Meal Prep On A Monster Pit: Cajun Smoke, Big Brisket, Zero Weeknight Cooking

Ever wondered how someone cooks a full week of meals on a single smoker without sacrificing flavour or sanity? We bring on Sarah from South Louisiana—aka Meat Me at the Smoker—to break down her exact weekend flow: brisket first with the smokestack choked for deeper early colour, then chicken once the draw opens, followed by ribs, bacon, and veg to round out the fridge. It’s part craft, part logistics, and all about clean fire, patience, and the right wrap at the right time.

We dig into the heart of Cajun barbecue: salt-forward SPG, the comfort of oak and pecan smoke, and the joy of cooking from instinct rather than a measuring spoon. Sarah shares why she loves the foil boat method for brisket—keeping the top exposed for smoke while pooling juices below—and how long rests turn a good cook into a tender, sliceable feast. We compare UK and US meat, talk lean grass-fed challenges, and offer simple tweaks for bigger smoke and better moisture when marbling is scarce.

There’s plenty of real-world wisdom, too: a brisket that survived a grease fire, a steak ruined by an avalanche of pepper, and the calm that comes from staying with the process when the pit behaves badly. We wander through competition culture, why judging is sometimes more fun than turning in boxes, and bucket-list events like Memphis in May. And our barbecue bingo lands on duck, sparking plans for duck bombs wrapped in bacon and medium-rare smoked goose breast that eats like steak.

If you love brisket, live for clean blue smoke, or want a practical blueprint for meal prepping on a smoker, this one’s for you. Hit play, then tell us your favourite wrap method and wood combo. If you enjoyed the conversation, follow the show, share it with a barbecue friend, and leave a quick review—your support helps more pit lovers find us.

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Transcript

Sponsor and Guest Intro

Owen 0:00

Today's episode is brought to you by AOS Kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialist.

Meet Sarah: Cajun Pitmaster

Dan 0:17

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast. Today we have another stateside guest. We are speaking to Sarah at Meet Me at the Smoker. Have a look, Google, go on to her TikTok page in particular, is fantastic. Instagram, all of the social medias, and it's a really great episode to hear about her cooking experience and what she does on that huge smoker. But she can tell you about all of that. So without much further ado, here's Sarah. So hello Sarah. For anyone who doesn't know who you may be, please do introduce yourself and uh welcome to the podcast.

Sarah 0:57

Hi, I am Sarah. I'm from South Louisiana. I'm a Cajun girl, as you would call it. Got a bayou accent. And I smoke all my meal prep every weekend. So that's what I do on TikTok and YouTube and all the social medias.

Owen 1:17

Well, it's so great to have you on the show. We've been following you on TikTok and Instagram for quite some time. Uh and and I can notice just behind you the very small smoker that you've got.

Sarah 1:29

Oh, yes. That is my small smoker, a beast.

Owen 1:36

So just how uh obviously we've seen uh a load of your social media videos and things that you're you're cooking on. Then we'll come onto the cooks in a minute, but some of the things that we've seen recently, look you you know, you're literally having to climb onto the smoker just to put the the the chimney up. I mean, how big is the smoker?

Sarah 1:55

It is huge. I can give y'all a look real quick, but I do have to climb on top of it because there is not a way to for my body to lift it up standing on a ladder. So I have to get that power doing a squat lifting it up. It is heavy.

Owen 2:16

Well, at least you don't need to go to the gym. Yeah, exactly. Great work.

Sarah 2:20

It's a gym workout. I've done some workouts with it, like uh in my TikToks, it's pretty funny. But uh, people are always like thinking that I'm gonna fall or something, but it's way wider than they can imagine. Like I'm standing flat on it. It's I'm I'm fine unless I become 60 and can't do that anymore.

Dan 2:43

Um, I love the name as well, like a great pun for Meet Me at the Smoker, which is fantastic. But where did the journey start for you in regards to smoking and grilling?

Sarah 2:55

Oh, it all started with my husband. He bought the workhorse pit about five years ago, but I'm the cook, so I kind of took over, and then we started doing social media, and that's where it started five years ago. So I've been meal prepping for five years on the smoker every weekend.

Owen 3:17

And when you when you say meal prepping, you are you literally cooking for the whole week ahead? Like everything.

unknown 3:23

Yeah.

Sarah 3:24

Yeah, we cook for the whole week. I never cook during the week. Um, we weigh out all our food. We are prepped, ready to go. Supper, lunch. We're we fast, so we don't really eat breakfast. So I don't have to worry about that. But we do eat a lot of meat.

Owen 3:44

As it should be.

The Giant Smoker and Setup

Sarah 3:46

Yeah. My husband eats a pound a day. That's why everybody's like like a pound just for lunch, and then more for supper. So everybody's like, wow, that you're cooking for an army? Like, no, I'm just cooking for my husband.

Speaker 05 3:59

A one-man army.

Sarah 4:01

Yeah, a one-man army.

Dan 4:05

How how do you plan all of that out? Uh, do you have like a rotation that you do like different weeks throughout the month, or do you have a stock list of kind of recipes that you decide to go through?

Sarah 4:16

So it's just kind of what we feel like eating lately. We've been on a brisket kick and chicken. So we've just been eating brisket and chicken for the past four weeks. Uh, before that, we were on the pork butt kick. We'll get on kicks, like and just eat it for like a few weeks and then switch it up. It's just all about like what we're in the mood for.

Owen 4:39

Sounds good. And so with the um obviously with the prepping, um, and if you're doing a lot of smoking at the at the at the same time, are you finding that you're doing different meats at the same time as well? So therefore, you're kind of continuously rotating meat throughout the smoker and moving things around.

