Making the most of out salt and pepper

Whole peppercorns slightly toasted with salt flakes in a frypan then ground.
Frypan brings out the peppercorn oils:thumb:

That's all I'm using tomorrow for my smoked pork bones.

I’ve been using salt and different kinds of pepper on brisket lately and even did a rack of spares with this mix last week;



I read that one of the well-known Texas pit masters uses a seven pepper mix, so I’m looking for some more peppers.

The bark was excellent by the way!

Kosher salt and course ground (preferably fresh) pepper is a staple of TX BBQ.


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I did my last brisket with just salt and pepper. It was the best one I've ever done, although I think that had more to do with the fact that it was a prime grade brisket.

It doesn't make any difference what kind of salt you use; it's all just sodium chloride. But you should be mindful of the effects the different sizes of crystals have on the amount of salt you're using. Regular table salt has more salt per unit volume than kosher or other coarse salts (due to less air space).

Black pepper is best if you grind your own fresh peppercorns. But I think you're more likely to notice the difference on a Caesar salad than on something you're going to cook for 12+ hours.

I'm going to go against the grain here (get it)

salt. quality matters. kosher or sea salt. iodine salt burns. get med to course flakes.

pepper. for rubs I prefer preground. it's a more mellow taste so the meat can take more and when I grind it myself I get dust to deal with, for rubs i want only the coarse bits.

now I take all the guess work out and use Q-salt

Bludawg recommendation for S&P


BluDawgs Brisket

K.I S.S. some of the best brisket you will ever eat! Total cook time including the rest 8 hrs or less. I promise it will be as moist as mornin dew on the lilly, tender as a mothers love, pure beefy smoky goodness.

1 packer 12-15 lb
Trim off the hard fat on each side of the flat thin the fat cap to 1/4"

Mix your Rub
1 part kosher salt 4 parts Med grind Black peppa by volume( this is a true 50/50 BY weight)
apply a coat of rub you need to be able to see the meat through the rub clearly.

Pre heat the pit to 300 deg
place brisket on the pit Fat Cap Down and point to the firebox unless it is a RF cooker then point to away from FB

Maintain pit between 275-325 if cookin on a stick burner
cook Brisket 4 hrs
remove from pit wrap in a single layer of Butcher paper Return to pit Fat cap up.
after 1 hr probe the thicket part of the Flat only! If it isn't *probe tender it should be within 1 hr.
once it is probe tender remove from the pit keep it wrapped in the paper you cooked it in and allow it to rest on your counter until the Internal temp reaches 150 this will take about two hrs.
Don't ever slice more than you can eat big pieces retain moisture and won't dry up on you like slices will.
*PROBE TENDER>This is the feel that is mimicked by cutting room temperature butter with a hot knife, there should be no drag

Bludawg nailed it long ago. An excellent tutorial.
In the MSU realm of things- where my mind wanders most of the time- Ive read where cooks will blend 3 equally different grinds of pepper- still 50/50 by weight but the pepper will have a fine medium and coarse. Salt- the most consistent I’ve used is Morton’s Kosher Salt. Blue bottle with Umbrella. I’ve also used Himalayan Sea Salt.

I like pepper- so I usually use 50/50 by volume then finish with a another hit of restaurant grade coarse dustless black pepper and some cracked peppercorns.

In my defense I seldom do the same thing twice.

Good luck.

50/50 Kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper = Knock your socks off Brisket!

Fresh cracked black pepper or medium pre-ground.

Very fussy about salt. Haven't kept regular table salt in the house in 20 years. Has a bitter, metallic taste. Use kosher salt for boiling potatoes and pasta. Use celtic sea salt for everything else. Buy it in 22# bags that last me 4-5 years. It is course so needs a salt grinder for table use. Very mild taste. No bitterness.



Light Grey Celtic® Sea Salt

I use salt and pepper only often,especially if I am doing a large cook for a crowd.Simple,Tastee,cheap and quick.I usually only experiment with rubs and such when cooking for the family and a few friends

monkey uncle said:

it doesn't make any difference what kind of salt you use; it's all just sodium chloride.

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wrong.

