Dino-Sized Brisket in TEXAS!! Best American Food BBQ!!

What I'm about to do next might cause controversy on your show. I want to see what it's like to be a ****. Yes. Last time in Texas, Calvin and I went to Austin to try super affordable barbecue. And crazy expensive barbecue. This right here could feed a family of eight to ten, not people, Texans. Now I'm headed to Lockhart, one of this state's most iconic barbecue destinations. I've had pork ribs. I've had beef ribs. I've had all different smatterings of delicious barbecue. But the one thing that's been missing from my diet is brisket. That's why we've come here to the original Black's Barbecue. Here at Black's, they claim to be the first to sell smoked beef brisket. That's a bold claim. First of all, if you were the original, why'd you call yourself the original? I didn't call myself the original best ever food review show. With decades and generations of experience, it's been said they've created the perfectest. Oh my gosh. Juiciest. I feel like I'm at a magic show. Most delicious brisket on the planet. Well, I'm here to find out for myself. The brisket is a really special cut of meat. It's not known as the most expensive, most fancy piece of meat on a piece of cattle. And it's tough to work with. If you're not using it to make a delicious smoked brisket, you're probably using it to make ground beef or hamburgers. But once Black's gets a hold of a brisket, they do something magical. Now I'm going to see what that is real soon. Let's go inside. Why do I keep talking like this? Like I'm Liam Neeson. Edgar Black Sr. originally founded Black's BBQ as a meat market and grocery in 1932. Over time, it transformed into a must-visit destination for barbecue lovers thanks to their legendary smoked beef brisket. That's our main course today. But first, I want to whet my appetite with a brisket sausage made from the very same top-notch beef brisket. One of the primary distinctions of Central Texas barbecue is simplicity. Salt, pepper, and a flour-based binder are just enough to amplify the meat's flavor without overshadowing it. Then it's time to grind. It's more common for barbecue joints to have kind of low-quality pork sausage, but this is 90% fine Angus beef brisket and 10% pork. Now, the sausage stuffer, where this meaty mix is shoved in intestinal hog casing. Oh, you scored my face. But I'm okay with that. Not the first time. It wasn't a complaint. Yeah. Joining me today, my good friend, Calvin, and the 69-year-old third-generation pit master, Ken Black. Most sausages I've seen are straight. This one's kind of a horseshoe. Why this shape? That's because that's the way my grandfather started doing it in 1932 here in Lockhart. We tried a week to do the straight link. Same recipe, same cooking techniques, straight links. And you would have thought we shot the Pope. They hated it. They said, this doesn't taste the same. You know, we've got five generations of customers, and they expect to see this style of link. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's not only the sausage recipe and shape that have withstood the test of time. This machine is the very same model that produced Black's first sausages back in the 1930s. That's when TVs were invented. Right now, Josh and Anthony make about 7,000 of these a week for our restaurants. And we ship all over the country, all 50 states and Puerto Rico. And also Puerto Rico. Don't forget our neighbors down there. From here, these hot links are loaded onto a roasting stick and locked inside the smoker for an hour. I want to talk about the history of this place. In 1932, it didn't go this far back, right? The building closer to Main Street was our small footprint when we first started. Every 10 years or so, we would add another 500 or 800 square feet. And now we go from one city street to another city street. How long has the Sausage Room been here? This has been here since about 1960. So we're going on about 60 years. It's one of our newer buildings. It's the newer building. In a throwback to their meat market roots, most barbecue restaurants in Texas cut the food in front of the customers on thick, heavy butcher blocks. 25 years of use has worn deep grooves into this table-sized cutting board. Sometimes people just buy a half of it. And then if you want to see the inside of it, we can show it like that. Or we can just cut it here. Some bite-sized pieces for you. I feel like I'm at a magic show. Have you ever done teppanyaki? I'm not sure what that is. What do the Japanese people cook in front of you? Well, you know, we got glass windows here. So we're cooking in front of people all day. It's a beautiful outside. The way it smokes and it becomes this beautiful dark brown mahogany, I would call it. And you can see it's not like so finely ground that the interior is just all one solid color like a hot dog. It's coarse in such a way that you can see the different ingredients in there still. You can actually like see the spices with your own eyes. Try it. Do you want some? Oh, yeah. That smoke really permeates through the palate. There's no casing like a real hog casing. Could you hear me? Something about casing. I was saying the synthetic casing can't compare. Synthetic casing will hold it, everything in place, but it doesn't have any character to it. It doesn't have like that plump kind of bite that you can rip through with your teeth. Is it a different experience if you just do this? Oh. It's hot. It's juicy. It just kind of explodes. That might be even better. I've never had a sausage made from beef before. So having this now, the textures, the flavors, it's really delicious. So much of this place is all the history and about the generations. So it started with your grandpa, and then it's gone down to your grandchildren. What are your kids and your grandchildren doing now with Black's? My