1A Presents: Milk Street's Summer Lollapalooza

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White. We love talking about food here at 1A, from the latest cookbooks to answering your questions about your favorite foods. Today, as a holiday weekend treat and a fond look back at summer, we're bringing you highlights from an episode of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio Podcast. In it, the team discusses grilling and answers your questions. For the complete episode and to learn more about Milk Street, be sure to visit MilkStreetRadio.com. We'll let our friends at Milk Street Radio take it from here.

0:46This is Milk Street Radio from PRX. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Today, it's our summer episode. Later in the show, Meathead Goldwyn answers your biggest cooking questions like, how on earth do you actually clean a grill? I got to tell you, the world of barbecue is full of old chest thumpers. I don't need to clean my grill. And it's seasoned. I seasoned it. No, you want it clean. In fact, the top competition cooks, I've seen them pull their big pits into car washes. We also have Kenji Lopez out with his favorite trick for the grill. It's got the entertainment factor. So it's a really great way to feed a crowd of friends or a bunch of kids at a party.

1:29But first, we're taking a Southern road trip with Daniel Vaughn. As the barbecue editor at Texas Monthly, Daniel has eaten at nearly 2 ,000 barbecue joints. Daniel, welcome to Milk Street. Thanks for having me. You've been to a zillion barbecue places. I've been to a few. I've been to Texas and Atlanta and the Carolinas and Kansas City. So I've done a few. Here's what I think. I think the meat itself, they're all good. I mean, the differences between one place and another is usually not the burnt ends or the pork shoulder. It's the sauces, it's the rubs, it's the bread they choose or not choose, it's the sides, it's the people, it's the place, especially the place.

2:12I think that's really important. So is it really the core? Is the meat itself the really big difference from spot to spot or is it all the other stuff around it? Well, I think you're right in both senses. It is about the place and the people and the experience. I think my job at Texas Monthly is really – especially for our top 50 list is to go out there and evaluate barbecue joints and compare them one to the other. And in doing that, it usually comes down to sometimes minute differences between the quality on a certain day from this place to that place. But I think certainly it's a lot easier for any restaurant owner, pit master to differentiate themselves through the breads or tortillas or sides and all those different things they're serving along with the meat.

3:00It's certainly a whole lot more difficult to really set yourself apart in doing a really great smoked brisket, right? It's become so commonplace nowadays. It's almost not special anymore. So I was trying to start with an argument. We don't have an argument. Okay. Well, I mean, I think the meat is really, really important. And I also think that when you're out there eating the best of the best, the people who tell me that there's no such thing as bad barbecue, my answer is like, well, that's because you haven't eaten enough barbecue. That's true. So what about sides? Are we still talking beans, slaw, mac and cheese?

3:38Or are those sort of the old days and now there's a million options for sides? There's certainly a million sides. I'd say some of those sides are really regional, like very specifically in Kansas City. If you're a Kansas City barbecue joint, you better have fries, right? That's just one of those things that goes with the ribs and the pork and burn ends and fries. That's a great platter right there. In Texas, just about every place you go to is going to have pinto beans, some form of coleslaw, and a potato salad, whether it's with mayonnaise or mustard. But that's gotten a lot wider these days.

4:10A lot of Brussels sprouts, strangely. What? I guess it's kind of like it's not too far from coleslaw because it's still cabbage. And then a lot of canned green beans, thankfully seeing some fresh green beans too. Mac and cheese and then corn. Corn in so many varieties, whether it's corn pudding, elote, cream corn. Yeah, just lots of corn. Well, nothing wrong with that. So if I was going to go to two or three places, and I don't mean just the top places, but maybe the most interesting barbecue joints you've been to, where would I go? Well, I mean, first off, I would send you to Louis Miller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas.

4:52It just exudes Central Texas-style barbecue. It's in a small town. It's a beautiful building. They got the old brick pit. It's smoke stains on the wall, massive beef rib covered in black pepper. That would be the place to send you. For the best party in Texas, they throw it every Saturday. That snows barbecue. You would meet 90-year-old Tootsie Tominets, who is still cooking pork steaks and half chickens over direct heat. They serve great brisket as well. Their opening hours start at a.m. on Saturday. You can still hear the cows mooing in the auction barn down the street. And people get in line.

