“Truth BBQ is very traditional central Texas-style BBQ to a tee.” Today, Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with pitmaster Leonard Botello at Truth BBQ. Serving up some of the finest barbecue in Texas, Truth BBQ has secured a spot in Texas Monthly’s top 3 BBQ joints.
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00:00Truth Barbecue is very traditional Central Texas style barbecue like to a T as a pit master.
00:07One of my proudest accolades is currently being number three on Texas Monthly's top barbecue restaurants in Texas.
00:14Most people come here for brisket, ribs and sausage.
00:17I don't want anything to ever come out perfect because once it's perfect, it's gone.
00:21You're never going to get any better than perfect.
00:23So what we try to tell our staff is we got to get better every day.
00:27But they're almost perfect, so they have something to chase.
00:33My name is Leonard Botello. I'm the owner and pit master of Truth Barbecue in Houston, Texas.
00:37It's about 530 this morning. Rib guys have been here since about midnight last night.
00:42So we're going to go check on them and get the briskets loaded and get ready for the day.
00:46So this is all of our bakery counter, all our pastries and everything.
00:50This is our front line. This is where service goes through.
00:53This is my favorite part.
00:58This is our pit room. We got five 1,000-gallon pits.
01:02We got another one outside. Outside is probably my favorite one.
01:06We're going to go get the 1,000-gallon mill scale set up.
01:09That's kind of our overflow pit.
01:15Basically, we just took some live coals from one of our other pits to get this bad boy fired up.
01:21You can use a blowtorch, but it's pretty harsh when you're lighting the fire.
01:25Those logs will become like jet jet black, and they'll put off a lot of smoke.
01:29We use 100% post oak out of Central Texas, a place in Smithville.
01:33All of this wood is aged for about 12 to 14 months and has about 12 to 15% moisture reading in there.
01:40And the only time that these pits die are Sunday during service around 3 to 4 p.m.
01:47because we're closed on Monday, and then they get fired back up at 5 o'clock on Monday morning.
01:52There's only really a 12-hour timeline of when the logs aren't burning.
01:58This is our burn barrel. This is just a little box of hell, if you will.
02:02It is loaded down with logs. They're going to break down through these grates,
02:07and what's going to fall down there is basically natural charcoal.
02:10We're going to use this guy right here. This is our hog cooker.
02:13This is only fueled with charcoal, so we're not burning any flames like this.
02:17It's just coming off the radiant heat from the charcoal.
02:20So two different styles of cooking. This is more Carolina style, and this is our overflow pit.
02:25I think they have about 120 briskets all around on top of beef ribs and pork butts going today.
02:32I personally like to cook outside more than I do inside because the inside is very much more controlled,
02:38and it cooks like a lab versus cooking outside, and you're just fighting the natural environment.
02:42So we're going to head inside right now. We're going to go get the speed rack,
02:45and we're going to start loading these briskets on.
02:47Will, are you busy? Will is 14 years old. He's our fastest learner. He's a child prodigy.
02:56He embarrassed me about a month ago.
02:59Elliot asked him what a comfortable number of amount of rack of ribs one person could handle,
03:05and Will said 125. 125 racks by yourself is not easy because that's pretty much all these pits filled up.
03:14Yeah, that's difficult for me, but it was easy for him.
03:17It's doable. Not easy. It's doable.
03:19So these got seasoned yesterday. They're trimmed up probably the day before.
03:24So we slather it up with mustard. We use our seasoning.
03:27Putting it in the cooler the night before actually helps that seasoning adhere a little bit better,
03:31and it helps speed up the bark building process.
03:35So it's about 630 right now. These are going to go on, and they're going to probably finish off in about 14, 16 hours.
03:41Let's hope that it's not going to be extended and it's not going to start raining on us
03:45because that definitely will affect the temperatures in here.
03:48It takes about 9 to 10 people to crank out about 120 briskets a day,
03:52at least that many people touching them that have some effect on this cook.
03:57Briskets are about 12 to 14 pounds and 120 across the board, about 1,500, 1,600 pounds.
04:05The main reason that we like these 1,000-gallon propane tanks is because since they're cylinder,
04:10when the airflow comes in from the firebox, it starts to make this vortex,
04:14and it starts to make this really, really natural convection.
04:17So it keeps all these briskets at the end very uniform with the ones at the front.
04:23So it's basically live fire, natural convection oven, if that makes sense. That's all we're doing here.
04:28I like to rock two water pans in the front.
04:30We add moisture into our pit because heat and smoke is attracted to moisture,
04:34and if there's no moisture inside of the pit, it's going to take it straight out of the protein.
04:38So your briskets are going to dry up.
04:42It's about 7 o'clock. We're going to go grab the pig. We're going to get this bad boy on.
04:46Jared's going to be with us today. He's basically our hog guy and all around everything else.
