Order of Man - OoM 015： How to Grill Like a Man with Scott Thomas

00:00:00.000 A man who knows his way around the grill is a man that can earn the respect of his buddies

00:00:03.740 and the affection of the ladies. Now, whether it's true or not, grilling and or barbecuing

00:00:08.480 is viewed as a staple in every guy's toolbox of manly skills. So whether you're an amateur,

00:00:14.400 a novice, or an expert, my guest today teaches us how to up our barbecue game.

00:00:19.820 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly

00:00:24.280 chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:30.000 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is

00:00:36.640 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:42.380 you can call yourself a man. Men, welcome back to the Order of Man. I am your host and founder of

00:00:48.720 Order of Man, Ryan Michler. Now, a bit of housekeeping before we get to our guest today. I want to let you

00:00:53.360 know that I've begun producing a course designed to help you become a better man in all aspects of

00:00:59.160 your life. So I've identified eight key skill sets that I believe every man must master. And I'm

00:01:04.960 going to share each one of those with you. We're going to teach you how to be more likable, more

00:01:08.600 profitable, a better husband and father, a stronger leader, you name it. We're putting together the

00:01:13.520 tools and the resources to help you become a more well-rounded man. So if you want to know more about

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00:01:23.100 orderofman.com. Sign up there and keep an eye out in your inbox over the next 60 to 90 days for the

00:01:29.940 release of that course. Now, remember, as always, we've got the show notes up for this show and they

00:01:35.060 can be found at orderofman.com slash 015 as in episode 15. So today I have the pleasure of introducing

00:01:43.280 Scott Thomas. Scott Thomas is the original grill and fool. He's overcooked, undercooked and burned every 0.99

00:01:50.100 piece of meat that he could find. And after thousands of failures and quite a few successes

00:01:54.720 and nearly two decades later, he started his website to show step-by-step, picture-by-picture,

00:02:01.380 foolproof instructions on how us guys can make great food on the grill. So he consistently challenges

00:02:07.660 the traditional rules and standards of barbecue. He grills anything from lettuce and leeks, brisket,

00:02:12.980 bread. He's written feature articles for St. Louis and Feast magazines. He's been quoted in the

00:02:18.800 Wall Street Journal. He's appeared on countless television and radio spots in his hometown of St.

00:02:23.420 Louis. He's recognized nationally as one of the charbroil all-star bloggers and writes for Sears

00:02:28.360 at grillingishappiness.com. All right, Scott, welcome to the Order Man podcast. Glad you're

00:02:34.380 joining us with us today. Thanks for having me. It's going to be a good time. We're timely. We're

00:02:38.700 going to talk all about grilling today. So I'm excited to have this conversation because as we get

00:02:42.440 into the summer, of course, us guys tend to go out and we want to grill. So I'm excited to have you

00:02:46.380 on the show today. I mean, I'm kind of a year-round guy when it comes to grilling, but it's kind of

00:02:50.620 an occupational hazard. But yeah, I get that. That's true. That's true. And it would be nice

00:02:54.280 to be able to do that. I guess it gets a little too hot for us sometimes in the summer. So it is

00:02:58.260 nice if you have the luxury of being able to do it all year round. Yeah, you know what? I actually

00:03:01.240 prefer winter grilling to summer grilling. I mean, you know, in St. Louis, the summers are

00:03:06.920 brutally humid. I mean, so, you know, it's 100 degrees outside. It's 95% humidity. You know,

00:03:13.060 let's go build a fire and stand next to him for three or four hours. Right. You know?

00:03:17.800 Right. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Me, I'd much rather have a blustery fall day,

00:03:22.140 you know, where I got to have a coat on and, you know, maybe not even necessarily a coat,

00:03:26.700 like a vest, a pair of jeans, you know, football's playing in the background, you know, and that's

00:03:31.780 my deal for grilling. But yeah, there you go. Yeah. But there is something about, you know,

00:03:35.720 I kind of hibernate a little bit for about a month in late January, early February when

00:03:40.860 it's brutally cold. I'm, you know, getting over the holidays and then I come out and I

00:03:44.160 just can't grill enough once it starts warming up. Right. Nice. Well, good. So you say this

00:03:48.640 is an occupational hazard. Is this something that you, with grilling fools, is it something 0.98

00:03:53.240 that you started as a hobby and it just morphed into a occupation? Is it just, you know, did 0.98

00:04:00.380 you set out with the intent of making a living doing this? Tell me where you're at right now

00:04:03.620 and a little bit about your background. Okay. So I, yeah, I'm a big football guy. So I would

00:04:08.100 go to talk football online during the football season with a group of guys and, and from around

00:04:13.720 the country and we would, in the off season, we would share what we did on the grill. And

00:04:19.060 so we would share like, you know, pictures like with like image shack or whatever. And

00:04:22.520 we'd show like, I did this, you know, did these ribs last night and they were great. And we'd

00:04:25.480 talk about what we did and we'd, you know, like basically swap recipes or tricks or tips,

00:04:29.580 you know, and, and, and after doing that for a couple, three years, I had enough content

00:04:33.500 buildup for a website, for a blog. So I started the blog November of 2008, you know, wonderful

00:04:39.180 time to start a grilling blog in St. Louis, right? Right, right. And, um, I started it

00:04:45.160 and, and I got some good content going and, and my main goal was basically to make it as

00:04:49.140 a tax deduction for charcoal and meat, you know, stuff I'm going to buy anyway. So it's

00:04:53.200 like a tax shelter. So I get a good amount of content right away. And so we get a fair amount

00:04:58.160 of traffic because I just like flooded it with like 50 posts and like, you know, just

00:05:02.180 a couple of months. Oh wow. Yeah. Stuff that I built up. And then people were going, Hey,

00:05:05.960 I need more, you know, I want to see more stuff. I want to see more stuff. Well, I couldn't

00:05:08.220 keep up. So I drafted and it was grillandfool.com. So I drafted my dad and my cousin on Super Bowl

00:05:14.300 Sunday that year on, um, uh, in, in 2009. And it became, and we got, we bought grillandfools.com

00:05:20.260 and then about, um, in April, the editor of the local paper said, we want to do an article

00:05:26.480 about you. We realized that that was going to probably drive a lot of traffic and we

00:05:29.800 probably needed a decent website instead of the one, you know, the piece of garbage

00:05:32.860 I threw up, um, and insurance and incorporate. And, you know, so we did that. And so, you

00:05:39.380 know, we'd pay for a website, the insurance fees, cause they didn't know how to insure a

00:05:43.480 website. Our first quote was $8,000 for the year. Oh my goodness. Yeah. The second quote

00:05:48.800 was like 600 bucks after, cause you know, it's something they didn't know how to insure and

00:05:51.880 we deal with fire. So they were afraid. Right. Right. And so, but then we had to get

00:05:56.220 incorporation fees. That's another 500 bucks. So my, my tax shelter was now hemorrhaging

00:06:00.300 cash. Right. It was doing the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. So I, I had to start,

00:06:05.320 you know, I didn't make some money. And so I, um, content, content, content. I think we

00:06:09.340 got our first advertising client the next year. Um, and they're still with us. It's, uh,

00:06:13.080 that's top right of our website, Andrea steak sauce, which is, um, great. It's a basting

00:06:16.700 sauce for, it's not like an A1, but it's a, it's a basting sauce. It's phenomenal local

00:06:21.160 here in St. Louis, but you can buy it online. Um, and so that was our first ad. And then, um,

00:06:25.280 you know, it's, it's not, it's not a full-time business. You know, it's not my, I have a day

00:06:29.460 job, but, um, it's, um, it's not far from that. You know, I could probably, if I were

00:06:35.700 to quit the day job, if I wanted to go lean for a couple of years, I could probably do

00:06:38.780 it. But, um, I'd rather keep doing the day job and keep this going. I, you know, I do

00:06:43.020 both basically. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I am lighting the candle and I had more than just do

00:06:48.180 wicks. I've got three or four going at the same time.