Sarah 5:00

Yes. Like when I first get started, I put the brisket on and I let that smoke by itself because I closed my smokestack for about two hours because I want it to be really smoky. And then when I open that smokestack up, I add all my chicken. And then it can and then once all the chicken comes off, then I add some ribs and then some bacon and then the green beans and then the tallow and all the good stuff. It fits everything though. It it can change everything.

Owen 5:32

I was gonna say I'd be worried if it's worried if it couldn't fit everything in with the size of it.

Dan 5:38

Yes. What's the largest thing you've done in it?

Weekly Meal Prep Strategy

Sarah 5:44

Just a brisket so far. Uh and it was like a 21 pound brisket. So it wasn't that big. It's it looks small on the smoker.

Owen 5:56

See, I'm now googling. I'm now googling what 21 pounds is.

unknown 6:01

Yeah.

Sarah 6:02

I need a whole pig on there.

Owen 6:07

I'm googling what 21 pounds in kilos is. Uh it's about nine and a half, nine and a half kilos, which is about the the largest I've ever cooked in terms of a brisket.

Sarah 6:18

Yeah, that was my biggest brisket probably yet.

Owen 6:23

What was that, 14, 16 hours job?

Sarah 6:27

No, it took about 11 hours smoking, and then it rested for a good yeah, about 14 hours total. We never get to eat it that day because it's always done at like 11, 12 o'clock at night. I'm not about to eat brisket at that late.

Owen 6:48

I mean, there could be worse things to eat at 11, 12 o'clock at night, but yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 00 6:52

That's true.

Owen 6:56

So we've um so during the kind of podcast and other episodes that we've done, we've spoken to uh a number of guests in America, and I think the conversations that we ended up having there seems to be quite sort of regional styles uh of barbecue. So is that the same in Louisiana? Is there kind of certain meats that are pre preferred or certain you know flavor combinations that are you know local to Louisiana?

Sarah 7:27

Yeah, so here, but here um it's not really uh barbecue, it's more like your ruse, like your gumbos, your e touch, uh boil curlfish, stuff like that. Um, but meat-wise, we have our cajun season, and you know, that's always good on meat. So we stick with that. Cajun season is what I would recommend.

Dan 7:55

Like, sorry, I'll you go.

Owen 7:58

No, I was just gonna say, obviously, if you know, uh with like crayfish and gumbo and things that you were you were mentioning. Do you do much of that in terms of smoking sort of fish and seafood on the barbecue as well?

Sarah 8:10

So I don't do much seafood. Um, I have done salmon before. Um, but usually like I'll smoke my chicken and I would do a chicken sausage gumbo with that. Or like a chicken stew with that. And it's so good.

Dan 8:28

In the UK, compared to kind of a lot of the dishes that you're talking about there, we are, I mean, British barbecue's come a long way from what it was known for. I mean, if you go back into maybe 90s and 80s, we were known very much for uh burning the outside of sausages and burgers and the inside still being raw, but it's always great to be speaking to people with such kind of dexterous cuisine and trying to give different ideas and inspiring. So, for anyone who might kind of not be too aware about kind of the flavor profiles and everything that goes into things like the Cajun spices, the uh gumbos and things, how would someone from the UK start even trying to think about putting those types of dishes together? It might sound like quite a simplistic question to someone like yourself, but it's a very different cuisine over here, and it's always exciting to get the chance to eat those types of things.

Sarah 9:18

So we we use a lot of seasoning, we're big on salt. We love salt, so it's a lot of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. It's like a mixture of that. Lots of it's a little spicy, but more salty. It's so hard to explain. It's cooking from the heart, isn't it?

Dan 9:42

It's that family gathering people around, enjoying it.

Sarah 9:46

You don't measure your seasoning, you just season till your ancestors tell you to start.

Cook Flow: Brisket, Chicken, Ribs

Owen 9:53

I like that. So you might go through a lot of salt then if it's if a lot of the season being salt-based.

Sarah 10:01

We go through a lot of salt. I buy the big salt, probably last us a month.

Dan 10:07

Okay, that that is a lot compared to us. I mean, the problem we've got is our ancestors liked everything bland. You know, if it could have just been on the side, that would be good. So we're still trying to get there. Uh again, I I think our cooking style and cuisine's come a long way over the last kind of 20 years, but uh it's it's still very different. And that's why so many Brits go across to America on holidays to experience what we would call yeah, true, true barbecue, true different cuisines, you know?

Sarah 10:36

Yeah, oh yeah. We um we just had two guys from the UK come to Homa and all and experience the cuisine. Josh and what I forget their names. They're big on TikTok.

Dan 10:50

We do try and get around because uh there's there's just there's not that sort of scene yet in the UK where I mean Owen and I were talking last week, and in our local area, and when I say local from your point of view, it's probably very local, but from like a British point of view, you're talking about surrounding kind of 30 miles. There's not really any kind of smoking barbecue proper restaurants that we're able to go to. So a lot of what we have to do is off our own back. Uh, London's come a long way, there's a lot of options for us and London wise, but otherwise it's what we can find online and try and copy and replicate. And uh again, the meats are very different than we have over here as well.

Sarah 11:29

Oh, yeah. See, we um we have some barbecue restaurants around us, like probably 30 minutes away, you know. So that's kind of competition for me if I'm gonna sell it, you know.

Speaker 02 11:43

Yeah.

Sarah 11:46

But uh the good barbecue restaurants are like two hours away.

unknown 11:50

Right.