04:50He was off today, but he knew that we were cooking a pig, and he wanted to come and cook a pig. Definitely.
04:54Surprisingly, it's better to use commodity pigs because they don't have nearly as much fat in them.
04:59A pig by itself already has a ton of fat in it, and if it's a heritage pig that ate acorns and flowers the entire time,
05:06you're going to risk this thing lighting up like napalm because the entire time it's rendering fat
05:12from all of these areas the entire time, and it's just dripping on top of the coals.
05:16And there are times where those coals will just flare up, and they will ignite.
05:21It is a completely different style of cooking, and people in Texas are not used to it.
05:25So when we did it originally, people were just ordering pulled pork still.
05:29So we kind of took that away from them and forced them to eat whole hog because I wanted them to experience that.
05:34And the reason I put that water on there was just so this table salt could adhere to that.
05:39It's not going to add any flavor, and it's not going to make it super, super salty.
05:42All it's going to do is take the moisture out of the skin.
05:45So it'll crisp up super, super fast once it gets flipped over, and we start hammering it with those coals.
05:51Every time I post this on Instagram, everybody is like, that pig is way too salty.
05:56But it doesn't actually go into the skin.
05:58So it's about 8 o'clock. We got some coals going. We're going to coast this guy.
06:02The coals usually last about 45 minutes to an hour, and then we're just going to have to replenish.
06:06I really wanted to cook pigs because I wanted a product that was a little bit cheaper.
06:10And pigs fluctuate from $1 something to $2 something a pound for a whole pig.
06:14But what I didn't realize was you're not really getting the initial burn like you are in the brisket cook.
06:20But on the pig, we get the end part of the wood, and that's it.
06:23So it's going to last a lot less, and you're going to have to go through a ton more wood.
06:27So this is cooking 24, 25 briskets right now.
06:31This is getting ready to cook one pig, and this is all day long, just like full of wood the entire time.
06:37Probably would be more fun to burn dollar bills at that point.
06:40We're going to close everything up.
06:42We're going to let the salt do all its magic and just keep on shoveling coals in there.
06:49So it's 10 a.m. So these have been on about three, three and a half hours.
06:53Sometimes you'll see this puddling up.
06:55It's just the moisture coming up from the muscle and the fat rendering.
06:59We always tip them over, drain all that stuff out.
07:02If you leave that moisture in there, what will happen is all that bark will wash out,
07:05and we spend 12 plus hours trying to build that bark on there.
07:08I don't know if you noticed the size of the briskets when we put them on versus the size of them now,
07:13and they've only been on for about three and a half hours.
07:15They're starting to slowly shrink up.
07:17So all we're doing is basically adding an extra layer of protection to even all those muscles out,
07:22and that's what we're going to do right now.
07:24These are actually cheat sheets. They're made for baked potatoes, but they're perfect for briskets.
07:28After this, they're going to wait another hour,
07:30and then they're going to start to rotate all those briskets in that in-and-out weave that we were talking about.
07:35So we got sausage on pit number one.
07:37Again, they were cold smoked, so they got a little bit of color on there already.
07:40So you can kind of see they have a little bit of boudin on here, pepper jack, house jalapeno cheddar.
07:46This is for the beginning part of service, and they're going to fire another batch and another batch and another batch.
07:54It's about 1045 right now.
07:56You can already feel the heat from the burn barrel all the way over here.
07:58You can kind of see the mirage of heat that's coming off of it.
08:01We are running up on pre-shift time.
08:04The best advice that I ever got was from Pat Martin,
08:07and he was like, Leonard, if you don't start the day right,
08:10it is the equivalent to going onto the football field and not having your ankles taped up.
08:15You risk everything.
08:17Pre-shift is basically us taping up our ankles and getting ready for war today, tomorrow, and the next day,
08:24and the rest of the existence of Truth Barbecue.
08:27But we do it every single day.
08:29All right, big round of applause.
08:31Dylan was here five minutes before his shift today.
08:37Has anybody sent any plates down recently?
08:40You sent a plate down?
08:42All right, everybody give Ashley a round of applause.
08:45That is the attention to detail that it's not a big deal.
08:48If it doesn't look like you would spend your money on it, send it back.
08:50It is okay.
08:51Sometimes we get bogged down, and we're going, going, going, going, going,
08:54and we just miss a step.
08:56Send it back so we can get those steps corrected.
08:58All right, guys? Let's have an awesome day.
09:02When we're talking about sending a plate down, cashier,
09:04even though she's not touching the meat or cutting the meat,
09:07she's just as important as the person that is cutting the meat
09:09because she is expoing it for the most part.
09:11We don't have an expo.
09:12I always tell them, if you look down at a plate,
09:14and you see how much it costs on the register,
09:16would you spend that money on that?
09:19If not, send it back to make it look like you would spend that money.