00:06:50.340 Yeah. It's pretty cool that you're able to make some money and turn your hobby or your

00:06:55.120 passion into something that's, that's producing some sort of revenue. It sounds like I just

00:06:58.620 had a conversation, uh, yesterday with a buddy of mine and I asked him what he likes to do.

00:07:02.980 And his answer was, I like to count mule deer. That's what he likes to do. And I was like,

00:07:08.440 you know what, like you put together a YouTube channel, do something, but you could go out there

00:07:12.620 and you could turn this hobby of counting mule deer and, and, and tracking them into something

00:07:16.620 that can produce revenue for you. Especially the guys who like to, uh, reduce that count

00:07:21.420 of mule deer, you know, that's right. That's right. They would really like that.

00:07:25.940 Bang, bang. Now there's 10, you know, that's, that's, there's a client, there's a, there's

00:07:29.220 a clientele there. There's actually a market for that.

00:07:31.900 That's right. So what is it that you, cause it sounds like it's really gone well for you.

00:07:35.980 What's resonating so well with, uh, your target audience, which I'm sure is comprised of predominantly

00:07:42.140 male. What is it that's resonating so much?

00:07:44.260 Well, if you talk, if you go to any blogger conference or, you know, they want to teach

00:07:48.420 you how to blog, they will tell you, keep it short, keep it sweet. People have an attention

00:07:51.760 span of about, you know, nine seconds. You know, you want to have one picture and run

00:07:55.700 and, um, screw that. I'm not doing that. I'm going to show people exactly how to do it.

00:08:01.380 So our, our schtick, our elevator pitch, our, you know, our, our goal is step-by-step,

00:08:06.120 picture-by-picture, foolproof instructions. So where a lot of, most blogs have less than three

00:08:11.160 or four pictures. Our, uh, every one of our posts has close to 20 pictures. And so we'll

00:08:16.320 take pictures of raw ingredients and take it every step of the way, um, until it's done

00:08:21.640 because, you know, most, most cookbooks, most cooking blogs have a great picture, a set of

00:08:28.500 instructions, um, and a list of ingredients and that's it. But, but, you know, when you're

00:08:33.000 doing brisket for 15 hours, there's a lot that happens between put the brisket on the

00:08:38.320 grill and take it off at, you know, 195, you know, and, you know, oh my God, it's looking

00:08:44.720 so black and burnt. No, that's bark. That's okay. You know, and we'll show that. We're

00:08:49.160 like, and we'll show, Hey, this is bark. And well, okay, this one, it looks like great

00:08:52.580 bark. That's actually burnt. We screwed this one up and, and we'll show you, here's where

00:08:56.040 we should have done this differently. Don't do this, you know? And, and so that's, I think

00:09:00.140 what resonates the most is not only we showing you step-by-step, but we'll also go, well,

00:09:04.680 here's the roadmap and here's where we took a detour and, uh, here's where it went south.

00:09:10.380 Uh, and you know, here's how, you know, in the future, here's how to do it right. Or

00:09:14.920 here's how we did it right the next time. And, and, you know, and that kind of resonates

00:09:17.820 because we're being completely honest and we're showing our mistakes and, and, and hopefully

00:09:21.920 what we're doing is that we're, we're steering people away from the mistakes we've made and

00:09:25.700 that we've made thousands of them and we still do.

00:09:27.300 So what are some of the big mistakes that either you guys are running across or that

00:09:31.680 even amateur grillers like maybe myself, um, tend to make? What are some of those mistakes

00:09:36.300 you see?

00:09:36.840 Um, a lot of times, okay, there's not enough seasoning, you know, season party. Um, before

00:09:41.720 I put just about anything on the grill, it's going to get a heavy coating of salt and pepper.

00:09:45.920 Um, no matter what, whether I'm going to put a rub on it or not. I mean, if I, if I have

00:09:48.840 a rub, it's got a lot of salt in it. I might go light on the salt or not use the salt

00:09:51.900 at all, but you want to season really well. Um, make sure the grill is good and

00:09:55.400 hot. Um, one of the other big mistakes is, is, and, and the biggest problem with grilling

00:10:00.580 is, you know, when we cook on the stove, we turn it to 300, we put something inside, it

00:10:05.560 stays at 300 until we turn it off. Right. Or, you know, until the power company realized

00:10:09.360 you didn't pay the bill or whatever. That's, you know, really there's very few things that's

00:10:12.780 going to change that temperature. When we cook outside, we're, well, the thing we're

00:10:17.420 looking for the most is consistency and we're doing it in the most inconsistent place we

00:10:21.520 can. Right. On a summer day, when you open the grill and you close it, it doesn't take

00:10:28.000 very long for the heat to build back up. Exactly. On a 20 degree day, you may have taken

00:10:32.660 20 minutes of time of your cook for every time you open the grill. So that pork butt that 1.00

00:10:37.760 you're going to cook for eight hours and you open it up five times, that was going to take

00:10:41.240 nine and a half hours and everybody's hungry at seven. Right. Not 830. And it's 830. And

00:10:46.760 you're like, man, I'm still, I'm still, uh, I'm still waiting. So, uh, you know, so that's,

00:10:51.620 that's, you know, wind can have an impact, rain, you know, humidity, heat, all these things

00:10:57.240 you're going to have to take into account and, and, and kind of plan for, um, and, you

00:11:00.920 know, practice in basically. So, um, those are some of the big ones. I mean, I could go

00:11:05.660 on, but, um, you know, people use lighter fluid and don't let it burn off. You shouldn't

00:11:10.000 use it at all, but if you do let it burn off for 45 minutes, I love what's going to taste

00:11:13.060 like it. You know, things like that. So what are the best ways you talk a lot about

00:11:16.920 temperature? What are the best ways other than just leaving it alone? I'm sure it's

00:11:20.200 probably the best way to do it, but what are some other ways that you can regulate the

00:11:22.980 temperature? Well, if we're talking about like winter grilling, so, you know, you want

00:11:26.340 to, uh, a wind, uh, windbreak is a big deal. You know, if you can move your grill, you

00:11:30.420 know, over near like a, a fence or a shed or something like that, not too close. You

00:11:34.180 don't want to burn down the fence or the shed, but a windbreak is a big deal. Um, and, and

00:11:38.660 the, in the summertime or in, and for any grill, uh, it's vent control. It's, you know, the

00:11:43.820 fire depends on how much air it gets. You open that sucker wide up or, you know, I think 0.94

00:11:50.380 I, I, there's a post on my website. It was like, um, how I almost screwed up this brisket 0.95

00:11:54.660 or something like that, where, where I had opened up the grill to mop, to put a mop on

00:11:59.220 the, you know, put a mop sauce on my brisket. And I, I, I think I had a, about a year old

00:12:03.780 son at the time and I heard him scream behind me. Oh yeah. And he'd fallen and I, you know,

00:12:08.820 I scooped him up and I ran inside and, you know, and I, I got them all together and I

00:12:13.060 sat on the couch and, and an hour later I realized the grill was still open and now my

00:12:18.060 fire's raging hot, you know, and, and, and, and so it really nearly, you know, ruined

00:12:22.820 that brisket. It, it came out good. It could have been better, but, um, you know, those kinds

00:12:27.220 of things, you know, like, uh, you know, you left the, you left, leave those vents open

00:12:31.060 because you're wanting the temperature to go up and you open it up pretty wide and

00:12:34.480 then, yeah, they go up pretty fast, but then you don't cut them down. Then you're

00:12:38.060 going to be screwed. Right. Yeah, I get that. What is the, uh, what's, I've heard that 1.00

00:12:42.180 there's some differences between grilling and, and, you know, barbecue. What's, is there

00:12:46.800 a difference? What's, are those words synonymous? Um, grilling is, is generally hot

00:12:50.840 and fast. So you, you generally grill a steak, you generally grill shrimp, you, you know,

00:12:56.220 you, you put it over a hot, hot, you know, burger. You don't, you know, you don't

00:12:59.760 throw a burger in a 200 degree smoker and, you know, and come back three hours later.