Sarah 11:51

You know, if you want to get a good brisket, you gotta go two hours away. And I can make it at home. So why would I do that?

Owen 11:58

Yeah, exactly. Right. That's what I was just about to ask Sarah, actually. Like, you know, when you when you start getting into something like barbecue and you can start making some pretty decent meats and and smokes at home, do you feel like when you go if you do go out, it just I don't know, you become more picky. Well, I can probably do that better at home.

Sarah 12:18

I'm I am very picky. We we are we are not big fans of going out to eat because like I just know my steak is better. Like it's so much better. I could do it better at home on some coals or my brisket, like it's not dry. I don't know. It's cheaper too, and you get more brisket.

Owen 12:41

That is true. That is true. So just out of interest, then also you've got the big smoker sat, you know, sat behind you there that we can see. Um, do you have any other barbecues or or or grills or anything like that in your collection, or are you just a one one smoker person?

Sarah 12:59

So I do still have my 1969 workhorse pit, and I just have this one. So I only have two for now. I will eventually be letting go my workhorse pit, though, because it's just I I always use this one.

Dan 13:17

And some of those techniques you talked about as well. How did you go around kind of developing those and learning those during that journey?

Sarah 13:26

So my husband literally taught me everything I know, like that from learning the internal temperature and wrapping the meat. Um, we kind of started smoking the food together. He taught me how to shred all the meat, cut the brisket, trim it, all the things. And then I also like looked at Heath Rowles on TikTok and YouTube and all the big gurus.

Owen 13:59

Um so just out of interest, what when you kind of obviously the meal prep is I'm gonna go right back to the beginning now. You know, you're talking about meal prep and you do everything for a week. Do you typically do a is everything more on a low and slow basis, or do you still do some hot and fast grill, you know, hot and fast style cooking? Um, I'm assuming you can probably do something around the firebox, couldn't you, where you can do some hot and fast.

Sarah 14:27

So yeah, I can do hot and fast, but I I stick to low and slow because I like a smokier taste. I just find everything tastes more smoky when you do it that way. Um, hot and fast. I've tried the pork butt that way before. I didn't like it as much. So I stick with low and slow.

Owen 14:49

Is there a particular wood uh combination? You know, do you do you stick to one type of wood or is there a combination? What's your normal kind of smoke?

Sarah 14:57

So I am stuck with oak right now because I'm stocked up with I mean trees from the hurricane we had a couple years ago. We went collect all around the roads, getting all the wood. So we have a bunch of free logs and racks right behind me. Not gonna show because I have so much stuff back there.

Owen 15:22

I mean, oak's a great choice for brisket, right?

Sarah 15:25

It is, and we just cut down a pecan tree, so I will have some pecan as well. So those are the two I kind of stick with. That's what we got around here. So that's where I step wet. What about y'all? What can y'all use?

Brisket Timings and Resting

Owen 15:40

Uh uh oak for sure. Um I don't mind a bit of apple or cherry. Um a bit of sweeter stuff. Uh, I think more for pork. Um and then when I so I've got like an asado style, so a like an Argentinian style that you could kind of uh bring the uh grill up and down and put it over the flames. I normally use a beech or an ash uh ink sort of uh English tree. Um but half the time it's what I can get my hands on.

Sarah 16:18

I would love one of those. Maybe one day I'll add that to the smoker uh collection.

Owen 16:24

It's pretty new. I've only had it for a few months, so uh still still getting used to it. But yeah, they are great fun.

Sarah 16:30

That's cool. That's so cool.

Dan 16:32

I'm um I'm I'm stuck on cherry at the moment. I absolutely love how it smells when you're smoking with it. I've got a comado that I do most of my bits in, and I just love the profile it gives, particularly to beef. You know, I think kind of beef short ribs with cherry on are absolutely stunning and I love it. Um, I've done quite a bit with apple wood as well in the past, but I I keep coming back to cherry. A lot of it I think is because if I know that I'm gonna be smoking something for anywhere between eight and 16 hours, I just like that smell being around.

Sarah 17:06

Yeah, yeah, it does smell good. I have smoked with that wood before, but we quit buying it since we're stacked up.

Dan 17:14

Yeah, why would you?

Owen 17:15

Why would you if you've got all that good quality milk to use? Do you not find Dan that with cherry, especially with beef, it's a bit it's a bit too mild in terms of smoke flavour?

Dan 17:27

I think it depends how what what you're doing with it and how you're smoking it. If you're gonna be doing like uh a Texas crunch or something like that, you need to make sure that you're definitely getting enough time under the sort of with the smoke, I should say, before you wrap it too much and or or even boat it to make sure that it's getting the smoke the whole time. But um, more and more often I'm trying to get through it without having to wrap it. Uh, the difference being with any kind of British beef that we're using, kind of grass fed it, it doesn't have the same sort of level of marbling that um the American meat has. So you've got to be a wee find anyway. Unless I'm using imported meat, I've got to be so much more careful about smoking it over those sort of times and making sure it keeps moisture in. Whereas if you're wrapping it, you can add a lot of moisture in there to kind of help that. But it it can, as you rightly said, oh, knock back a bit of that kind of smoky flavor you're getting from the cherry.

Sarah 18:24

But have you ever done a foil boat brisket?

Regional Flavours: Cajun Basics

Dan 18:30

Yeah, um, I've I've done it a few times. Yeah, smokier, yeah, because you've got the top out to be able to do that.

Sarah 18:38

That's why I do it that way. I love the smoking taste.

Dan 18:40

Yeah, exactly. Um, but again, I've I've never done a four boat.

Speaker 02 18:46

Have you not? Oh, it's worth doing.