two sons, Eric and Barrett, they're involved in the business. I couldn't have grown the business without them. The grandkids are a little young for a sharp knife. They're age four to 16, but they're starting out to do a few things, cleaning tables, stuff like that. For the four-year-old. The four-year-old. The 16-year-old can stuff sausage. Please. Ken's first experience with this family business was selling snow cones at the age of six. In 2008, he took over the restaurant from his father, Edgar Black Jr. We used to barbecue all the parts of the cow. But in the 40s, when my dad came back from World War II, it was his observation and conclusion that the brisket was a great cut of meat. And he's the one that converted us to serving briskets only. He was one of the first people in the country to do that. Now everybody sells briskets. What started as a small shop is now a seriously large meat processing facility that built its reputation on top quality smoked brisket. That's exactly what Calvin and I came here for. Can you tell us what part is brisket? Brisket comes off the chest of the cow. It's just right here on the chest between the front two legs. And there's only two briskets on each animal. Left brisket and a right brisket. So brisket are just cow boots. This fatty end of the brisket is also known as the point cut, while the leaner end is the flat cut. There's good fat and bad fat on a brisket. This hard fat is not going to do you much good. So we don't want to cut it all off down to the red meat because we got to protect the brisket. But we're going to cut maybe two thirds of that hard fat off of there. Pitmasters usually gravitate to the point cut for a juicier slice. But when you talk about Texas brisket, you talk about the full brisket. This is actually not tall enough. A lot of this is going to burn up in our 14 hour cooking process. So what I'm going to do is cut some of this lean in off so I can have a taller brisket on this side. We're not going to throw this meat away. We're going to make sausage out of that. Great sausage meat. Anything that pops up like this, I'm going to cut off because it's just going to burn up anyway. Now I'm going to take some of our seasoning. Once happy with the trimming, Ken seasons it with salt, pepper, red pepper, cayenne, and a little something he might call a family secret. While East and South Texas barbecue emphasizes the sauce, Central Texas style is all about the rub. We really rub the seasoning into the fibers of the meat. Otherwise, when the meat starts to sweat, seasoning is just going to roll off of it. So we really get it down in those fibers. And then we will cook this with the fat side on top so all of those juices soak down into the meat instead of being lost in the cooking process. And this is ready to cook for 14 hours. Of all the beef cuts, brisket is the least tender. But with a little bit of time and the right cooking methods, even the toughest piece of meat can be tamed and tenderized. Black's formula is a multi-step process. After trimming and marinating, they smoke it for approximately six hours in a wood-fired rotisserie. How important is wood when it comes to smoking? We think it's about 80, 90% of the flavor. Really? Yeah, we have our wood here. It's local wood. It's post oak wood. You can cook 12 to 14 hours on it and the smoke does not overpower the meat. In fact, it makes it taste a little sweeter if that's a word you can use with meat. Do you just chop a tree down and you throw it right into the machine or is there a process behind it? We only use trees that have already fallen down and then when they get here, we let them age here for six months to a year before we burn them. The aging gets a lot of the moisture out of the wood and it's a cleaner, purer smoke and the flavor is a little more intense based on the post oak type of wood. It's one of the things we do that makes our brisket and our meat so unique. Once out of the rotisserie, the meat rests a day or two in the cooler. Then they hit the brick smoking pit for another six hours. I want to talk about the name of this place. The original Black's Barbecue. Was it always called the original? Well, it's been called Black's Barbecue and then there's more locations. We are in Austin by the University of Texas. We're in San Marcos and we're in New Braunfels, Texas. So just to differentiate it, we are the original, the first. Despite Black's new branches across Texas, the original Black's Barbecue here in Lockhart never lost the spotlight. Originally, you said your dining room ended over there. Yes. But now it's been extended over to this area. What did this used to be? This used to be our grocery store. We started in 1932 and it ended in 1985. I needed more space, so I cut a hole in the wall and doubled the capacity. Most of this location's patrons come from outside the city of Lockhart. Folks are willing to drive sometimes for hours just to get a taste. It's not unusual for Sunday to have people drive from Houston, which is three hours just for lunch, turn around and go home. So people come from all over. One thing remains, Calvin. We must try your brisket. Calvin, before we begin, grab a spoon. Grab a spoon. Spoon some of this mac and cheese. When you say some, you mean the whole thing, don't you? The South loves mac and cheese. So do I. And I get it every place I go. It's coagulated a little bit. It doesn't coagulate into our hearts. It stops the bleeding. Or it could stop your blood from moving completely. It's like just cheese sauce that happens to have two noodles in it. No Gouda. This is just cheddar cheese or American cheese. The elbow noodles are cooked really soft and you can just chomp into it. You can get really into the crevices of your mouth. Yeah, that sticks to every little surface of your throat and cheeks and the part on the top. The