00:13:03.500 Right. Uh, people do that. The people, the reverse sear steak is a big thing now where

00:13:07.360 you smoke it low for like 45 minutes and then sear it. And then sear it at the end.

00:13:11.580 Okay. Uh, for the most part, you know, barbecue is kind of like the middle ground there. It's

00:13:16.060 kind of cooking, you know, slower where smoking is, is, is the actual, the, the, is, is

00:13:21.960 the far extreme. That's a low and slow, you know, it's 200 degrees. You know, a lot

00:13:27.180 of people do 200 degrees. Um, I actually go a little hotter than that. Um, I, I started

00:13:31.220 seeing it, you know, we're, we're seeing this proliferation of barbecue on TV with pit

00:13:34.620 masters and stuff that a lot of these guys are cooking at three and three 50. And I'm

00:13:39.760 like, you know what, if Myron Mixon is grilling his brisket at three 50, the hardest thing you

00:13:42.780 can, you can cook that I think I can do at 300 too or 350. And so I cook all my stuff

00:13:46.860 at three, 300. And so my briskets are done in, in six, seven hours, pork butts in five,

00:13:51.560 six hours and, and, you know, blows people away. But, um, so it's more like instead of

00:13:56.520 smoking and we're like doing it at the barbecue level, kind of, you know, a

00:13:59.060 middle ground there, sort of medium heat pretty much though. I mean, they're all

00:14:02.640 done on a grill or a barbecue grill. So that can be turned into a smoker for most

00:14:07.960 part on just about any grill. So they're, they're somewhat interchangeable. The

00:14:11.220 people that really argue it are, are the people that you just don't want to talk

00:14:15.340 to because they're just, I mean, it doesn't matter at that point. You know, it's

00:14:18.580 like really, you know, it's going into a grill. I know I'm smoking in it, but I'm

00:14:22.020 still grill. Whatever, dude. You know what I mean? It comes out, it's going to

00:14:24.600 taste delicious. Don't worry about, you know, the name I use to cook. Good name.

00:14:27.920 Yeah, that's right. What, uh, what's the risk of turning up the heat? Like you

00:14:31.740 said, you know, three, three 50, is it just the risk of, of it being dry or what

00:14:36.440 do you run into when it comes to that? So what the whole point of, of barbecue or

00:14:40.360 smoking is, is you take tough cuts of meat, you cook them slow and you break down

00:14:45.500 the connected tissues and make them into tender cuts of meat. So it was a way to

00:14:49.520 take cheap cuts and, and, and make them edible. Um, steak, right. It's tender

00:14:55.580 already. It's delicious. You don't need to do it low and slow. Um, you can infuse

00:14:59.420 it smoke flour. That's why you do the reverse sear. So that whole point is to

00:15:02.940 cook it long enough to make it tender. Now, if you, everybody thought that in

00:15:07.740 order to do that, right, it'd be 200 degrees and you know, you got to put your

00:15:10.620 brisket in, um, the night before at about two o'clock in the morning, they have it

00:15:14.440 done the next day by five. Um, because you need 15, 18 hours on it. But, but

00:15:18.980 people found that if you raise that from 200 to three or three 50, you could

00:15:22.620 dramatically cut down your time to, and, and still get that, break down the

00:15:26.280 connective tissue, still get that, that smoke flavor. Um, and what people, where

00:15:31.360 this kind of came about is people realize that after a couple, two to three

00:15:34.640 hours, it's not taking on any more smoke. So at that point, what do you, why do you

00:15:39.920 need to keep going that low? If you can break, get those connections of

00:15:42.840 tissues. So, so infuse it with smoke. And what, what a lot of people are now

00:15:45.760 doing is they're using a Texas crutch. You know what the Texas crutch is? No, I

00:15:49.240 have no idea. Okay. So Texas crutch is aluminum foil. Okay. So you smoke it and

00:15:53.280 you get to infuse the smoke flavor. You need to wrap it in foil with a little bit

00:15:56.200 of liquid. The liquid could be beer, it could be honey, it could be wine, it

00:15:59.480 could be syrup. It won't taste like any of those things. It'll pick up a little

00:16:03.860 bit, but if you, if you slather it with maple syrup, it's not going to taste

00:16:06.520 like syrup. Okay. I know it sounds nuts, but what you do is you need to wrap

00:16:10.380 it in foil and it steams inside its own juices on the grill. You put it back

00:16:14.480 on the grill and that hyper accelerates the breaking down of the connective

00:16:18.040 tissues. So now you got the smoke, you got the connective tissues broken down.

00:16:22.580 It's, it's, it's now tender as, as, as you need to be. Um, it doesn't get as good

00:16:27.380 of a bark on it cause it gets kind of mushy. So you take it off the oil off, dry

00:16:31.400 it, you know, then dry it, put it back on the grill to dry it out and get that bark

00:16:34.120 back. Or you can actually sear it, put it right over, you know, give it, get a sear

00:16:37.520 over the, over the hot coals, um, and, and, and get a nice char, but you've got

00:16:42.400 all the things you need to make that a great, um, piece of, of tender, delicious

00:16:46.340 meat and a lot shorter time.

00:16:49.020 It's funny cause you're talking all about efficiency now. And, you know, we think

00:16:52.140 about efficiency in businesses or whatever it may be. And now we're talking about

00:16:55.760 efficiency and grilling. And so that translates into every avenue of life, right?

00:16:59.060 Well, yeah. And it's not for me, the efficiency was I have, you know, when I started

00:17:02.980 grilling, I, you know, I was, I didn't have any kids, you know, and I'd come up

00:17:06.920 from work and my wife go, what do you want to eat? And I'm like, well, let's go

00:17:09.200 through the freezer and pull something out and thaw it out. Then I'll throw it on the

00:17:11.660 grill. We eat about nine 30, 10, you know, you kids, you can't eat at nine 30, you

00:17:15.320 know? Right. Right. Um, so now they have three kids, you know, I gotta, I gotta kind

00:17:20.080 of, you know, I can't, you know, be smoking all day long. Um, the part of those

00:17:24.840 people who will never do it cause they want to just be, be out of the house to be by

00:17:28.200 the grill. Honey, I got to watch this grill. I can't, you know, I'm going to be out

00:17:30.640 here from nine o'clock in the morning until whatever. That's fine. But I can, I can

00:17:34.960 get pretty close to the same results in a lot faster time. Although I'm not, I'm

00:17:38.980 cutting corners, but I'm not, I'm not taking any flavor away. And there's

00:17:43.680 people, there's some people that argue vehemently that I'm wrong. Um, but like I

00:17:47.240 said, uh, Myron Mixon's the one more money in barbecue than anybody. He smokes his

00:17:51.440 briskets at three 50. So I'm going to go with what that guy does. Right. You know, it's 0.72

00:17:55.920 funny you say that my, uh, my father-in-law, he built a smoker out of one of those big

00:17:59.760 50 gallon drums or whatever. So he built it. And, uh, when we get together as a

00:18:04.340 family, I think there's, I want to say there's like 15 or 18 grandkids and he'll

00:18:08.660 go out there with a book and his fold out chair and he'll go sit out there all

00:18:12.320 day. And, and just like you said, he's like, Hey, I'm watching the grill. I can't

00:18:15.100 be up here. I got to watch the grill. So I see what you're saying when it comes to

00:18:19.000 that. You know what? That's part of like when people get their first Kamado grill,

00:18:21.760 which is one of these ceramic cookers, when they get that grill, um, they're

00:18:26.360 actually kind of bored because you kind of set it and forget it. You don't have to play

00:18:30.600 with the vents and, you know, right. And Kohl's or whatever. And when you first get

00:18:34.320 that, you're like, well, um, Hmm. Um, what do I do? Uh, yeah, I'm, that's good. I,