Owen 18:47

I don't think I have, no.

Speaker 02 18:49

Oh, you've got to try it.

Owen 18:51

Yeah, I'd uh it's never even crossed my mind. I just always go for as long as I can and then butcher's paper.

Sarah 18:57

Straight I oh you gotta try it. It holds juices, and you can just scoop it up, put it in the pan, wrap it, put it to the side to rest, you know, and then when you cut it open, oh my gosh, you still have all that juice. It's perfect. You gotta try smoke because it's a good thing.

Owen 19:17

It seems so you know, it seems so logical to do, but yeah, never just never tried it.

Sarah 19:21

Yeah.

Dan 19:22

Oh, yeah, it's any favorite way. Depending on what you're spritzing with as well, you can get so much more of that flavor and action on it, too. Um, it's definitely worth trying, though. I would say. I I have also, again, I've not really done it with any grass-fed meat, more the imported stuff, but just not wrapped at all. Much more kind of careful and getting through it. I mean, making sure I've got a tray underneath the catching pieces. Yeah, exactly that. But um, it's another way to get much more of that smoke in, so it kind of counteracts the less amount of time that like an oak would need before you fully wrap it. You can give it much longer underneath that smoke profile.

Sarah 20:04

Yeah.

Dan 20:06

There we go.

Sarah 20:06

Oh yeah.

Owen 20:08

So so obviously we're it's a Friday night. You're about to go into a weekend. So what's what's on the uh what's on the menu for the smoking this weekend?

Sarah 20:16

Oh, we got we got three pork buds, we got four whole chickens we're doing. And got bacon, of course. We got some, we're gonna do some poppers. Wild hog poppers. It's uh y'all ever had wild hog or heard of that?

Owen 20:33

Uh uh I suppose it's our wild boar, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Sarah 20:39

Yeah, so you catch it around here, it's a wild pig. Um it's so good. I put that in the poppers and you put cream cheese, around that, and bacon. So we're making that this weekend. Some sweet potatoes and green beans. That's about it.

Owen 20:55

And you do you do the vegetables on the grill as well?

Sarah 20:58

Yeah, I do everything on the smoker. I never cook inside. It's too hot here to cook inside.

Owen 21:08

And is that all year round?

Sarah 21:10

All year, yeah. I mean the winter, we have winter, you know, it gets cold.

Speaker 05 21:15

Yeah.

Sarah 21:16

It's just different, you know. It's it's I mean, it's so hot. It stays hot till probably December.

Owen 21:25

Wow. Yeah, that's I can understand why it's just so much easier to cook outside.

Sarah 21:33

Now we did have snow one time in January, this past January. First time in 30 years of my life that I've ever seen snow in Louisiana.

Dan 21:45

That must be an exciting day, right? An exciting day.

Sarah 21:49

It was like, I mean, to your knees. I've never seen snow like this, but I hated it because it was so cold. I hated it. It was like, I'm so glad I never traveled to see this because I don't like it.

Woods, Smoke Profiles, and Wrapping

Dan 22:04

You you can compare those temperatures to what we've got. So we are 12th of September at the moment, and uh the high that we had today here in the UK or with me in Ipswich anyway was 62 Fahrenheit. So around like sort of 17 Celsius. And I mean, that feels like that's hot at the moment. It started to get proper cold in the evenings and things. Um hardcore barbecuers will still be out even over kind of Christmas when we've got snow on the ground and things. But you're right, I imagine when it's that hot, you want to be outside, it's like smoking and cooking outside as much as you can.

Sarah 22:41

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And and even during the winter here, like you can be in pants and a muscle shirt. That's how cold it is. No, so I'll be just fine. That's why I smoke all year round.

Owen 22:59

Yeah, it's great. Barbecue 365, as it should be.

Sarah 23:04

That's right. My neighbors probably hate it. I don't know.

Owen 23:09

Are they big barbecuers or or or on your street? You you guys are the barbecuers.

Sarah 23:14

Some are, but uh, we are the barbecuers. We are. They didn't really know till this arrived.

Owen 23:22

I mean it's pretty hard to miss.

Sarah 23:24

It was allowed, you know, arriving at seven o'clock at night, everybody seeing it.

Owen 23:32

So kind of in and around your local area, um obviously A is barbecue quite popular. Um, do you get like sort of lots of competitions and and and things like that with, you know, within your local-ish area?

Sarah 23:48

I'd say I have to travel for competitions, you know, like I've like to Texas and stuff. Uh, I did go to they we do have local cook-offs and stuff, but I did go to a local one about an hour away, but not many around here in my area. I'll have to travel. And we don't mind traveling, it's fun. We traveled to meet some TikTok friends in Texas, and it was a barbecue competition that they put on. It was so fun. So fun.

Owen 24:21

Did you get involved? Did you get involved in cooking?

Sarah 24:24

I did not get involved in cooking because it would be too much to travel with the smoker. Yeah, but they did ask me a judge. So I did get to eat a ton of burgers and wings, and it was great.

Owen 24:37

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Dan 24:43

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Owen 24:48

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Dan 25:03

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Sarah 26:30

Oh, it's stressful. You can see it on their face, they gotta have it done at a certain time, and that's why I don't mind being on the other side judging, because I don't have to worry about having something done on time. Uh, I'm a big person when I just want to cook when I want to cook and not have to be done. But um I forgot what I was gonna say. You could see the stress on their face. I mean, every barbecue competition is nerve-wracking. But if I was coming to the US, I would go to Memphis in May. That's the biggest one that you would hear about. Have y'all heard of Memphis in May?

