How much air flow on a backyard offset

I'm glad you got a handle on your air flow situation.

The frustrating thing to me is all the companies design/build their units differently- there are some commonalities -but they had reasons for making the changes: baffles, throat openings, firebox design, stack dimensions, collectors, elbows- it is very confusing.

It's little wonder that some of the Brethren's suggestions did not agree with what you postulated and wondered about. It's ok to disagree-

nevermind

Lynn Dollar said:

No, that's not what this is about. This is about improving a smoker to get better barbecue.


If Aaron Franklin had not " stressed the details " Texas barbecue would not be what it is today.


If ya don't want to work at it, get a pellet pooper.

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Lol you resurrected your year older thread to throw rocks at people?

I would not have responded if I had noticed that. Glad you figured out your smoker…

Oh and thx for the suggestion on a PG… I have two and a whole bunch of other smokers. None of them took me more than a few cooks to figure out though…

This thread was exhausting...I need a nap

Lynn Dollar said:

If Aaron Franklin had not " stressed the details " Texas barbecue would not be what it is today.
.

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Wow, I'm pretty sure Texas was well known for BBQ Brisket long before he was born. But I'm willing to listen, ....eagerly. What specifically did AF introduce to the Texas BBQ scene that has been adopted by a significant percentage of BBQ joints or backyard cooks in Texas? Which ones of the following stopped doing BBQ in the manner that made them famous, and started doing it AF's way?

• Black's Barbecue (Lockhart)
• Smitty's Market (Lockhart)
• The Salt Lick (Driftwood and Round Rock)
• Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor)
• Kreuz Market (Lockhart)
• Snow's BBQ (Lexington)
• City Market BBQ (Luling)

Without Muellers in Taylor you have no Franklin. Franklin is a better marketer of his product.

I know how to fix the problem for $4000 bucks
MOBERG..
FYI
Franklin has a video cooking a Brisket on a Old Country..

I was actually looking at old country’s website and reached out what it would cost to make one similar to franklins.

oldgfbbq said:

Wow, I'm pretty sure Texas was well known for BBQ Brisket long before he was born. But I'm willing to listen, ....eagerly. What specifically did AF introduce to the Texas BBQ scene that has been adopted by a significant percentage of BBQ joints or backyard cooks in Texas? Which ones of the following stopped doing BBQ in the manner that made them famous, and started doing it AF's way?

• Black's Barbecue (Lockhart)
• Smitty's Market (Lockhart)
• The Salt Lick (Driftwood and Round Rock)
• Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor)
• Kreuz Market (Lockhart)
• Snow's BBQ (Lexington)
• City Market BBQ (Luling)

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I would argue that Louie Mueller has somewhat updated their product while a lot of the others haven't. I've been to Snow's and the brisket wasn't that impressive. I think they are better known for other things. Most of them have fallen of the Texas Top 50 list other than Snow's and Louie Mueller(Maybe Kreuz is hanging on?). But there are Franklin/John Lewis brisket clones everywhere now. They started using high quality prime brisket. They started trimming the brisket for the product they wanted to present. They started wrapping in butcher paper. They started cooking the brisket to a level of tenderness that others weren't. People were cooking briskets to 190. Now we are seeing them around 200 and what not. They understood how to hold brisket.

Now any of the things I've said you could probably cut and paste point by point and show where somewhere else did it first, but they put it all together.
Back before 2008 or so I'd go to a BBQ counter in Texas. They'd pull out a brisket that was dying in a steam tray. They'd take the back of their knife and scrape off the fatcap leaving no seasoning, throw the fatty over to the side for chop and serve you some of the blandest brisket you've ever had.

I went through many years really wondering what people saw in brisket because by and large it mostly sucked. Franklin deserves a lot of credit for changing that.

Dustin Dorsey said:

I would argue that Louie Mueller has somewhat updated their product while a lot of the others haven't. I've been to Snow's and the brisket wasn't that impressive. I think they are better known for other things. Most of them have fallen of the Texas Top 50 list other than Snow's and Louie Mueller(Maybe Kreuz is hanging on?). But there are Franklin/John Lewis brisket clones everywhere now. They started using high quality prime brisket. They started trimming the brisket for the product they wanted to present. They started wrapping in butcher paper. They started cooking the brisket to a level of tenderness that others weren't. People were cooking briskets to 190. Now we are seeing them around 200 and what not. They understood how to hold brisket.

Now any of the things I've said you could probably cut and paste point by point and show where somewhere else did it first, but they put it all together.
Back before 2008 or so I'd go to a BBQ counter in Texas. They'd pull out a brisket that was dying in a steam tray. They'd take the back of their knife and scrape off the fatcap leaving no seasoning, throw the fatty over to the side for chop and serve you some of the blandest brisket you've ever had.

I went through many years really wondering what people saw in brisket because by and large it mostly sucked. Franklin deserves a lot of credit for changing that.

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Was Texas BBQ that bad before AF? It seems hard to believe but I don't live there and wouldn't know from personal experience. It does seem bold to suggest AF has completely changed the game from a state that has.been perfecting the craft for decades maybe even more then that.