00:18:41.480 um, well, uh, yeah, shoot. If my wife finds out about this, I'm gonna have to go help 1.00

00:18:47.440 inside. Um, so yeah, so there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a sort of a negative to

00:18:55.260 getting the Kamado. If you want to, uh, keep using the grills and excuse not to have to,

00:19:00.140 uh, you know, help out around the house. Right, right. You've got to balance that

00:19:03.700 game for sure. Right. So he does pork tenderloins. Um, he's done turkey as well,

00:19:08.940 which is incredible. What are some other meats that, uh, that you can smoke slow

00:19:13.000 like that? Well, you can smoke anything. I mean, we do, I'm looking at something

00:19:16.180 right now on the website. It's a grilled chuck roast stew. And what we do was to take

00:19:20.040 two chuck roasts and we put them over a, um, um, roasting pan on a roasting rack and we

00:19:26.020 put, we fill the roasting pan with the vegetables and broth and, and put the, you know, put

00:19:31.840 the meat over the top of it. So the meat smokes and as it's smoking and it's cooking, it's

00:19:35.940 dripping down into that, that pan. And then at the very end, we take them off and we submerge

00:19:41.740 them into the, into the, the sauce. And it's like a pot, it's like a grilled pot roast

00:19:45.900 and it's, it's outstanding. I mean, it's, I'm sure it sounds so good. Chuck roast is cheap

00:19:50.100 and it comes out so tender. You can literally make it like brisket sandwiches out of it.

00:19:53.700 I mean, it's great. Um, and then, um, I'm trying to think what other weird stuff, you

00:19:58.300 know, um, tri-tip, um, is a great, so have you heard of tri-tip? Yeah, absolutely. So

00:20:05.120 yeah. So for those that don't know, tri-tip is the, uh, bottom point of the sirloin roast

00:20:08.940 and it's kind of comes like a triangular shape, which is why it's called tri-tip. Um, that's

00:20:14.180 was popularized first in Santa Maria, California, where they cook with a lot of red

00:20:18.900 oak. And, um, and it's steak is so expensive right now and tri-tips are going up too, but

00:20:26.240 I can feed six couples on 15 bucks a tri-tip. Um, like six couples, three couples, six people

00:20:32.280 on 15 bucks with a tri-tip. And what I love to do with that is a reverse sear. I smoke it

00:20:36.780 for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, depending on the size, get it to about 110, 115 inside

00:20:43.460 and then I sear the bejesus out of it. Takes it up to about 130, um, 140. So in the, and

00:20:50.800 on the outside, it's, it's, it's kind of, it's medium rare to medium in the middle. It's

00:20:54.920 pink. So I can kind of cover all the gamuts for everybody. Um, so, you know, we, I've

00:21:00.040 been doing a lot of, um, like I did, I just did a, uh, sourdough round last night on the

00:21:04.580 grill. I took a sourdough piece of sourdough bread, crisscross cut it, but not all the way

00:21:09.100 through to the bottom, about an inch, made like inch squares on the top. Right. In

00:21:13.420 between all those little crevices, I shoved in, uh, bacon, crump, crispy bacon, about a

00:21:19.360 half a pound of cheese. And then I took a, a quarter stick of butter and a teaspoon of

00:21:24.120 ranch dressing dip. Mix, I mean the powder, mix, I didn't melt with the butter and then

00:21:29.060 drizzle the butter all over the top of that. Throw it on the grill for like 15 minutes

00:21:33.000 covered in foil. So it, it heats up all on the inside and then you take it off and you

00:21:36.980 kick up the smoke, take the foil off, kick up the smoke and it browns on the top and

00:21:41.320 picks up the smoke flavor. It doesn't need a lot because it's bread. It's really

00:21:44.300 porous. Right. Take that sucker off and set it down in the middle of the table and 0.98

00:21:47.940 it's like watching piranha feast on a... Oh, sure. I mean, we've done it with a rye 0.97

00:21:53.560 bread and, um, and fresh dill. So like a rye bread and dill dip. Um, I did it with a

00:21:58.040 sourdough loaf last night and, and, you know, just regular, regular like Colby Jack cheese.

00:22:03.080 So you can do all kinds of combinations. I mean, we grill, we grill all kinds of

00:22:07.600 crazy. I grill lettuce. Really? Oh man. One of the most popular posts was a lettuce.

00:22:12.220 Is that right? So, so I, somebody tells me they grill lettuce. This is on that, with

00:22:16.560 that football website, right? And I'm giving this guy all kinds of grief. I'm like, you

00:22:19.380 grill lettuce? You need to turn in your man card or what? And he goes, no, no, it's

00:22:24.220 good. Just try it. Just try it. So one day, Mother's Day here at my house, both sides of

00:22:30.040 the family are over. We're grilling. I got, you know, a whole grill full of, you

00:22:32.780 know, dogs and burgers and brats and, and I, um, I go inside, I got this one head of

00:22:37.540 romaine lettuce and you peel off all the louder leaves. You make, leave one giant

00:22:41.520 heart of romaine. Okay. And then you slice it down the middle lengthwise and you

00:22:46.420 drizzle it with olive oil, salt and black pepper and a little granulated garlic

00:22:50.400 and that's it. Take it out, throw it over a hot, hot grill and just char it all the

00:22:55.160 way around. And it takes, doesn't take very long at all. Yeah. Take it off the grill,

00:22:58.840 set it down, um, sprinkle it with just some Asiago cheese and hand, hand people

00:23:04.240 the forks. So I'm walking out with this seasoned lettuce from, from my, my back

00:23:10.300 door through my kitchen, out my back door. And all along the way, I'm getting the

00:23:13.700 same grief I dilled out to. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. What are you doing? I'm like,

00:23:17.080 I'm gonna grill lettuce. Like, shut up. You're grilling lettuce. I said it, I 1.00

00:23:20.540 grilled it. I set it down. Only like five people got by it because it was gone that

00:23:23.680 fast. Really? And I was disappointed that more people didn't get to taste it because I

00:23:27.840 got grief about it until everybody came over the next time and I grilled it for

00:23:30.920 everybody. My, uh, my wife grills asparagus and it's very similar to what you're

00:23:36.020 talking about. And it is so good. We had it last night, in fact. Yeah. Love it.

00:23:39.440 Yeah. I do a little balsamic on there and, uh, and, and, and kind of almost like a

00:23:43.220 marinade and I do shavings of cheese. But this lettuce thing, I mean, it was, it was

00:23:48.100 a number one post for, for years on the website. I mean, the, the, the grilled romaine,

00:23:51.600 it's just, it's just crazy. And, um, you know, we do it, we do grilling demos and

00:23:56.560 we do grilling classes. Um, and people see me do this and they're floored and they

00:24:02.060 can't believe how, how good it is. And see what the thing, why it's good is that

00:24:06.100 lettuce has sugars in it that they're so subtle, you can't taste them, which is why

00:24:09.800 they're just, it's just a vehicle to get the, you know, the, the, the Caesar salad

00:24:13.280 dressing and the croutons to your mouth. Right. Right. Right. But when you, when you

00:24:17.060 char it, you caramelize those sugars and it actually brings out those, the flavor

00:24:20.340 that, that was not there. You just don't notice it until you char it. Interesting.