5:27They bring their chairs starting at midnight the night before. So it is quite the party once things actually get fired up the next morning. That's cool. And then there are those times where you've had something maybe several times and you feel like you know what to expect when you go to eat it. But then it just wows you once more, right? and that is the whole hog barbecue sandwich at Skylight Inn in Aiden, North Carolina. It is chopped pork with a light vinegar sauce and it's a really sweet slaw on a squishy white bun. And one of the things they do that's a little different than other whole hog joints is they crisp up that skin over the fire and then they chop the skin into the meat.

6:09So you get this tender, juicy meat and then these crunchy bits of skin. And every time I eat it, I'm like, oh, it is this good. So what about the place out back that's got a couple old toilets sitting out there and they're doing barbecue or the place in Kansas City that's from Micah? I personally don't want a fancy, nice-looking barbecue place, but is that just me or is this reverse snobbery in action or what? No, it's not. I mean, it goes to like what is a barbecue kitchen, right? A pit room. The level of cleanliness that you find on the floor and sometimes on the equipment of a pit room isn't something that you would find acceptable in any other kitchen environment.

6:56But seeing a not so neat stack of wood outside is, I think, a good sign that good barbecue is ahead of you. If the wood's being used, it's not going to be stacked up real pretty. That's a good point. And smelling that smoke. These are all symbols that you're going to be in for a good meal. So what is it sometimes that makes one barbecue place really popular even though it may not have the best barbecue? Wagyu. There's one. I mean, yeah. You say you're using Wagyu beef and all of a sudden that's supposed to make everything better. And there's nothing against Wagyu. I love Wagyu beef. But it's like it's this sort of silver bullet.

7:39Like I don't need to know how to cook. I've got Wagyu beef. But it's one of those things where some of the best places out there are doing it with choice beef, a place that we've loved for many, many years. Snow's Barbecue in Lexington, all the briskets that they get in are either select or choice grade briskets. And they've routinely been listed as one of the best barbecue joints in the country. Let's talk about wood. We haven't talked about it. Everyone argues about which kind of wood, apple, alder, hickory, whatever. One, does it make a big difference? And two, where are people with that now?

8:14Everyone's going to find the most hard to find wood or what? Yeah. There are certainly differences. I think generally it's all going to be hardwood, of course. But I find it more interesting if you're using the hardwood of your region. Post oak specifically has gotten very popular in central Texas where it's native. So when you say post oak, it's a very hard wood that was used to make posts, right? Fence posts? Yeah, yeah. A very straight tree. So good for making posts. Now the flavors of different woods and how those flavors are actually imparted onto a piece of meat that's been smoked for 12 or 14 or 16 hours.

8:54I think it's played up a little too much. I think the differences between those hardwoods have a lot more to do with the intensity of the smoke based on the temperature that it's burning. Like an oak wood that's not burning so hot is going to put off a heavy smoke. But mesquite wood that's not burning real well is going to put off a just sort of disgusting ashtray flavor. But mesquite that's burning well is going to put off a good flavor smoke. But the idea that, man, this barbecue tastes nutty because it's being done with pecan wood or I can really taste that apple or that peach from the wood.

9:30It's like, no, you can't. This wood has nothing to do with apples. I love it. That's the fruit from the tree. What was the most interesting barbecue? Just the whole thing was the most interesting barbecue experience. hmm well certainly one of the most interesting barbecue experiences i've had it was went down to brownsville for the first time and ate at vera's barbecue and and i uh sat down with the owner uh armando vera and we were going through the different cuts of barbacoa that he serves he does whole head barbacoa and so you get cheek meat you've got lips and tongue and you have ojos the eyes and i asked him how he liked them and his wife was back behind the counter and she was laughing and she's like he's never tried them and i was like you've been doing this like for 40 years and it's like you've never tried them and he's like i'll try them if you try them and so we sat down and uh we uh we got an ojo they're rather large they're like a quarter pound and so we cut it in half and he's like i'm gonna need it he's like i'm gonna need a tortilla and salsa for this one.