I will allow that different sizes and shapes of salt crystals affect how the salt is applied. For this reason, I use kosher, because it is easy to over-do it when applying finely ground table salt that you can't see very well once it hits the meat. And if you are applying salt to already cooked food, I can see the potential for impurities and additives in the different types of salt to affect the taste. But I seriously doubt that anyone is going to taste the difference in the salt that was used on a piece of meat before it was cooked for many hours.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/different-types-of-salt

Kosher salt will have a different texture and flavor burst, but if you allow the salt to dissolve in the food, then there really isn't any difference compared to regular table salt.

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Foodies and chefs primarily choose their salt based on taste, texture, color and convenience.

The impurities, including the trace minerals, can affect both the color and taste of the salt.

The size of the salt can also affect how the salty flavor hits the tongue. Salt with a larger grain size can have a stronger flavor and last longer on your tongue.

However, if you allow the salt to dissolve in the food, then there shouldn't be any major taste difference between plain refined salt and the other "gourmet" types of salt.

If you like to use your fingers to sprinkle salt on food, then dry salts with a larger grain size are much easier to handle.

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Using fancy gourmet salt on BBQ is a waste of money, IMHO.

There are no issues with being fussy about your S&P. It's always good to try and better your cooks. That why folks got away from using just salt and started concocting various rubs...an infinite number of rubs. But at it's essence, barbecue was, and is, traditionally seasoned with salt.

While there are no issues in my opinion with using some gourmet salt, I have to say...my grandfater, and his grandfather, just used plain 'ol everyday salt. They cooked barbecue the way it was intended from the beginning. We only started screwing it up in the last couple of generations.

Now don't think I have an issue with using rubs and various seasonings. Not at all. I will cook barbecue that is highly seasoned & smoked. But when tradition calls, I use "normal" non-iodized table salt & little to no wood smoke. That's barbecue in it's essence....cooked for generations up until the last 50 years or so.

Cooks Illustrated tested a variety of salts. Here's what they had to say.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/taste_tests/51-salt

Although they didn't test on a large piece of pre-cooked meat, I think their dissolved-in-liquids test is pretty indicative of what happens when salt is dissolved into a large hunk of meat:

In the spring water, chicken stock, and pasta cooking water, tasters felt that all nine salts tasted pretty much the same. Why didn't the fancy sea salts beat the pants off plain table salt in these tests? The main reason is dilution. Yes, sea salts sampled right from the box (or sprinkled on meat at the table) did taste better than table salt. And while crystal size did undoubtedly affect flavor perception in the tenderloin test, we suspect that our tasters were also responding favorably to trace minerals in these salts. But mineral content is so low in sea salt that any effect these minerals might have on flavor was lost when a teaspoon of salt was stirred into a big pot of chicken stock.

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And their take-home message:

What, then, can we conclude from the results of these tests? For one, expensive sea salts are best saved for the table, where their delicate flavor and great crunch can be appreciated. Don't waste $36-a-pound sea salt by sprinkling it into a simmering stew. If you like to keep coarse salt in a ramekin next to the stove, choose a kosher salt, which costs just pennies per pound. If you measure salt by the teaspoon when cooking, use table salt, which is also the best choice for baking.

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Monkey Uncle said:

I will allow that different sizes and shapes of salt crystals affect how the salt is applied. For this reason, I use kosher, because it is easy to over-do it when applying finely ground table salt that you can't see very well once it hits the meat. And if you are applying salt to already cooked food, I can see the potential for impurities and additives in the different types of salt to affect the taste. But I seriously doubt that anyone is going to taste the difference in the salt that was used on a piece of meat before it was cooked for many hours.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/different-types-of-salt





Using fancy gourmet salt on BBQ is a waste of money, IMHO.

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It’s your opinion...
It’s wrong...but you are still allowed to have it :becky:

I am 3.5 years into my mission to prove to the BBQ world that Salt is the single most important ingredient in your bbq rubs.

Being from NC where salt is the only seasoning used on pork, I found out a long time ago, type and size of salt does matter.

The “fancy gourmet salt” is all we use in our seasoning blends and is all I will use on my bbq.

Our seasonings are incredibly popular.. not because we add a bunch of other spices (we don’t add but a few select herbs and spices to our “fancy gourmet salt”), but because the salt is superior to any other mass marketed seasonings on the market.

So I do encourage you to step outside the salt box (yes I went there [emoji4] )and see what you are missing.