00:24:23.840 So that's why it's delicious. So it's right on the front page of the website. I

00:24:27.060 mean, it's just, it's great. It's, it's something we do. I literally do it all the

00:24:31.460 time. Anytime I'm doing a steak, I'll do steaks. When I pull my steaks off to rest,

00:24:35.820 I throw the lettuce on. It takes four or five minutes for my steak to rest. That's as long

00:24:39.400 as it takes to grill the lettuce. And I've got instant cool side dish to go along with

00:24:42.960 my steaks. Yeah, that's cool. We'll make, we'll make sure we make a link on the, uh,

00:24:46.780 on the show notes to that article so we can check that out. It sounds like it's

00:24:50.040 just a ton of trial and error, like willing to mess up, willing to, to botch

00:24:53.020 a few things, but in order, it sounds to me like, yeah, eating, eating the food that

00:24:57.960 we're cooking is, is important, but just as important as the experiment and the

00:25:02.560 process of cooking it. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know,

00:25:05.340 like let's talk about ribs and the foiling. So like one of the methods I learned

00:25:08.260 on that, the football website was you gotta do the three, two, one method. So you smoke

00:25:12.200 your ribs for three hours and you throw them in foil for two hours and you put

00:25:15.100 them back on the grill for one hour. And what that makes is really overdone, super

00:25:18.820 fall off the bone ribs. And that's fine. Those are good ribs. You know, I'll eat

00:25:22.720 those, but I don't, I don't prefer them that done. I like them, um, more competition.

00:25:26.480 So they have a, they're, they're tender, but they have a clean bite. You know, like

00:25:29.300 take one bite and the bone falls out of the meat. Right. And, and so I, I kept playing

00:25:34.040 with that method. I'm like, I, I don't want these, this, this overdone. So I kept cutting

00:25:37.940 it back. And then finally I just came down to, you know what, I'm just going to raise

00:25:40.160 the temperature to 300 and I cook my baby back two hours straight. I don't do

00:25:44.080 anything. I don't move them. I don't touch them. I don't, I don't do anything. I

00:25:47.960 just put them on for two hours, almost exactly two hours. The bones are peaking

00:25:50.960 out about, about, you know, a third to a half an inch and I know they're

00:25:54.040 perfectly done and I take them inside. Um, you know, but that's the thing. I kept

00:25:59.320 hearing this three, two, one method. I was like, you know, it's too long. I'm

00:26:01.520 going to try three, one, one. And they were still too long. And then, you know, two

00:26:04.860 and a half, one, and I kept, kept playing with it. I, when I first did my first

00:26:08.960 brisket, I did one a week for about five weeks, um, to, to perfect it. And

00:26:14.320 like my family was like so sick of brisket. I'm like, yeah, but that was

00:26:18.720 before you guys, are you guys grilling every night though? I mean, it sounds

00:26:21.960 like you're doing a ton. No, well, there's three of us and, um, I don't like

00:26:25.840 I, I grilled, I grilled yesterday. Um, I grill, I grill about once a week if I, if

00:26:31.280 I'm lucky. What we do is, uh, my cousin, dad and I will get together about once a

00:26:36.000 month and all three, and we'll just get it at one house and we'll just grill

00:26:38.740 like six, seven recipes. And my goal is to have a post up a week. And so if we

00:26:44.060 can get six, seven recipes and, and, and I can have that rolling out and that way

00:26:47.480 if we, if we miss a few couple of weeks before the next one, the next monthly

00:26:51.060 meeting or so, then I still have content to throw up there and, and, you know,

00:26:55.100 have ready. Let's talk about wood. Cause I think you mentioned, did you say red

00:26:59.620 oak? I think is what you said a little bit ago. Is there other types of woods that

00:27:03.520 you would recommend that we cook with that, that, um, brings out the flavor

00:27:06.900 enhances the flavor that much more? Yeah. Well basically, so yeah, I have the,

00:27:09.820 the actual, the most popular post on the website, which is not anywhere near the

00:27:12.480 front page, but it's, it's, it's the smokewoods post. So I just took, um, looked

00:27:16.760 around the web at every list of smokewood and kind of combined it in my own. And I

00:27:19.800 still think it's the biggest list. I'm not, I haven't researched that in a while,

00:27:23.040 but, um, basically there are certain rules like, um, any fruit wood will work even if

00:27:29.220 it's like an ornamental tree. So like, uh, um, a Bradford Cleveland pear.

00:27:33.300 I mean, you're not eating those pears, those little, you know, you're not eating

00:27:36.360 those things, but it's, you can, you can cook with that or like a double blossom

00:27:39.440 cherry or a crab apple. It's just almost identical to apple wood. Peach, you know,

00:27:45.560 I love, I love peach is probably my favorite pear. I love too. Then of course you've

00:27:49.520 got your hardwood. So, you know, oak is great. Um, red oak is, is, it makes a really

00:27:54.300 nice smoke ring. Pecan is great with beef. Hickory is kind of good with everything,

00:27:58.940 but can be overpowering. So if you're not ready for the, you don't want that much

00:28:02.120 smoke, I cut it with like some apple or some pear to kind of tone it down.

00:28:05.980 Fruitwoods are usually a little milder than the, than the, than the hardwoods.

00:28:09.860 Some people argue that the wood's got to be aged, you know, it's going to be super

00:28:13.640 all the way dry. Um, again, I'm going to quote Myron Mixon on this and he, he goes

00:28:17.800 and gets the, uh, freshest, um, greenest peach wood. It's, he likes the sap that's

00:28:23.020 still in the wood. Oh, right. With it. So again, I'm going to go with the, you know,

00:28:26.620 he's one of the icons of barbecue. So, um, I've, I've cooked, I've done it. I, uh,

00:28:30.760 I cooked with, with, uh, a branch off of a Bradford pear. We cut off that morning

00:28:35.680 and cooked it that evening. And I cooked for a, uh, uh, the food editor, uh, the

00:28:39.240 local paper. So who has got one heck of a pallet and he didn't say, Oh, is this

00:28:43.740 green wood? You know? So really? Yeah. So he didn't know. Yeah. People will argue

00:28:47.400 that. And I'm like, I guarantee you couldn't decide if I put, you know, five fruit or

00:28:53.020 five, uh, green and five, uh, you know, seasoned woods in front of you, meals in

00:28:56.840 front of you that were smoked with that. Nobody would be able to nail half of

00:28:59.980 them. Yeah. We've used, um, peach, we've used pecan, cedar, I think is maybe one that

00:29:05.780 we've used. I don't know. Cedar is for planking. You don't want to smoke, um, too

00:29:10.100 long with, with a, with, with a basically a pine, you know, cedar is kind of, right.

00:29:15.780 So you're planking and a lot of the, what's the flavor from the plank is not

00:29:18.940 really from the smoke. It's from the oils. So, uh, and you're, you know, you're

00:29:22.260 putting salmon on there for like, you know, a half an hour. You're not

00:29:24.900 smoking, um, a brisket for 15 hours with cedar. You, right. You wouldn't want

00:29:29.540 that. So where do you get this wood? I mean, some of those are local for us.

00:29:33.380 Peach and pecan are local here. Um, where does somebody get access to those woods

00:29:38.180 if they're not local? How do you get your hands on that stuff? Um, well, you can

00:29:42.700 order it online and you pay a boatload on shipping. I mean, I bet I pay a lot. Um,

00:29:47.180 there's a place here in town. Um, uh, St. Louis home fires has a great selection.

00:29:52.220 I don't know where they're getting it from. Um, but they've got to just, I mean,

00:29:55.220 apricot and, and orange and lemon and, you know, cause he's, he's sipping up,

00:30:00.020 shipping up by the pallet. So he's getting, you know, cheaper. Right. And he's got,

00:30:03.400 you know, grapevines and, you know, all this great, great woods. So I, when I go

00:30:06.680 there, I mean, I, you know, I don't spend less than a hundred bucks on smokewoods,

00:30:09.200 you know, apricot, nectarine, and I mean, you know, all this great stuff and plum.

00:30:14.240 Um, um, but you know, it's hit or miss. You know, I had somebody from Australia

00:30:19.060 told me about some wood and, um, and, uh, he told me, you got to try this, this

00:30:23.260 wood from New Zealand. And he shipped me some, um, to my cousin's, uh, um, post

00:30:28.200 office box. I'm like, you know, he's like, you sure you want to ship it a post

00:30:31.760 office box? I'm like, you're a guy on the internet and you're asking for my

00:30:34.820 address. Yeah. Right. That's a good plan. Right. So he's, he's never given me the

00:30:39.080 wood. This has been about six months since he's gotten it. I'm like, yeah, I want to

00:30:41.940 try this, whatever this is. I can't remember the name. It saved my life.