Dan 27:19

No, I think I have no, it's not been mentioned before. What 92, three episodes in?

Sarah 27:25

I don't know much about it. You know, my husband's always talked about it. We plan to go next year in May, because it's in May. Heath Rowles actually just won this past Memphis in May. He won. So um it's a a huge, I think it's in uh so it's in Memphis, Tennessee, I think. And it's just like it's huge. I can't tell you how many tents because I don't know all the knowledge, you know. But look it up. Look it up, Memphis and May.

Dan 27:58

We will do it because I mean we've talked a lot about the fact that Owen thrives cooking for people and really enjoys it. Whereas I struggle. So if I've got people coming over and I'm barbecuing, I ideally want everything resting before they even come. So I can more focus on on kind of hosting and everything. Whereas Owen's very much more of a showman when when he's uh kind of barbecuing and make sure he's gonna be.

Sarah 28:20

Yeah, I'm like you, I want to be done, I want it resting, so then I can entertain and yes, I'm like that. I like that.

Year-Round Outdoor Cooking

Owen 28:28

I I I don't think it's anything to do with being a showman, Dan. It's just all it is though. No, it's it's just that I don't have to talk to people. If I'm too busy cooking, then I don't have to talk.

Sarah 28:38

I was gonna say, you don't want to have to socialize, he wants to be awake working, and then he'll socialize when we eat him.

Owen 28:44

That's right.

Sarah 28:45

Yeah, so just a little bit of socialization.

Owen 28:48

Yeah, that's it. And I can drink more beer just sat by the barbecue on my own.

Dan 28:52

So we've talked multiple times about potentially entering like a competition in the UK somewhere, but between the two of us, we just haven't organized it, and my panic at knowing what it would feel like trying to do it and nail something.

Sarah 29:08

So that's why I I'm not really interested in doing a competition because you gotta like, oh my gosh, you gotta remember every bring everything. What if you could get some? Not for me. I wanna enjoy my cook, I want to just relax. I like it to be enjoyable.

Owen 29:28

So if you had to choose one thing to cook and one thing only, what would it be? What's your kind of go-to?

Sarah 29:37

Brisket.

Owen 29:39

Yeah.

Sarah 29:40

It would be brisket. That's my favorite thing to cook. I love how long it takes. And then like it's so satisfying at the end when it like just comes out perfect, and you're like, I did that.

Owen 29:53

And a particular flavor? Do you just salt pepper garlic, or are you C or salt pepper garlic? Yeah.

Sarah 30:00

I love a lot of salt. Now, do y'all use a lot of salt?

Dan 30:08

I would say for UK people, we probably do, but compared to the amount of salt that you're using, no, no way at all. The size of container of salt you were describing earlier was a little bit more than a lot of things.

Sarah 30:19

I'm gonna have to make my SPG and send it to you guys and see if it's enough salt for you guys.

unknown 30:27

Yeah.

Sarah 30:29

If y'all's is as salty as mine.

Owen 30:34

Yeah, I um I know my wife and kids are like there. They like a lot more salt than I do. Um, I did buy a pre-made SPG and it was actually too salty for me. I kind of almost had to brush a bit of bark off just to get rid of that salty flavour, which I know it sounds criminal, doesn't it?

Sarah 30:53

But oh that's horrible.

Owen 31:00

But I suppose if you spend all those hours trying to build bark and then you taste it, you know.

Sarah 31:04

I think then you don't like it.

Dan 31:10

Oh yeah. I think something that we're very guilty of in the UK as well, is we don't tend to brine like our birds before we cook them very much at all. It's quite rare to hear people doing that. Whereas everything I see of kind of Americans, um, whether it's in the Thanksgiving, where it's just cooking in general on the grill, there's a lot more brining involved, which is gonna help that salt proper permeate into the birds as well. It's some I don't know if you've kind of tried doing proper brines on on chicken and things, oh the only brine I've done is on turkeys.

Sarah 31:45

Uh that's all I've ever brind, and I find that it just helps it come out not so dry, you know. Yeah, because the turkey's pretty dry.

Dan 31:55

It feels intimidating to me to give it a go, which I don't know why. The worst thing I'm gonna do is mess up a turkey, right?

Sarah 32:03

Because I was like, oh my god, like I'm trying this brine. Like, what if it makes this big old turkey taste disgusting? But it actually was good. Uh it was just like some orange dip orange juice, rosemary thyme, like the the basic turkey brine, you know? Um, and it came out great. Definitely recommend trying a turkey brine, but I don't brine anything else.

Owen 32:29

No, I don't I've I've never brined actually, I did do a I did do a pork once, and there was a particular reason I had to inject it and brine it in something. I can't remember what the recipe was, but that's the only thing I've ever done. I typically, even turkeys full birds, just whack it on with no brining and hope for the best.

Sarah 32:55

I never think oh, what was that?

Competitions, Travel, and Judging

Dan 32:58

I said it's surprising how I do I do do kind of br dry brining though, where I'll assault everything the day before and leave it kind of in the fridge for at least 24 hours, and the difference that makes on chicken and turkey is huge. I mean, you can even like kind of feel and see the difference before you even start cooking it. So I might like a brine must take it to such much more of a different level.

Sarah 33:23

Yeah, I've never tried the dry brine. I'm gonna have to try that.

Dan 33:29

I kind of like doing it on you can do it on steaks where it's much better overnight, but you you can do it kind of over the course of maybe two hours, and it's interesting to watch if you check the fridge at different stages where you see all of the moisture drawn out by the salt, and then it slowly just goes back in. And the difference that it makes is really surprising, particularly with the much thicker cuts of steak that you're doing. If you're doing like a reverse sear or something like that, on like a thick, thick tomahawk, think often it's very easy to maybe not for yourself, but under season it or make sure you've got enough flavour going through that. But a dry brine really helps bring all that out.