10:36And so I joined him with a, uh, with a cow eye taco and it's, um, it's more gelatin than anything else. Like it is, it's soft. Um, it is uncomfortably soft. So are there times, I mean, you've eaten at 1800 barbecue joints, something like that. Are there times when you, you just want a piece of steamed fish and some rice? I mean, do you got, I mean, like, is there such a thing as too much barbecue or you just need to take a little vacation from it and go back. Yeah, there's certainly a thing is too much barbecue. And if you are going to have a party for a bunch of pitmasters, like just serve seafood.

11:14Don't try and serve barbecue to them. They don't want to eat it. Don't make French food for Jacques Pepin. Exactly. Absolutely not. Daniel, thank you so much. I know a lot more about barbecue than I did an hour ago. Thanks. Well, thank you so much. It was great talking with you. That was Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor at Texas Monthly.

11:38I'm Christopher Kimball, and this is Milk Street Radio. Now it's time to answer your grilling and barbecue questions with our special guest co-host, Meathead Goldwyn. Meathead is the founder of AmazingRibs.com. His new book is called Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling. so i mean look this is my question i think we've talked about it but i don't think you ever explained why it happens so i'm doing barbecue right low and slow i got a pork shoulder it gets up to 160 ish or 165 and then i keep shoving the instant read thermometer in it and nothing's happening it just sits there why does meat get to a certain point and then it just stops going up in temperature?

12:24It's a really interesting phenomenon. The meat is warming up, and if you're cooking at a low temperature, like 225 to 250 in that range, what's happening is moisture is evaporating from the surface, and the warm air is surrounding, and it's heating the surface. But it hits a point where the evaporation cools the meat. It's called evaporative cooling, and it cools the meat at the same rate that the warm air is heating it. Now keep in mind, warm air cooks the outside of the meat, but it doesn't cook the inside of the meat. The outside of the meat gets warm and it transmits the heat down to the center.

13:03The outside of the meat cooks the inside of the meat. So now you've got it cooling at the same rate it's heating and you reach a stasis. And it stays there until the outside of the meat begins to dry out. It gets crusty. That's the bark that barbecue lovers rave over. It's a mixture of dried meat and the herbs and spices, in particular sugar. And once that happens, then the interior can continue to raise in temperature and it can continue to cook. Okay, I have another related question. So I'm temping a burger or even a thick cut steak, okay? It gets to 120-ish, 115, and then like in two minutes, it gets to 140.

13:47It like accelerates. And I'm going like, wait a minute. I just turned away for 30 seconds, and that perfect piece of fish or burger or meat just went from 120 to 140. I missed the perfect temperature. Why does it speed up at the end? This is why Tammy Wynette sang the song Stand By Your Grill. What happens is, if you're applying energy, we call it heat, but it's energy And it builds up, and you have this thermal mass And so you take it out of the fridge at 38 degrees or so And it takes a while for it to get up to that 120 or so But once it's at 120, it's now the home of a great deal of energy, a great deal of heat And so it cooks much faster It starts out a nice gentle slope and then it curves upward like a hockey stick in a hurry.

14:37And it happens on almost all meets. And you've got to be aware of it. This is not the time when it hits 120 to go to the bathroom or to go get a beer. You need to stand by your grill. I thought it was me. I couldn't figure out. Or was it, you know, an act of God or it was, I don't know. It's thermodynamics. Thermodynamics. Well, I guess that's a religion. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So let's take some calls. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Hi, this is Jim Shepard from Stokestel, North Carolina. Ah, that's barbecue country. Yeah. What's your question today? My question is concerning the ubiquitous instruction to let meat rest after it comes off the grill.

15:18I've experienced covering and resting with excess moisture leakage. I've experimented with slicing immediately after cooking and experienced moisture leakage. my concern is that this rest meat axiom has been repeated by every vlogger and broadcaster over time just because of course all steak commercials show meat sizzling as if it has just come off the fire so i'm wrestling with this hot from the grill and juice on the plate where it can be consumed anyway versus warm rested meat that's my conundrum christopher can i take this one i think we're going to agree, but go ahead. Oh, that's good to hear because I've been raving and ranting about this for years.