00:30:44.240 And there's also, there's a Hawaiian wood that's like called Kiwa or Kauai or

00:30:48.980 something like Ki-I-W-K-I-W-A-I or something like that that I want to try and 0.99

00:30:52.720 never had. And that's what I'm intrigued now about is I want to try some of that,

00:30:56.820 um, like the, the, the, the South Africans, they, they, they, they call barbecue

00:31:00.460 braai, B-R-A-A-I. And they have certain woods there you just can't get here that

00:31:04.980 I'd like to try. You know what I mean? And Australian is, I mean, that's the kind of 0.92

00:31:07.660 stuff that I'm interested in now. I've tried most of the main, main ones, but you

00:31:12.040 know, that's what I'm interested in. Yeah. Getting a little bit more exotic,

00:31:15.240 right? Although I don't know if I want, ignorance is bliss though. I don't know if

00:31:18.120 I want to, uh, you know, try it and go, God, this is the best stuff ever. And I

00:31:21.560 got to, and then you're stuck. I'm shipping it in from South Africa. That's right.

00:31:26.020 It could turn into a really expensive hobby at that point. So I'm going to, I'm

00:31:30.100 going to bring up a question that, um, it may be blasphemous. I don't know to you,

00:31:33.900 but, uh, we've got to address it. We've been talking a lot about wood and I know

00:31:37.840 there's maybe a trend or I've seen a lot more of some of like these electric pellet

00:31:42.480 type grills. Give me your thoughts on those. Um, you know what? Smoke is smoke. So if

00:31:48.200 people say, you know, it should be charcoal. Well, if you're getting the flavor from the

00:31:53.540 charcoal into your food, you're doing it wrong. Okay. Most charcoal people are using

00:31:59.140 their briquettes. They're filled with petroleum products and fillers. Right. Okay. Well, that's

00:32:03.180 where they came from, right? I mean like Ford factories, you know? Right. Um, and, and

00:32:07.540 I'll tell you, so we were, we've been using a lump for a long time. We use a local product

00:32:11.100 here from St. Louis called Rockwood, a really great stuff. It's all a hundred percent hardwood

00:32:15.140 and it's really good lump charcoal, but we've been using it for a while. We were teaching

00:32:18.700 a class at a local cooking school and they didn't carry the Rockwood and they asked if we

00:32:23.700 would use the stuff they carried. And it was a brickhead and we were lighting these

00:32:28.140 charcoal grills inside. Now I don't recommend this and don't do it. We were

00:32:33.080 giving the okay from a, a, um, fire chief literally came in and did an inspection.

00:32:38.200 We had these two grills underneath giant industrial hoods. Oh, right. Right. And they

00:32:43.900 said, you're fine. You'll be okay. Well, not really. The hoods couldn't keep up with

00:32:47.460 the smoke. So we had to take them out. But while we were lighting them inside, I was

00:32:51.360 like, what is that smell? And I'm like, it's the charcoal. And I, I, I had been using brick

00:32:55.940 this lump for over a year, about a year at the time. And when I liked this stuff, I

00:33:00.420 let it outside. So I don't really get a good whiff of it, but it was kind of concentrated

00:33:03.300 inside. I was like, man, that smells terrible. So we literally had to take these lit grills,

00:33:08.220 carry them outside, down the stairs and outside. And that kind of told me that, Hey, I'm never

00:33:12.580 going to really use that, the, the standard briquettes anymore because while yes, it is

00:33:17.140 kind of blown away outside, but when you close the grill, it's concentrated around your

00:33:21.160 food. Right. That's not good. So the pellets are cleaner, you know, it's, it's got more

00:33:27.200 pure smoke of the, of the smoke you want to have in your meat. So I, I've never actually

00:33:32.040 cooked on a pellet smoker. I have no problem with them. I'm not a, I'm not a snob against

00:33:35.940 them. Um, and you know, I, I use gas a lot and I use, um, gas basically during the week

00:33:41.940 and charcoal, my lump charcoal and my Kamado on the weekend. And that's kind of, that's

00:33:46.780 kind of the way it is that the pellets, you know, whatever. I mean, the, the bigger thing

00:33:50.120 that freaks people out are the, uh, the, the, just the gas or the gas or electric smokers

00:33:54.300 that all they really have is an element in a box and a metal box. Right. Right.

00:33:58.320 So they put a pan, it looks like a pipe pan in the bottom and throw in a chunk of

00:34:02.040 wood. And I'm like, well, that's not really drilling. It's still smoking. You

00:34:07.680 know what I mean? Right. You know, I, yeah, it's, it looks kind of like a, a

00:34:11.260 little, uh, you know, a little closet, you know, a little, a little wine fridge

00:34:14.080 sometimes. But if it's putting good smoke and it's keeping good temperatures, that's

00:34:19.100 all, that's a goal. Who cares if it looks like a wine fridge? Yeah. As long as it

00:34:22.720 works and it produces a good result. Exactly. So let's talk about you. I

00:34:26.420 think you, you mentioned that you do some competitions. Is that right? We

00:34:30.200 don't, we don't compete. It doesn't, it doesn't behoove us. If we, if we, if we

00:34:35.320 win a competition, they're going to go, well, you get this website, you're

00:34:38.180 right for charter. Of course you should win. Right. If we lose, they're going to go,

00:34:40.540 what the hell's wrong with you? Right. So we don't, what we do is we throw a

00:34:44.240 competition every year, um, that benefits like, um, either like first

00:34:48.180 responders or, or veterans or, you know, or, you know, so soldiers that we've, we've

00:34:53.080 done wounded warrior. Uh, we've done local, um, um, fire departments. We're doing a

00:34:57.300 local, um, volunteer fire department this year and we throw basically a charity

00:35:01.060 competition for them. And that's how we kind of get our fix on the competition,

00:35:06.000 right? Organized. Right. So you're hosting them. And we're there and we're around

00:35:10.060 those guys and we're, you know, we're chatting up and we're sampling and all that.

00:35:13.640 Um, but no, we're not competing. And the other thing is we, we just don't, we don't

00:35:18.320 have the time. I mean, I don't have the time to do it with, um, you, you, you, the

00:35:22.900 thing about competition is, is timing. You've got to, uh, you know, like a KCBS

00:35:27.760 competition, you, you're turning in four categories in two hours. So every 30 minutes

00:35:31.960 you're turning in something that may have taken you 12 hours of smoke. Wow. Yeah.

00:35:35.620 You know, and, and you've got to get it to with, to write on time and get it to the

00:35:39.280 judges and perfect, you know, I don't, I don't need that extra stress in my

00:35:42.980 life. The guys that do it, man, they're all about it. And I, you know, if I had no

00:35:47.320 kids at home and, you know, and, and, you know, at the time I would probably do it

00:35:51.480 because I think there's a rush to it, but you know, right now, you know, I don't

00:35:54.940 have time to practice my timing, like, you know, three nights a week before

00:35:58.260 competition. I get that. I get that. I'm with you. What do you think separates the

00:36:03.160 guys who are competing, whether it's in the things that you're holding or some of

00:36:05.980 these other competitions, obviously flavors, important tenderness. What are some

00:36:09.420 other things, factors that are separating the winners from the losers in those

00:36:12.420 competitions? A lot of, a lot of it, a lot of it really isn't. It's a, it's a,

00:36:15.960 it's the lowest score on the sheet is presentation, but I'm going to tell you

00:36:19.860 that's, that, that goes a lot towards what people perceive the flavor to be.

00:36:25.560 Oh, I bet. And I just got to, I just was able to spend some time with Oklahoma Joe

00:36:29.360 who owns Oklahoma Joe's. His name is Joe Davidson and he owns Oklahoma Joe's

00:36:34.260 restaurants. He used to own Oklahoma Joe barbecue pits that he sold at Charbroil.