Sarah 34:11

I'm gonna have to give that a go. I never tried it.

Dan 34:15

Me neither. Oh, yeah. Get involved.

Owen 34:19

Get involved.

Sarah 34:20

Oh, we're gonna have to uh try that then.

Owen 34:24

So I think what uh it's probably a good time, Sarah, that we move on to one of the things that we hold very dear on the podcast. And uh we want to hear about some of the cooks that don't go so well. Hopefully there's a funny story or two, but our barbecue fails. So have you got a nice or funny or disastrous barbecue fail that you're you're willing to share with the group?

Sarah 34:47

I really do. It's my first brisket. I'm smoking by myself. My husband's at work this day, and I'm smoking on my workhorse pit in 1969, so it's smaller than this one. And I was worried about it because it's for a party, so like it gotta come out good. It's our friends. Well, I go inside, I just wrapped it. I go inside, heat me up some lunch, I come outside, the whole pit is on fire. I'm like, oh my god, I freaked out. I opened the lid, I had some heat gloves, I just opened the brisket, grabbed it, re-wrapped it, threw it back on the smoker, and I was hoping for the best. And I'm like, I am not telling Logan about this, I'm not gonna tell him. And then I'm like, well, what if it don't come out good? I'm gonna have to tell him what happened. So I told him, he's like, Oh, I hope it comes out good. He had me all worried. Don't you know it still came out good? It caught on fire. I mean, my brisket was on fire. The butcher paper was oh, it was so scary. I thought I was about to burn a house down. Like by my I was like, of course, my first cook by myself with this pit. He's at work, and I'm gonna catch everything on fire.

Dan 36:13

You're putting on a show, that's what you were doing.

Sarah 36:15

Yeah, I was playing on a show. Oh, it was oh, it was a show. Too much wood. I had just added a log. I had put too much wood on it. I was I was about to the grease, the grease caught on fire, and the whole pit was on fire, everything was burning. Now I like that. Did you have anything else? It wasn't my best brisket because it caught on fire.

Owen 36:43

Did you have anything else on the grill at the same time or just the brisket?

Sarah 36:46

Uh luckily, I just had the brisket and the tallow. I did have the tallow, so I had to take the tallow off as well. You know, that that was popping, you know. Fire grease.

Dan 37:00

The French will call that flombeid, all right? So you're just upping the technique game. That's what you're doing, just flombeing the brisket.

Sarah 37:09

Give it that extra flavor, huh?

Dan 37:11

Yeah, exactly. I um I ruined some really great steak the other week by being just my clumsy self, really. Um, so did some steaks out on the grill, was at Verset them, quite thick things, put a lot of time and effort into it. I was really looking forward to it. Served my wife's up so she's into like eating. I've prepped mine, cut it all up so it looks great. Go to put some pepper on it and realize that the pepper shaker that we've got is just empty. So I get like the big kind of ground pepper thing. I was like, well, I'll fill something, I'll fill that up afterwards. One little kind of push over the top lid comes off pepper everywhere, and I'm just stood there, like crying, trying to work out how to do it, how to get it off. So I um I'm a doldo in this, so he doesn't know what's coming next. I spotted my vacuum cleaner on the side, and I was like, if I turned the vacuum cleaner on and held it far away enough, could I try and get some of that pepper up without getting everywhere near it? It it doesn't work. I mean, you can get some of it off, but you save it off. Uh I tried Taylor Swifting it, but it didn't work. It's still absolutely covered.

Owen 38:28

I suppose the moisture from the meat has made it stick. I'd have not seen that if that was me, I'd have gone straight to the tap and just washed it off. Just washed it. Put it on the tap.

Dan 38:39

I'm an idiot though, you know. I am I'm an extravagant idiot.

Sarah 38:44

I'd have probably rinsed it if it didn't shake off, or like wipe it maybe with a paper towel. I don't know.

Dan 38:50

I did I did use a paper towel. I I still ate a lot of it. I I basically threw a little out, got annoyed at myself, got a separate plate, put towel on it, and then turned the steak upside down on that, and then tried to eat it off that and scraping off the bottom bit of the steak.

Owen 39:08

Basically, just leaving that. I mean, it's still funny to pick pictures in you with a little like Henry Hoover just kind of trying to suck the paper out. But I've been really bad. I don't have any fails because Oh, look at show-off, right? No, it's not that. It's just I've not had over the last week and a half, I've just not had any time to I haven't actually barbecued for over a week now. People starting to get withdrawal symptoms.

Sarah 39:34

Oh man, you you got a barbecue.

unknown 39:37

I know.

Sarah 39:37

Looks like you're gonna be first weekend.

Owen 39:39

I know, I'm going to someone else's barbecue tomorrow. Um, so I'm not even going to be barbecuing tomorrow. Uh I may have to do something on Sunday. Otherwise, uh, yeah.

Speaker 00 39:52

I'll do some weird.

Owen 39:54

Yeah.

Speaker 00 39:55

Something small.

Brisket Love and SPG Talk

Owen 39:57

Definitely. Definitely. Well, I've my daughter's uh my daughter's uh high school and she's taking food technology, and uh she's she's got to do some cooking as part of her homework, so I'm kind of sort of trying to push her. Well, let's you cook the family dinner on Sunday, and maybe we should do it outside. Let me teach you how to do uh how to do some barbecuing. So I'm hoping I can get her to cook dinner that matches her homework, yeah. But just doing it outside.