16:01First of all, let's start off with the fact that most meat is about 75 % water. So if you take an eight ounce filet mignon, you cut into it and two tablespoons of juice spill out onto the plate. You've got six ounces of liquid in there. Two tablespoons isn't going to hurt a darn thing. And that liquid, by the way, it's not blood. It's water with a pink tint from a protein called myoglobin. We call it myowater. Now, I've tried to figure out about this business, about the juices running out, and I actually hired a meat scientist, and he researched all the literature that we can't find any scientific literature on the subject.

16:41So all we have left is logic. Here's a question for you. After you've served a steak or a pork chop or anything, and the juices run out during the cooking. At the end of the meal, are there any juices sitting in the plate? No. No. You mop them up with the meat. Exactly. So you're not losing anything. It's no big deal. And there have been a bunch of experiments that people have done in their kitchen where they bring in a pork chop or a steak, and they slice it all up, and they measure how much liquid, and then they do another one and let it rest for 30 minutes, and they measure. you don't slice up a whole steak like you would for a five-year-old.

17:22When a steak comes in, you cut one slice off. You take a bite of the steak, then you go to the beans, then you have a sip of wine. It's rested for five, ten minutes. The only thing I worry about is if you bring in, say, a turkey and you tent it with aluminum foil and let it sit around for a half hour, and you took it off the smoker or out of the oven at exactly the perfect temperature of, say, 160, it's going to continue to cook and you'll have cardboard because overcooked turkey is cardboard. Meathead, I think we're still going to be friends if we're doing this cold, but I'm not sure. So I half agree.

18:00If it's a steak, like a thick cut steak, yeah, five minutes tops. Don't let the steak sit there 15, 20 minutes. You're absolutely right. Nobody wants to eat a cold steak. If it's a flank steak or a hanger steak, even less than five minutes. But as you know, What happens is those meat fibers, as the temperature raises in the steak, tend to twist and tighten. And that's why water is expunged from meat as it cooks. So that's why 150-degree steak is inedible because there's less liquid. I think letting a steak rest allows those fibers to slightly unwind and relax. So I think the texture of the meat is going to be a little better.

18:43My own experience is you will lose liquid, but five minutes will make a big difference. I think you get a better texture. So I kind of agree, but slightly disagree. Sounds like the sweet spot, maybe five minutes. I've tried to find a definitive answer. In fact, I even went to the people at Texas A &M and said, I will underwrite a grad student to do this research. And it never took off. Chris, maybe we should chip in together and get a postdoc or a grad student at one of the meat science schools. I'd like to be a postdoc for a couple of weeks. Anyway, I hope that's helpful. We sort of agreed, but I think the answer is still out there somewhere.

19:20This was excellent. Thank you both, gentlemen. Thanks so much. Take care. Take care, Jim. Looking to shake up your grilling and barbecue? Give us a ring anytime, 855-426-9843. That's 855-426-9843. Or simply email us at questions at MilkStreetRadio.com. Welcome to Milk Street. Who's calling? Hi, this is Sydney. Is this our Sydney? It is. I recognize the voice. You're calling into your own show, as it were. By the way, for people who don't know, Sydney Manning is a key person in the social media department. So, okay. Yeah, Ringer, how can we help you? Hi, so my question is, what is the best way to clean a grill?

20:05So I grew up using a metal brush that frayed really easily and frankly wasn't very effective. And later I learned that the bristles can actually break off and wind up in your food. And on TikTok, I have seen people use a cut onion and they run it over the grapes when it's really hot. Is that anything? No, no, that's ridiculous. Here's my problem. them. It really depends on the space between the grates and the design of the grates, because you want a brush that's going to work on your particular grates. You have a Weber with those very thin grates. Cleaning them is very different than on very thick grates like the ones I have.

20:47So I think getting the right design of the head of the brush is first of all. Secondly, don't use the bristles. There are lots of other pads and other things that are not going to fall apart on you. The last thing is that I have one that's humongous. It looks like you're shaving wood, you know? It's probably three feet long, but it's getting in between the grates that's really the problem and also getting all the way back on the grates. So I think it's the design of the grill brush that is really critical here. It's not just what it's made out of. meathead okay heartily agree i am a fan of metal bristle brushes but the solution here is to buy a really well-built bristle brush the bristles are held in metal if they're held into wood they're going to wiggle free if they're held into plastic they can wiggle free good point if you get a bristle brush make sure they're held in tight and then after you're done brushing look carefully at the surface of the grill for any bristles.

