Absolutely. Regional differences are huge, and advocates of the various "methods" can be downright fanatical. They're all good to me, though.

Some places ruin the meat by drowning it in sauce. I figure if they do such a damn good job of smoking the meat, it should need little or no sauce. Let the meat speak, not the vinegar or ketchup based sauce. I do pork ribs and brisket at home my special way and my guests rarely put any sauce on them because the meat is damn perfect by it's self.

Or find out if anyone is planning another MCI BBQ DO.

Kansas City BBQ is the best. Arthur Bryant's has the best ribs. Gates' for the sliced beef.

I make the trip at least twice a year and fill up a cooler.

Steph3n somehow forgets to mention the Carolinas, where they make ^ REAL barbecue. ^ (If it's spelled "BBQ" it ain't the real thing.) ;)

Gimme some eastern NC red sauce or SC mustard sauce over a big mound of slow-cooked pulled pork, and I will be in tastebud heaven until the plate is licked clean.

Those in the vicinity of Albany or Saratoga MUST visit PJ's in Saratoga (in season). Best ribs in the business (and I love my BBQ).

http://www.pjsbarbq.com/#outback

My son and I drove 300+ miles and back to get their ribs to serve at his HS Graduation party! So, yes -- we take our BBQ SERIOUSLY!

When I travel in the South, I make sure I try local barbeque at least one meal. Unfortunately, Mrs BV is not a fan, so I am somewhat limited when she's with me. In terms of barbeque fanaticism, I'd rank them 1. Carolinas, 2. Texas and 3. Tennessee. In terms of what I like, I'd rank them 1. Tennessee, 2. Western NC & SC 3. Texas. Never cared for the Eastern NC barbeque or their slaw for that matter.

This thread has inspired me. There's a place in town only been open about 6 weeks that took over a spot I used to love. I will be eating pulled pork for lunch today!

In Texas we'd tell you that if the meat requires sauce, it's not cooked right. Of course, round here Cue means beef, usually brisket, prepared with dry rubs and cooked slowly with indirect heat and plenty of smoke from post oak or hickory. We incline our smokers in reverence toward Lockhart, the Mecca of Texas BBQ, where some of the better joints don't allow sauce and have only in recent years considered offering sides (other than slices of white bread, necessary to sop up the juices).

We're not averse to cooking the occasional pig, chicken, duck, lamb, or goat, and yeah, we would probably drown it with sauce to make it palatable. But anybody can do that. On Oprah yesterday (hey, I was home and I heard they were doing a food segment) they highlighted a restaurant in Ann Arbor that took a brisket, boiled it, then slow cooked it in an oven in red wine vinegar, ketchup, and brown sugar. Then they chopped it up and mixed in a ton of sauce. A travesty, nay, an abomination. Do they not get quality meat cuts up north? Or are they prohibited by some sissy environmental law from using flame and wood to cook?

In Texas, BBQ is about the meat. Becoming a first-rate BBQ pit master (they would reject the word chef, no matter how appropriate) takes years of practice at controlling temperature and smoke to create the perfect slab of meat - tender, smoky, rich, moist, and bursting with flavor. No sauce required.

For brisket, east Texas, particularly around Tyler, Palestine, Nacogdoches.. this area has the best brisket, hands down..

For pulled pork, gotta be Memphis area..

For sauce, gimme vinegar based any day. Nothing worse than throwing a molasses laden, sugar soaked gravy on top of fine barbecue..

there are some huge BBQ festivals aren't there ?

man i also feel like some bbq :)

In fact, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo will be going on in a few months and the Barbecue Cook Off is a BIG DEAL.

There's even a competitive barbecue circuit; some people travel thousands of miles per year to cook and eat barbecue.

Here's a list of barbecue festivals and other resources

What a huge disappointment. The pork was good, the fries and okra were excellent, but my meat was drowned in sauce and the sauce was lame. At first, I thought it was ketchup. But, some small attempt had been made to flavor the ketchup. Too bad, but at least I still have 3 other barbeque joints in the area that I like. If I go back for some reason, I will definitely ask them to hold the sauce.

I don't like lots of sauce either. I prefer the rubs.

My favorite BBQ joint locally is Cubby's BBQ in Hackensack where I work.

Finger lickin' good... http://cubbysbbq.com

We always order at work and gave it an appropriate nick name: Chubby's

--Russ :p

This thread is making ne hungry for some Cue! But I can't go anywhere as its snowing like crazy here and I am homebound. :(

SC mustard sauce is incredible.

Here in Cincy, we have a place on Hamilton Ave. Pit to Plate. Great barbecue and all of the best home made sauces. Cincy old timers love Montgomery Ribs and also Walts. I hate the wet sweet sauce slathered ribs at both places.

From an earlier post Arthur Bryant's is indeed wonderful.

That's the joy of BBQ.....great regional variances from dry rub in Memphis to the great local joints in North and South Carolina to Texas BBQ. Another great place is Fat Mat's Ribs Shack and Blue's Joint in Atlanta.