Sarah 40:25

Yeah, we'll see. I try to get my niece out here, but she don't like to come outside. She's 13, she just likes to be on the TikTok.

Dan 40:41

Yeah, same age as my daughter. Her daughter's eight and a half, and she's desperate for like a phone or anything that she can do. That's trying to hold off as long as possible.

Sarah 40:52

Hold off trying so hard.

Dan 40:54

But some of her friends at school have got it. That's the problem.

Sarah 40:57

Yeah, it's so hard when the friends got it. It's like you don't want to leave them out.

Dan 41:02

I keep saying to her, every time you ask, it's a year later. So we're now on the fact I think she'll be what 84 when she can have one, something like that. Just keep adding to it.

Sarah 41:12

Is she in uh school activities?

Dan 41:16

Uh she's she's just signed up to like school choir.

Sarah 41:21

Oh man, so she might use that on you. Well, I'm gonna need to call you in practices then.

Dan 41:27

Part of it as well is she has music lessons on Thursday. I'm very lucky one of my friends is like a professional music teacher, so he teaches in schools and things, and he comes over. And one of the things he does, he brings a Bluetooth speaker over. I mean, we've got them here, but he's got it all set up, and he'll ask her, right, is there anything you want to practice today or learn today? So they do like basic chords on a guitar first, and the second half is singing lessons. And it means that anything that she wants to try and practice and learn, he can quickly get up. But she's like, Well, you know, it would really improve my music if I could have a phone as well to be able to practice any song I want. I was like, Yeah, I wasn't born yesterday. Well done. That's true.

Sarah 42:10

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, you can just you can maybe keep her from the social medias, you know, just have the basic things.

Dan 42:21

That's a slippery slope, isn't it? The second that something like that gets in the house, it'll just be one thing after the other.

Sarah 42:27

Snapchat.

Owen 42:30

Yeah, it's bad. Very hope.

Sarah 42:35

I'm so glad there was no phones when I was a kid.

Dan 42:38

Oh, I know. We again my wife and I were talking about this the other day. When you're going through like high school, college, university, the amount of stupid stuff that we used to get up to, I'm like, I'm so pleased. None of that was caught on camera. There was no one in the corner just filming things and taking photos, whereas all of their childhood now, the second they get one of those phones, it's documented. All of it is documented.

Speaker 00 43:02

100%.

Owen 43:04

Yeah. But just uh on topic, but also going back to kind of food and and barbecuing. Um I was just saying about my daughter, and that I sort of said to her, look, we've got loads of recipe books in the cupboard. Why don't you go through and read a book? Look at a recipe book, get some inspiration. And it was almost the look of you know, just what are you on about? I'll go on TikTok and find a recipe.

Sarah 43:29

I know what I'm reading. I know what I'm doing, dang.

Owen 43:33

Yeah, yeah. But that being said, though, obviously, you know, the power of social media is that you know, obviously, we found you on social media, and you know, you you can you can find some cracking inspiration. Oh, yeah, for things for things to cook or different methods to try, new grills to purchase, you know, just from what you see on on socials.

Sarah 43:55

Oh yeah, absolutely. I just uh actually did a corn dip I saw on TikTok and it came out so good because the street corn dip. Wow, I've been missing out. I've never did that before.

Owen 44:07

Actually, I think if we're talking about ingredients, it's probably a good time to go into barbecue bingo.

Sarah 44:13

Okay.

Owen 44:15

So um let me just share my screen. So this is uh, as I said, one of the other things that we like to do on the podcast where we've got a wheel that is full of ingredients, and um all of the ingredients have been left by other guests in previous shows.

Dan 44:36

Some are kind, some are less kind, depending on how the person felt on the day. Um, there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of different things on there. I'll read some of them out as well for the people listening while they're watching on uh YouTube. So you've got scallops, uh rabbit, pedron peppers, frogs' legs, trips, chicken hearts, kangaroo, vindaloo paste or curry paste, um, white pudding duck.

Sarah 45:11

Please don't give me chicken hearts.

Brining, Dry Brine, and Moisture

Dan 45:14

Jetuan peppers, blue cheese, liver. We also have something on there which is called my signature dish. So we ask people, you know, if it lands on that, then please cook what you're known for or what your favorite dish is. So from what you said earlier, I'm kind of assuming that'll probably be brisket for yourself.

Sarah 45:31

Yep, for sure. Definitely a brisket.

Dan 45:34

So let's just hope this doesn't land on chicken hearts for you.

Owen 45:41

Um so when we give this a spin, um, what we'd like you to do is is think of a uh think of uh an ingredient to leave on on the board for for the you've already got one, great. Okay, so I'll give this a spin. Um, yeah, we'd love you to try and cook something with uh this ingredient. Tag us in on social media and then we'll we'll we'll post about it as well. Um, but let's give it a go.

Sarah 46:06

Oh my god, I'm so nervous.

Owen 46:09

Oh my god.

Dan 46:10

To be fair, technical error. Um if if it does land on chicken heart, maybe you could cook a brisket and just show a chicken heart a brisket.

Sarah 46:18

Yeah, I'm not gonna eat it. Duck.

Dan 46:22

Yeah, duck. Oh, there we are.

Sarah 46:24

I can do duck.

Dan 46:25

Yes, you can.

Sarah 46:26

That was the boss kills ducks, I can get some duck.

Dan 46:31

That was if it was me, that's what I would have hoped for out of that whole list.

Sarah 46:35

That's what I was hoping for. I'm not gonna lie. That a rabbit. I was like, come on, I know how to smoke these things. Okay, I'm so excited.