roof? Wouldn't it be more like a ceiling? No, it's called the roof of your mouth. This is the roof of your mouth. That is the roof of your head. I disagree. Let's agree to disagree. All right, guys, let us know in the comments down below. Is this the ceiling of your mouth or the roof of your mouth? Brisket time. Smell. First smell. Ooh, that smells like Christmas morning. The other day, somebody wrote me on Instagram. They said, hey, why do you take such big bites? It's disgusting. And so to that person who wrote me on Instagram, this bite's for you. Oh my God. The salt permeates the beef differently here than at other barbecue joints. It really gets down to the nitty gritty. Now, this may not be the most juicy brisket, but flavor-wise, it's a 10 out of 10. I think it just depends on where you're getting it from because what I learned today is that the brisket is not supposed to be uniform from one side to the other. I mean, one side is going to be a little bit more dry, lean, some people like it that way, and some sides will be more moist. Try this because mine's juicy. Okay. It's so juicy. Right? It's fatty, it's flavorful. I'm sorry. The flavor is really incredible. It's smoky, but it's not too smoky. And after you've taken a bite, I mean, you spend a couple of minutes and I can still taste it, feel it, the aroma hanging around on the roof of my mouth. Sorry, the ceiling of my mouth. You said it meant me. On a brisket, there are two types of fat. There's the hard fat that's on the top cap of the brisket, then there's the marbling that's in between the beef. And so what you're getting is you're getting that marbling that's starting to melt into the beef. I don't want a bite full of just hard fat, maybe hard other things, but not hard fat. It's such a bad laugh. This is the most balanced brisket I've had thus far in America. I agree. A lot of people will eat the barbecue straight, but it can get oily. It's a lot of fat, it's a lot of protein all at one time. So the other thing you can do is make a sandwich or a banh mi. Banh mi is just actually the bread. So we've got bread right here. While Edgar Jr. puts all this heart into perfecting the smoked brisket, his wife, Norma Jean, is the mind behind all the side dishes and the signature sauce that bears her name. That's really good. Yeah. Sauce has a little sweetness, a little vinegar. Coleslaw is definitely sweet and crunchy. And then the same bold brisket all inside a little bit of a bread blanket. That is excellent. For those who are watching now and they're cringing that we're doing this, I'm sorry, this is how I want to eat barbecue. This is how I want to embrace this piece of meat. Thank you to the cow. Well, I like it both ways. I also like just the meat and the meat in the sandwich. I think having the outer bread hold everything in and then getting that one perfect bite. Is what? It's good? Just say it's good. Just finish your sentence. It's good. Black's Barbecue, 20, 30, 40 years from now. Ideally, what do you imagine for this place in the future? Don't change anything. We've been very successful with our recipes and the way we cook things, the way we treat people. We've been here for five generations. We have five generations of customers. A really good day for us is when a mom and dad come and went with a new baby in a stroller. The grandparents are with them. And I say, hey, welcome back. What are y'all up to? Well, this is baby Susie's first trip to Black's Barbecue. Right. And so I hope we'll continue that in the future. I agree. Please never change. I can't wait to come back to see you and to see your barbecue again. It looks like they weren't planning on the nine. It doesn't match exactly. Even behind that, they actually had printed 85, I think. And they were like, why would we replace the whole thing? We'll just put a number that would go on your house. We'll put that there. OK. I've had Johnson and Johnson. Is it Johnson and Johnson or just Johnson? Johnsonville. Oh, Johnson and Johnson is the baby oil. That's right. I think they do vaccines now. They do. And so you can't be around forever. I mean, you can't. Oh, Jesus. That's not bad. You know something I don't know? In California, we don't really eat much barbecue. We grill. That's why Californians try to roast Texans because they don't know how to roast meat. When you smell the smoke, there's something that affects me down to my DNA. Do you mean the primal side coming out of you? Right. I hate sunny side. Primal side. We are losing it right now. This is something to experience. This is to celebrate a good week. Three A's on your report cards. More hair growth on your head instead of your ears. Every year at Thanksgiving, my neighbor would invite me to his house and say, hey, come experience America. Put on his program hat and sing me a song. That sounds a little bit terrifying. That's how Thanksgiving is at your house, isn't it? You sing a song and then you lead a game of charades. Then you wash the dishes for them and then you clean their house. Isn't that every Thanksgiving? You had some great Thanksgivings growing up. That's nice. You should see how Labor Day is. Well, guys, that is it for this video. A huge thank you to The Original Flax BBQ. And also, as always, thank you to my good friend, Calvin. You can check out Calvin on his YouTube channel. It's called FKN Deliciousness. The name is right here. Go follow him and see his fun food adventures right now. I mean, like, right now, right now. Right now. Turn this show off. There's not much left. Who's gonna watch this? No one's watching this right now, actually. Really? Oh. Guys, that is it for this video. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time. Peace! I feel like a brisket now. I'm pregnant with a brisket baby. I don't know who the father is, though. I know who the mother is. The mother is a cow.