21:52Wipe it down with a quick paper towel or something like that to make sure there's nothing there. But there's a couple of new products on the market I want to tell you about. There's a brush out there called the Grill Rescue, I think it's called. And it basically is a sponge-like material that's not going to catch on fire, and it's wrapped in a material that they use to make fire hoses. You dip it in water and it soaks up the water and then you scrub your grill grate and the grill grate, if it's hot, and it should be hot before you use it, it steams and it really knocks off a lot of the oil and the crud.

22:32The pad gets dirty in a hurry, but it doesn't seem to matter. You can get replacement pads. I've got one that I've used dozens of times. It's really effective. There's a couple of other devices that have like a little pump that's squirt water. They're made out of plastic. I left one out over the winter, and of course it cracked, and so I'm not recommending that. There's one more gizmo out there I want to recommend called Grill Floss, and it's a metal rod with like a J-shaped piece of metal on the end, and you can run it up and down those wire grill grates, and it cleans both the top and the bottom.

23:10Yeah, I've tried that. Yeah. And you don't want grease on the bottom because it will burn. And I'll never forget when I first started grilling, I fired up the grill and all that marvelous smoke came out and I thought I was doing great. It was grease smoke. You don't want grease smoke. And whatever you do, do not put the grill grates in the dishwasher. Oh no. You'll be sleeping on the couch for a month. Now you can, I've taken them out and put them on the backyard and hit them with a power washer or a hose. But you definitely want to clean both sides. Once you finish grilling, that's the time to clean your grill.

23:44Ah, yeah. Because if you do that, everything's hot, the grease comes off, it's not welded to the cast iron. My father-in-law, every time I look at his grill, it looks like it's new. Because when he's finished grilling the fish or whatever, he's always cleaning up the grate. That's the best advice I have. I love that guy. And I got to tell you, the world of barbecue is full of old chest thumpers. I don't need to clean my grill. And it's seasoned. I seasoned it. No, you want it clean. In fact, the top competition cooks, I've seen them pull their big pits into car washes. So you want the interior of your grill clean.

24:22Sydney, did we blow you down with all sorts of answers here? You did. Thank you very much. All right. Take care. See you in the office. Bye. Bye.

24:35Thanks again to our special guest co-host, Meathead. His latest book is Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling. I recently Googled barbecue and found the following. Quote, while not a formal religion, barbecue can be seen as a form of spiritual practice. Pitmasters are preachers delivering the holy word of barbecue. Church barbecues are integral to faith. Even the Old Testament says, quote, heap up the logs, kindle the fire, cook the meat well, mix in the spices, and let the bones be burned. Barbecue aficionados argue about the type of wood, the amount of heat, the type of grill, the list goes on and on.

25:17But for me, barbecue is simply a question of faith. Something this good just has to be a gift from the gods.

25:31I'm Christopher Kimball, and this is Milk Street Radio. Now it's time to ask Kenji Lopez out what he's been grilling lately. Hey, Kenji, what's going on? How's it going, Chris? Good, good. So it's grilled pizza season, so I thought we could talk a little bit about grilled pizza, which is my favorite way to entertain a crowd when we're cooking outside. Oh, good. I have many opinions about this. Good. Did you know that grilling pizza was my first restaurant job? Really? Yeah. And did you learn something useful at that job? Oh, yeah. I mean, so the pizza place was called Cambridge One, and we learned how to make grilled pizza by one of the cooks from Al Forno in Providence, which is the place that invented grilled pizza.

26:14And I still use the exact same technique now at home for whatever, 25 years later, something like that. I still use the same technique. The reason why you might want to grill pizza is because when you're making pizza, sort of a Neapolitan-style pizza, you need a really, really hot oven. And most home ovens don't get hot enough to do that. You can get outdoor ovens these days, but you probably already have a grill in your backyard, and they definitely get hot enough to do it. And the idea is that by grilling the dough, you are able to get that really nice contrast between the light, crisp exterior, the puffy center, without drying it out.