, I just bring the pulled pork and then I stand at the grill for about an hour and a half, uh, cooking up all the meats and uh, then uh, we ring the dinner bell and uh, we all sit down and eat.

I'm going to send you a pair of spoons.

Spoons that you can play.

Spoons.

Oh, I, I play the radio.

That's my musical.

Yeah, that's your musical instrument.

I, I, it's, you know, people ask, you know, I get interviewed a lot and people ask if I have any regrets.

And that's my biggest regret is that I gave up on both piano and violin lessons as a kid.

I hated them.

I preferred sports, I played a lot of sports.

I loved my sports careers.

But I wish I could play a musical instrument so I can join these gangs.

You can hum.

Yeah.

Get a kazoo, sit on the outskirts and enjoy it.

There's some great musicians and some great voices.

There you go.

That's going to wrap it for.

What's this show again?

Oh yeah, Barbecue Nation this week.

Don't Forget meathead@amazingribs.com Go there.

If you're really want to get on your game, sign up for the Pit Masters Club.

There's lots of stuff in the, in the Pitmasters Club there, but there's, there's a lot of free information, like 72, 000 pages of free information.

And then there's another 72, 000 pages in the pit Masters Club and some of some of the interviews and another show is in there too so you can hear all kinds of good stuff.

But Meathead, thank you, I appreciate it as always.

Always good to talk to you.

He and I are going to slip away and do some after hours stuff because both in Illinois and in Oregon certain things are legal.

But until that time, go out, have a good Labor Day party.

Good time.

And remember our motto here.

Turn it, don't burn it.

So for Ms. Whippen, Mr. Meathead and myself, take care everybody.

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