09:23Each little detail of each person's job
09:25actually has a huge impact on what we do.
09:28It's not just this.
09:30Ashley sending that plate back means a lot to me.
09:32So it's cool to see them doing that.
09:38It's about 11.30, and we'd like to do some QC up here on the line
09:41to make sure that we can pivot on the back end on the pits if we need to.
09:45I just like to get visuals on what the brisket, ribs, sausage,
09:47everything looks like,
09:49and it's also fun to interact with the customers.
09:51Turkey? Anything else?
09:54Chopped or sliced?
09:56Chopped.
10:00It's about right at 2 o'clock.
10:02We're going to check on this pig.
10:04We're just going to start knocking all this salt off.
10:06This is just rebar.
10:07We drop it on top of that.
10:09If we were cursing the skin with the grate,
10:11it wouldn't be able to pull all the way through,
10:13so this rebar helps it bubble up in between each rebar.
10:16It's just a better way of getting a little bit more heat to the skin.
10:21That easy.
10:26It's about 2.30.
10:28We've gone through, I think, four rotations so far on this pit.
10:31We're going to start wrapping these guys up.
10:33You can use butcher paper. You can use foil.
10:35With the paper, it still allows smoke to penetrate the brisket,
10:38and some of that rendered fat will escape from the paper,
10:41but not too much of it.
10:42So it's kind of like the sweet medium between foil and no foil,
10:47but there's no right or wrong way to cook a brisket.
10:50At home, if you're cooking on a smaller pit,
10:52nine times out of ten, foil is going to do a better job than butcher paper.
10:55It's all about what works for the pit you're cooking on.
10:58We continue to use apple cider vinegar when we wrap it up.
11:01You can kind of see it's still got a little bit of life in it.
11:05It's not going to fall apart.
11:07And it's nice and pillowy on top.
11:10The acidity in the vinegar is going to keep it from sticking to the paper
11:14when those fats are rendering down.
11:16So if you don't use any moisture or add any moisture into your wrap,
11:19what's going to happen is those fats are going to start to caramelize.
11:22They're going to stick to the paper, and when you unwrap the brisket,
11:24the bark is just going to rip off,
11:26and we've been working for 11 hours on this bark,
11:28so that's the last thing that we want to do.
11:30Make sure everything is nice and tight.
11:33Fold that guy down just like that.
11:35We do it over and over and over again.
11:39♪♪♪
11:46It is about 5 p.m.
11:48Pig is about 188 to 190 in the shoulders and the hams.
11:53You can see all this fat rendering out and puddling up down here.
11:57You see how constant the drip is?
11:59It's like...
12:02It's very consistent, so that's a pretty good sign
12:05that we're ready to go to start crisping this up.
12:07And all this stuff that's accumulated here and puddled up over here
12:11is what we're going to have to be really careful for.
12:13I like this spade shovel for briskets
12:15because you can maneuver it around the logs a little bit more.
12:17I like this flat shovel for hog cooks because you can get more coals in there,
12:21and then you can kind of go side to side
12:25and be a little bit more strategic about where you're placing your coals.
12:29In between that, we're going to go over to the offset,
12:32and we're going to check the briskets
12:34because they should be just about ready to pull.
12:37These are definitely done.
12:39What we're looking for is this nice saturation on paper.
12:43You can see all that puddling up down there.
12:45You want to be able to push your finger into it,
12:47but it still needs to have a nice bit of resistance in there.
12:50I would say it's almost like a filled water balloon.
12:53You could probably definitely push your fingers through there,
12:55and it'll definitely pop.
12:57When we're pulling all these briskets off,
12:59a lot of people will say they need to rest for 1 1⁄2 to 2 hours or so.
13:03I mean, that's what a lot of places on the Internet say,
13:06but we don't know if that brisket was 10 pounds or 25 pounds.
13:09So the sweet spot is really 145 degrees.
13:12So we're going to load them up on these speed racks,
13:15and we're going to have airflow going underneath them and on top of them
13:18so they can cool down at a normal rate versus putting it on top of a table
13:21and it's just reconducting that heat.
13:23And it can take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours to get down to 145 degrees.
13:28On this pig, we are 10 1⁄2 hours in.
13:30Smaller pig, quicker cook time.
13:32We're ready to crisp.
13:33We're going to get some fresh coals and move it over the fat,
13:36and it's going to blister it immediately.
13:39Should be interesting. There's a lot of fat puddled up down there.
13:41There you see it starting to puff up right here.
13:44We have a ton of work ahead of us for the rest of the night,
13:46so we're going to let this guy finish up,
13:48pull the rest of these briskets,
13:50and start prep for midnight shift and finish up for tonight.
13:53I'd love for you guys to stay, but we got a ton to do.
13:56So I'm sorry, but you guys got to get out of here.