00:36:37.820 Um, he cooked for us and then he talked to us and he said, you know what? It's all

00:36:43.800 going to taste pretty good. You, you make yours prettier than the next guy and it's

00:36:46.700 going to make a difference. Um, really? And the other thing is you can't make it

00:36:51.140 sweet enough. Um, Johnny Trigg says that his, he won't eat his, his competition

00:36:56.560 ribs are too, the too damn sweet. He said, I won't eat them. They're too damn sweet.

00:37:00.580 Really? But your judge is only taking one. If you're lucky, two bites.

00:37:04.520 Yeah. So they're not getting the whole rib. So you got to load it up with so much

00:37:08.480 flavor that that one bite is better than the other guy's one bite. You know, if

00:37:12.060 you're going to eat a half a slab of ribs, you know, you don't want to, you don't

00:37:15.060 want it to be, you know, going to die bed of coma, you know, halfway through. But

00:37:18.600 I'm serious, man. These guys loaded up. It's, it's all about, and then you got to

00:37:23.220 load up with sugar and then you have to balance it out with, with some, some savory to

00:37:27.220 really nail it right. So, you know, it's a, it's a juggling act. So, you know,

00:37:31.240 that's the, the biggest things is, is just, you know, what's a great rib that you eat

00:37:35.720 a half a slab is not the same as a great rib in a competition. And that's, part of

00:37:40.320 me, I don't like that part of the competition because it's not really what's the better,

00:37:45.360 what's going to be a better. Right. What's a better meal. Right. If you wanted to go up

00:37:49.640 against me and your competition, I'm like, let's do this. We'll go, we'll get a couple

00:37:53.080 of judges, but they got to eat a half a slab of each of our ribs. I'm going to crush 0.81

00:37:56.900 you because by the time they're halfway through that, that rib, they're going to be, 0.96

00:38:00.740 you know, going to need an insulin injection. And for me, they're going to be like, that's

00:38:03.860 a real good rib. Makes sense. I've given the competition guys grief. They make great

00:38:07.740 stuff. They really do. But they, they know they have to load it up with more sweetness

00:38:10.600 than they would necessarily serve otherwise. So, uh, just part of the game. It sounds like

00:38:14.860 yeah. Let's go back to something you mentioned earlier. You talked about rubs. Is there a

00:38:20.300 secret to creating the right rub or having the right procedure or when you put it on or

00:38:24.980 how you apply it? What's the secret to a rub? Well, first make a good rub. You need,

00:38:28.780 you need balance. Like I said earlier, you need a balance, uh, sweet and savory, you know,

00:38:32.720 um, spicy and you know, not spicy basically. So you want to, um, you want to have a nuanced

00:38:38.360 rub that has more than just one flavor profile. You know, if you're going to be using a lot

00:38:41.860 of brown sugar, you want a lot of, uh, paprika and, and garlic powder or whatever you're going

00:38:45.840 to use. Um, high quality ingredients is obviously a big deal, but, um, I like to me, I don't sauce

00:38:52.360 very often. I just like to, I like to put a rub on my ribs or, or whatever, and then

00:38:56.980 throw them on the grill and, and, and smoke them and leave them on like that. So there

00:39:01.840 are a couple of tricks though, especially with the ribs. So when you, when you season

00:39:06.420 your ribs, um, after you skin the back, skin the memory, you want to season on the bone

00:39:12.080 side first. Okay. And the bone side is kind of concaved so that when you flip it over,

00:39:17.300 those bones will keep the meat up off the cutting board. Oh, right. Yeah. If you season

00:39:22.260 the meat side first, when you flip it over, it'll take all that rub off. It'll stick to

00:39:26.720 the cutting board. You'll have a stripe down the middle of your ribs where, where it all

00:39:30.020 right. And you have to reapply. Right. Okay. Put it on the bottom first and then put it

00:39:34.640 on the bottom and, and lay it on nice and thick and let it sit there for a minute. Don't

00:39:39.600 flip them over right away because it hasn't stuck yet. So let, let the, the, you know,

00:39:43.460 hit you, hit with the salt and then the rub. And what will happen is the salt will draw

00:39:47.620 some moisture out and that moisture will bind the rub to the, to the ribs. Interesting.

00:39:53.080 Then flip them over and do the other side, do the same thing and let them sit there before

00:39:58.020 you throw them on the grill. Interesting. I like that. That'll be a good trick. We'll

00:40:01.140 have to, we'll have to see what we can do there. I'm wondering if there's a, uh, maybe

00:40:04.620 a favorite recipe or a simple recipe that you can leave us with as a teaser for us to come

00:40:09.060 back and visit, uh, what you're doing over at Grilling Fools. Favorite recipe, simple,

00:40:13.140 let's see here. Um, um, you know, and I do weird stuff like, like one of my favorite

00:40:17.400 things to grill is crostinis and it's the thing that, that, that my, my family requests

00:40:22.260 more than anything is the crostini and, um, it's interesting. Crostini is basically, okay,

00:40:28.360 so I was unemployed just about 12 years ago and I was between jobs and, uh, I was watching

00:40:34.160 cooking shows a lot and I flipped to Wolfgang Puck and he was just at the very end of the

00:40:39.420 show. I didn't see him prepared and he goes, okay, now we're going to pull the crostini

00:40:42.780 out of the oven and crostini is just, it's just Italian for toasted bread. All right.

00:40:48.160 Right. And I just saw the finest product. I had no idea how he cooked it. And it was

00:40:51.460 pre, pre internet really. You couldn't just go and, you know, pull up. Yeah. You couldn't

00:40:55.200 just pull up how you did it. Right. So I made it on the grill and I, at the time dad and

00:40:59.740 I were doing guy night about once a month, which is steaks bigger in your foot, you know,

00:41:03.820 you know, beer, wine, and in like, you know, a movie with lots of explosions and, you know,

00:41:08.140 and, and gun battles. Right. Manly stuff. Yeah. And, and I made these for him. He's

00:41:12.100 like, these are incredible. And literally I have not really changed the recipe except

00:41:16.040 for a couple of minor tweaks in, in like a dozen years. And basically you take a baguette

00:41:20.380 of soft sided bread. It can't be a crunchy bread already cause it's a little bit. Okay.

00:41:24.880 So like a baguette, um, of sourdough baguette is my favorite. You slice it about, about a little,

00:41:31.180 like an inch and a quarter thick. And so you have a bunch of basically pucks of bread and

00:41:36.560 you, you pour a little oil into a bowl and you dunk each of the flat sides of the bread

00:41:41.060 into the oil to basically grease them. And this will keep them from burning. You hit, hit

00:41:45.800 them with black pepper, some basil and, and, and about a teaspoon, a teaspoon of minced garlic

00:41:54.220 per slice. Wow. Okay. Sounds like a lot. Now hold on. Yeah. Now, now you go slice up

00:41:59.880 some, some Havarti cheese and set that to the side. Now take these out to the grill

00:42:04.560 and you put them, put them on the grill with the toppings up on the hot side and just toast

00:42:10.520 them on the bottom. This will only take like 60 seconds. So don't even go inside for a

00:42:13.520 beer. If you walk away from these more than, more than, more than 60 seconds, you'll burn

00:42:17.000 the crap out of them. They're done. The oil makes it last from being burnt in 10 seconds 0.78

00:42:20.480 to about 60 seconds. Toast them on the bottom, then flip them over. This is why you put so

00:42:24.960 much garlic. Okay. You're going to lose a bunch of it. Flip them over and just toast

00:42:28.460 them on the top side. Again, 60 seconds. Take them up, put them on the side of the grill

00:42:33.920 with no heat. So you have two stone grilling here. Kohl's or burners on one side, nothing

00:42:38.500 on the other. Put them topping side back up again on the other side. Put a couple of

00:42:42.760 slices of that Havarti cheese on each one. Close the lid. Open the lid two minutes later.