Owen 46:44

What's your first thoughts? What will come straight to mind?

Sarah 46:46

I'm gonna do okay. Well, I already thought about doing some dug bombs, which is putting it on a jalapeno with some cream cheese and wrapping that in bacon. Um he also sometimes gives me what's called speckle belly goosebust, and it's kind of like a you cook it like steak, like medium rare, but you smoke it, you smoke it to about 135. The internal temp. Y'all, it tastes just like steak and it's delicious. It's actually better than steak.

Speaker 02 47:17

Oh wow. Yeah, what a combination of words. Speckled bellied gooseberry, speckled, speckled belly goosebreast. That sounds like an insult. I love it. Like it has a combination of words, it's beautiful.

Sarah 47:32

That's what the I guess that's what the goose is called. Speckled belly goosebreast. That's what he's called.

Owen 47:41

Great. Sarah, what what uh what ingredient are you gonna leave for us?

Sarah 47:45

Alligator.

Owen 47:47

Oh, look at that. Uh right, I'm gonna stop sharing my screen because I don't show that I can't spell alligator.

Sarah 47:54

So A L L L I G A T O R.

Speaker 05 48:01

That's on that.

Sarah 48:02

Might just be one out. I don't know.

Dan 48:05

Um thinking. Hardest to get in the UK, but I have seen it in the UK. But if we get um a UK guest on that has to get out, I want to see what their reaction is initially when we're asking people what would you do with it? And they're like faint. I don't know.

Sarah 48:22

What would you do with it? You can you so you can get whole gators like online and smoke them. I plan to do that eventually. I haven't smoked a whole gator, but I have eaten gator, and gator's delicious. Fry gator? So good.

Owen 48:41

I've not tried it, but I'm assuming it's it's a very meaty.

Sarah 48:45

It's like chicken.

Owen 48:46

Yeah.

Sarah 48:47

I say like chicken, but almost like fish texture a little bit. It's different, it's so different. That's uh big in restaurants around here, like fried gator bites is like an appetizer around here.

Dan 49:04

Nice. I don't even know what like the UK equivalent would be, but like it's quite an alien concept to us because we don't have any animals like that. I was trying to think what sort of like pigeons. Chicken nuggets of chicken nuggets. Well, I was thinking like pig like a like a like a pest that you get in the UK that people like eat on, like was that pigeon, I guess, would be the most similar sort of thing from that point of view, you know?

Sarah 49:29

Yeah, I would say that's disgusting. A pigeon.

Dan 49:32

Although a pigeon's a lot, yeah, well, it's less likely to take a dog as well, a pigeon. So we've got that going for us at least.

Owen 49:44

So is it is there anything else I suppose that we haven't covered yet uh that you'd like to talk about in terms of barbecue or or or anything else for that matter?

Barbecue Fails: Fire and Pepper Chaos

Sarah 49:59

I think we pretty much covered all my favorite things. Brisket. What about what are I never really I didn't ask you out what your favorite things to cook are.

Dan 50:13

I mean I I love beef ribs, however, I've been doing a lot more pulled pork recently. But the thing that I'm enjoying most is um I've got a Blackstone in the last year, and there's something so enjoyable first thing on a Sunday morning, going out and doing like pancakes, bacon, sausages, eggs, just out there first thing in the morning, particularly if you wake up really early, like 6, 7 a.m., and you're there by yourself. It's wonderful.

Sarah 50:45

Yes, so great. I want a Blackstone so bad, just for that reason. I want to do breakfast on it, and I want to do hibachi.

Dan 50:53

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you can do the juggling as well, and like the little volcanoes and everything.

Sarah 50:59

I told my husband, I said we have to get one eventually, and then I can like do a video and throw. I said, you could cut the grass and I'll toss you an egg.

Owen 51:12

I see, I can't answer the question because I don't know. I don't I like cooking all of the things, so I can't pick a favorite, I think.

Dan 51:22

It's more being outdoors and cooking for you, isn't it? It's it's that experience. Yeah. Just away from everyone. As long as it's me, I'll cook it.

Sarah 51:32

I live out here now. I live out here now. My husband hooked me up with a TV on the wall. You know, we got our TV here, and that's my workhorse to 1969, right here. Under it. So I never go inside on Saturdays. So tomorrow I'll be right here.

Owen 51:51

Great stuff. Well, Sarah, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you ever so much for coming on.

Speaker 00 51:58

Um thanks for having me.

Owen 52:00

Yeah, love so lovely to meet you. But please do give yourself a shout out. Tell our guests where to find you on social media, what your handles and hashtags and things are.

Sarah 52:11

Yeah, so you can find me on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram at meet me at the smoker. And there's a dot in between meet me at the smoker. Um, so go find me, go follow me. Check me out, subscribe as well.

Owen 52:30

Don't forget to like and subscribe.

Sarah 52:33

Like, comment, subscribe, save all the videos, engage.

Owen 52:41

Great. Well, thank you ever so much for coming on to the podcast.

Sarah 52:44

Yes, thanks for having me. Y'all have a great weekend.

Owen 52:47

And you enjoy your smoking day tomorrow.

Sarah 52:50

Yes, thank you.

Dan 52:51

Thanks so much.

Sarah 52:52

Bye.

Owen 52:54

That's it for another episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast. Thanks so much to Sarah for coming onto the show. Uh, another really enjoyable episode. As ever, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you want us to talk about on the show. Um, please get in contact through our social media channels. And until next time, keep on grilling.

Dan 53:22

Today's episode of the Meet and Greek Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.