Those legendary central Texas places are good and remain good. I know Louis Mueller was using white butcher paper to rest briskets for example but I don't think it's bold at all to say Franklin changed the game. And to put some perspective on it, people have really only been focused on briskets since the 60's. There are other people who changed the game as well.

Also those original locations do what they always do, but Terry Blacks for instance does a Franklin style brisket. Kreuz an Smitty's do the same ol' same ol' but Lockhart Smokehouse for instance, owned by the same family does a more modern style brisket.

I grew up in Austin and the brisket game has definitely been upped since I was a kid. I think that is 100% attributable to AF. Nobody drove to the other side of town for BBQ except the rare times we drove out to the Salt Lick. It just wasn't a thing back then. Hell, from what I can remember everyone made more of an effort drive to go to PF Changs when it first opened in North Austin then to ever get BBQ. BBQ was just something you picked up from whatever was close to you.



That being said it looks like a lot of the marginal places are still around but they are also not charging what AF and the high end places are charging, so they still have their customers.

Dustin Dorsey said:

I would argue that Louie Mueller has somewhat updated their product while a lot of the others haven't. I've been to Snow's and the brisket wasn't that impressive. I think they are better known for other things. Most of them have fallen of the Texas Top 50 list other than Snow's and Louie Mueller(Maybe Kreuz is hanging on?). But there are Franklin/John Lewis brisket clones everywhere now. They started using high quality prime brisket. They started trimming the brisket for the product they wanted to present. They started wrapping in butcher paper. They started cooking the brisket to a level of tenderness that others weren't. People were cooking briskets to 190. Now we are seeing them around 200 and what not. They understood how to hold brisket.

Now any of the things I've said you could probably cut and paste point by point and show where somewhere else did it first, but they put it all together.
Back before 2008 or so I'd go to a BBQ counter in Texas. They'd pull out a brisket that was dying in a steam tray. They'd take the back of their knife and scrape off the fatcap leaving no seasoning, throw the fatty over to the side for chop and serve you some of the blandest brisket you've ever had.

I went through many years really wondering what people saw in brisket because by and large it mostly sucked. Franklin deserves a lot of credit for changing that.

Click to expand...

This was my experience at Black's in Lockhart in 2019. A fellow brethren felt the same.

First time I went to Muellers the chopper pulled the brisket out of the holding pit. It wrapped in Saran. Dude pokes his finger in it just goes into the meat. I knew that was gonna be a good piece of brisket.

I find myself ordering “moist with the bark” everywhere as the extract crap used to happen.

Lynn Dollar said:

If you're pushing air through a 14 foot 1K propane tank, yeah, air flow is important.


On a 40 or 48" backyard smoker, nope. You need enough air to burn a clean fire.

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A clean fire is how Franklin cooks. A clean fire is how everyone should cook. Franklin keeps the door open because the fire in his large firebox is burning clean for his temps. A person with a Yoder, Lang, or Jambo is running a clean fire that is the right size for temps. I know about dirty fires because the cabinet stick burner I have is what my grandpa and uncle use. It is good but if you cook like my grandpa did, your food will be dirty. I used it with only the vents and figured out how big the fire should be. Sometimes I still need to crack the door because it has a badly designed airflow.

My last point

[FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]A bit of clarity may be in order. I’[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]m[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] a fan of AF and think his huge commercial success is awesome. It’s always inspiring to see someone follow a passion as he has done. [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]However, I don’t believe there is anything novel about what he is doing. If anything is novel, it might be holding tech[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]ni[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]que. [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]He used to openly admit that he was not doing anything different than thousands of other offset enthusiasts were doing in their own backyard. [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]And[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif], part of his [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]initial [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]success [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]was[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] due to [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]the general laziness of (or time limited) people not want[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]ing[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] to nurse a brisket for 12 hours, [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]much less manage the requisite fire. [/FONT]


[FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]R[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]epeating a[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]ny[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] process on a daily basis will make you better. A[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]F maximizing[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] each detail, as A Man Named Lynn pointed out, [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]has [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]clearly up[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]ped[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] the [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]retail [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]BBQ [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]game [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]for which we all benefit. I am asserting that AF did not make Texas BBQ what it is today, he has simply done it better and become a retail success. Tiger Woods has not made golf what it is today, he has simply played the game better than all but Jack Nicklaus. [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]His impact has been realized through his celebrity and excellent play, which has increased prize money that also benefits charities.[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] The Elbaz brothers of Applied Semantics created [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]meaning[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]-[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]based (rather than exact text) [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]technology[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] that placed relevant ads among search results. Th[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]ey created a [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]capability[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] that Google purchased and [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]revolutionized[/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif] internet search. [/FONT][FONT=Nimbus Sans L, serif]There is a big difference between being exceptional at a craft and being innovative at or revolutionizing a craft/service/product. I believe AF learning the BBQ Brisket craft in Texas made his BBQ what it is today, not the other way around. However, his drive to be successful is something that cannot be taught, but comes from something on the inside.[/FONT]