00:42:47.140 That cheese will now have melted on the top and drizzled, started to go down the side,

00:42:50.640 sort of like a, like a French onion, French onion, like a, yeah, like a soup.

00:42:56.620 Yeah, yeah. French onion soup. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah. And then take

00:43:00.360 them off the grill and let them sit for about a minute because they're like molten lava at

00:43:03.860 this point. I bet.

00:43:05.040 And then serve them there. They're crunchy on the outside and they're soft in the middle

00:43:09.200 and there's just garlic and cheese and basil and it just, it's literally, the only thing

00:43:16.200 I've changed over the years is that instead of just slicing them straight, I slice them at

00:43:20.160 an angle on a bias and it gives them much more surface area. Okay. Yeah, interesting.

00:43:25.360 But if you're doing it for a crowd, you get more by going straight. Yeah, straight down.

00:43:29.680 And then my wife likes dill. So I changed it up by putting, instead of basil down, I put

00:43:35.480 dill and then put dill Havarti on top. So about, you know, there's about a third of the people

00:43:41.000 that don't like the dill, but most of them do. So.

00:43:44.180 Cool. Well, Scott, we're winding down on time. I do have a couple other questions. The first

00:43:48.960 one, just for the sake of time, is there an article that I can connect to on your site about

00:43:53.940 how to properly clean your grill? I don't have that because.

00:43:58.020 Really? Okay.

00:43:58.720 Yeah. You know what? That's, that's usually what people do when they go to store it away

00:44:03.180 for like the winter, you know? And I don't. So.

00:44:06.820 That's true. Good point.

00:44:07.660 You know, I, I, you know, what I tell people is just, you know, before and after you're done

00:44:13.760 grilling, give it a brush. Okay. You could probably get away with only doing one or the other,

00:44:19.840 but I tend to do both, you know, like I, you know, I brush it down before I brush it

00:44:23.920 down after. And, uh, and that's pretty much all you need to do. So there's a, there's

00:44:28.620 a new grill brush that Charbroil makes it that doesn't require the grill to be hot and

00:44:32.360 it cleans really well. So it looks like a funky toothbrush almost the way that the bristles

00:44:36.380 are angled. And then, and then of course, you know, you want to do it. Sometimes you've

00:44:39.980 got a lot of, you know, like barbecue sauce or sauces that are on there that are kind

00:44:43.320 of caked on there. You want to get it hot and hit with a wire brush, but that's dangerous

00:44:46.820 too. Cause they're finding these wire brushes are made so cheap now that the, uh, the metal

00:44:50.640 wires are coming off and people are swallowing them. So be careful. Um, but if you, if you

00:44:56.220 keep it good and clean, so that stuff doesn't really build up like that, it's hard for a

00:45:00.800 piece of wire to hide in that, that the gunk because you've kept it clean. So I would just

00:45:05.680 say, keep it clean and keep it, keep it going. And if you, if you are going to shut it down

00:45:09.060 over the year, I would, I would hit it with some oil before I do to keep it from brusting

00:45:11.940 over the, over the year. It sounds like what you're telling me is that the best way

00:45:16.100 to not worry about cleaning your grill real heavy like that is never having to worry about

00:45:19.520 putting it away and keep it out all year long. Right. Cause you know, when you put it away,

00:45:23.000 you put it away for that, you're going to, you're, you're risking, risking rust really

00:45:26.360 bad. You know, like if you have a gas grill, the, the, the, the death to a gas grill is

00:45:32.180 the, the grease that drips out of the meat and, um, and hits those, those components, you

00:45:37.160 know, and, and it, it erodes them. And then, you know, if you're kind of keep using them,

00:45:40.820 it'll burn that stuff up. And if you let it, you know, you cook for the last time

00:45:43.580 and you put it away, that grease is just going to sit there and do its magic there for a year

00:45:47.660 and yeah, and eat that stuff. Yeah. Makes sense. Well, Scott, this has been an awesome

00:45:51.660 conversation. We've covered a lot of topics. If, uh, the men that are listening, want to

00:45:54.920 connect with you, learn more about grilling fools and what you guys are doing. How do we 0.95

00:45:58.320 connect with you? Well, you can obviously go to grill and fools.com G R I L L I N fools.com. 0.94

00:46:03.420 We're informal here. There's no second G on that grilling. Uh, we're on Facebook. We're on

00:46:07.900 Twitter. Uh, we're on Pinterest. I know it sounds crazy. There are guys, there are guys

00:46:12.580 on Pinterest and I get, I get a ton, a ton of ideas from Pinterest. I'm telling you,

00:46:16.720 it's, it's the best place to get ideas other than my website on grilling. And, um, I'm on

00:46:20.840 Instagram now too. And, um, literally, um, if you want to see what I'm doing on a daily

00:46:25.840 basis, I usually put up 10 or 15 things on Instagram. I do. I'll pull up something from

00:46:30.160 the archive. Um, I put that, that, that bread I grilled yesterday, I put that on all day

00:46:34.400 today. Yesterday I put up some of the sickest crosshatch grill marks you've ever seen on

00:46:39.620 a steak. And I took video of me flipping it. So it's real, like, you know, here it is.

00:46:43.760 There's only one. Oh yeah. Real time. Yeah. And that 15 second window you have.

00:46:46.820 There's only one take. I can't like, you know, go ahead and just go pitch this $20 steak

00:46:51.040 and start over. You know, I, I, so, and I did it, I did it on both sides. There's a video.

00:46:55.520 So it's, it's basically it's, it's, you know, Facebook, it's grilling fools. Pinterest is 0.98

00:46:59.500 grilling fools. Um, Instagram is grilling fools, but on Twitter, it's grilling fool. 1.00

00:47:03.520 I started it before we were grilling fools.com and I already had a following. So it's still 0.94

00:47:08.080 grilling fool. But yeah, I saw that you were on Instagram, um, this morning, in fact, so 0.95

00:47:12.160 I've connected with you there. And so, yeah, the food looks delicious. I'm going to be jumping

00:47:15.460 on your website, getting some recipes for me this summer. Scott, I really appreciate your

00:47:19.280 time and you being on the show and sharing some insights about how to, uh, be better at

00:47:23.200 the grill. Hey man, I appreciate you having me on. I could do this, you know, we can, we

00:47:26.260 do this weekly if you wanted to. We might, we might need to, that'll work. Let's do it.

00:47:31.220 I'd love to do that. All right. Thanks, Scott. All right, buddy.

00:47:33.520 Thanks for joining us today, men. You now have some tools and resources at your disposal

00:47:38.420 to help you work around the grill. But like Scott mentioned several times throughout the

00:47:42.360 interview and the podcast, you have got to get to work, experiment, try some new things,

00:47:46.420 fail, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a grill master yourself. So I hope that you

00:47:51.240 enjoyed the show. As always, I ask you leave a rating and review for the podcast. Uh, again,

00:47:56.200 we are close to the a hundred mark. We're trying to break a hundred. Uh, we've got,

00:48:00.640 I believe 90 or so five-star rating and reviews. I'd love for one of those to be yours. So if you

00:48:08.800 would please head over to order of man.com slash iTunes and leave us a rating and review. Also go

00:48:16.360 check out the show notes for this show and all of our other shows at order of man.com slash zero one

00:48:21.220 five. Now next week, I have a conversation with retired Navy seal commander that you will not,

00:48:26.740 not want to miss. We talk about resilience, mental toughness, and what separates successful men from

00:48:32.960 the rest. So make sure you subscribe to the show. If you haven't done so already at order of man.com

00:48:37.460 slash iTunes. So you do not miss that episode or any other episode we put out there guys. I look

00:48:43.400 forward to talking with you next week, but until then take action and become the man you were meant to

00:48:48.360 be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:48:54.040 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - June 30, 2015

OoM 015： How to Grill Like a Man with Scott Thomas

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