For really good barbecue in Houston, Burn's Barbecue on DePriest is the place!! ^

In November, Mr. Kipper was in Georgia for a week. He and a co-worker opted to drive, rather than fly, because the co-worker doesn't like flying. On the way home, they drove right past a great barbeque place, and stopped for the night about an hour north of the restaurant. He dropped the co-worker off at the hotel, then drove the hour south to pick up barbeque, so he could smuggle it back north, across the Mason-Dixon line. :D When I picked him up the next day, I was more concerned with the barbeque than with him. :D

Mmmm, a pig roast... I think that's what we're doing for our housewarming party... :D

Most of the eastern NC barbeque places I've been to serve a vinegar-based sauce while the western Carolina places tend towards the red sauce.

Some good Carolina places:
Parker's
Danny's in the RTP area
Smithfields

We are so serious about BBQ in TX that if you go
 

to a real Texan's house and I can bet you he has a grill and maybe a smoker.

I myself have 2 grills, a smoker and a fryer pot.

BBQ is all about starting the night before with the marination, then the next morning about firing up the smoker ands starting the cooking process. During the whole time, there should be a game on TV and a cold beer in your hand.

^^^

Don't forget the mesquite smokers too....it is good as well!

Otherwise I agree with you and that yucky sauce can stay home. If I have it I prefer to put it on my potato :D
However a marinaded brisket can cook up well, so it isn't all just dry rubs, but CUT the sauce for sure.

y'all need to contact SchmutzigMSP because he did a BBQ tour of Central Texas earlier this year! He probably has a link to his trip - I am too full of New Year's brisket to look for it ...

Happy New Year Y'all!

I use mesquite for steaks and ribs, or for any meat that will stay less than an hour or so on the grill. It puts plenty of smoke flavor in fast. But it's way too strong for long slow cooking in a smoker. It will impart a harsh, bitter taste if used for 4-5 hours.

When I'm in Texas, I will eat BBQ 2 meals a day, 3 if I could.

Here in Chicago, we've got a pretty good place, /http://smoquebbq.com/, that does the trick until I can get back to TX.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will), but to address the OP's question;

if you draw a straight line southwest from Chicago through Kansas City and project it down through Texas --

and draw a straight line from Chicago east to say, Virginia Beach, VA, keeping all of Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia south of the line ...

you'll have outlined the quadrant of the continental US that feels strongly about barbecue.

We design our smokers out here using old oil field gear custom made, 12 hours under mesquite smoke with the right smoker can be quite good .

:)

mmmm... what I would do for a great brisket now... alas its -20 and not warming up for a week or so now <brr>

HI has some great pig... gotta love the emu...

AK also has its own variations... with lots of game like moose, caribou, buffalo & even beaver :D

But for the lower 48... that's a good generalization...

Mmmm, I'm thinking that might be a good vacation for me some year... Mr. Kipper is optional, although I'd guess he wouldn't miss it. :D

memphis bbq is better

:)

Reportedly Owensboro, KY is the KY bbq capital, though I cannot attest to the quality or even style. I hear it is good and people in the area do seem quite serious. YMMV.

From what i've seen, i would prefer the sauceless beef BBQ over the chopped pork type BBQs full of sauce

The "which barbecue is best" question is rather like asking whether Beethoven is better than the Beatles.

A)- it's ultimately a subjective judgment and there is no "right answer".

B)- they're both (or all, in the case of barbecue) really good.

Thanks for the link! I was looking for a good bbq joint in Chicagoland. Any others that you are a fan of?

Consider yourself corrected...

Portions of California are pretty passionate about BBQ, and Santa Maria BBQ is as good as anything you get in Texas... Beef tri-tip or Top Sirloin, dry-rubbed with salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika, the outside seared over a really hot flame, than slow roasted over a smokey oak fire. No goopy sauces at all, but fresh salsa on the side. Plus you gotta have piquinto beans and hot sour dough bread or rolls with it.

I have to agree. If low heat and plenty of mesquite smoke does not make a great brisket something is wrong. Start the day before with a rub, overnight in the fridge, and fire up the smoker in the morning.

Definitely think about coming to the MCI BBQ...it's a blast! I've been to 2 out of 3 (missed the second one because we moved that weekend, but sent some friends in my place).

Oklahoma Joe's is not to be missed!

If you know about Oklahoma Joe's you are truly a Connoisseur of Que.

I've had the great fortune of living in both Kansas City and central Texas and experiencing BBQ around the country. Oklahoma Joe's is probably the best pulled pork anywhere in the world, or at least the world according to me! The very best BBQ ever IMO used to Jack's Stack in KC until I found The Salt Lick in Dripping Springs, TX. There is also a place in Austin,TX called Lambert's that is worthy of mention.

I agree with a couple of previous posters, if the meat needs sauce, it isn't smoked correctly. Save the sauce for the french fries.

How many times do I have to say this on eighty five different threads. Memphis barbeque is AWFUL. I have no idea what they do to the pork, but that take a perfectly good piece of meat and make it taste like cardboard. Then they put this awful red sauce on it. And the ribs (which are poor folks food anyway) are equally bad: dry tasteless.

There is only one kind of barbeque: Lexington (NC) barbeque. Sweet, sweet, long cooked, lovingly basted pork with a nice vinegar-based sauce (no, never tomatoes in the sauce). It is not eastern NC barbeque, nor is it western NC barbeque. With barbeque slaw and hush puppies. You need the whole plate to really savor the joy of Lexington barbeque.

And yes, there are places where people take barbeque really seriously.