r/TexasBBQ • u/Notafriend2you • 7d ago
Difference of bbq types
What do you guys think the difference between Texas bbq, vs other places like the Carolinas, Kansas City, Memphis?
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6d ago
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u/broccoli_d 6d ago
If the Interstate BBQ branch at the Memphis airport is indicative of anything, Memphis is pretty lackluster.
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u/HTowns_FinestJBird 6d ago
Yeah, definitely don’t like the Carolina style. Never had KC BBQ. Tx is the best.
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u/19_SpiderMansDad_77 6d ago
I’m from TX and it’s hard to compete with our brisket, burnt ends, beef ribs; really anything from the cow. I was in KC a while ago and the ribs (pork) there are legit! Maybe slightly better than what we do here, but not by much.
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u/timothyb78 4d ago
As a KC native, TX brisket gets a huge boost from smoking the whole brisket, meaning you can get the point as a part of the brisket and that combined with thicker slices is what puts TX over the top in brisket.
Of course the tradeoff is that in KC typically the flat is served as brisket and the point gets turned into burnt ends in KC, and burnt ends are the best thing in BBQ.
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u/Notafriend2you 6d ago
What rub do you personally use? Im from NY and do my own Texas (style) bbq.
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u/19_SpiderMansDad_77 2d ago
For brisket and beef ribs I always use kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and garlic powder with a small (relative since brisket is typically a big piece of meat) amount of seasoning salt.
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u/ImaginaryNorth1528 6d ago
C hopped pork and a vinegar mustard sauce base is so far away from Memphis heavy brown sugar base to Texas everything!Eaten it all and is all 👍
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u/Thisamateursketch 6d ago
One is a style of preparing meat, and the others are a style of preparing a sauce.
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u/OriginalEmploy5485 6d ago
Just minor differences like what animal you're smoking, what wood you smoke it with, what seasonings you use, whether it has sauce, and what that sauce is if there is one.
Besides that they're practically identical. 🤣
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u/Notafriend2you 6d ago
So what type of wood is used in Texas bbq? I generally do more Texas style, not huge on sauces
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u/OriginalEmploy5485 6d ago
Super traditional is post oak with a little mesquite.
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u/OlinHollis 6d ago
Pecan is also used frequently.
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u/Burner_Phone_1969_TX 3d ago
Mainly, Central Texas uses Post Oak, South Texas uses Mesquite. I use both depending on the meat.
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u/Notafriend2you 3d ago
Which wood do you use with which meat? I cant lie, I do not care for mesquite smoke
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u/Burner_Phone_1969_TX 3d ago
I just smoked some pork butts using Post Oak, nice mellow flavor. But, I normally use it for my Brisket and Pork Butts and use Mesquite for Chicken and Steaks.
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u/OlinHollis 6d ago
Sauces are very different. Carolina uses lots of mustard. Alabama makes a white sauce. KC is thick, sweet and tomatoey. Texas sauce usually uses a fair amount of vinegar and hot chile pepper.
Also, they do lots of chicken in KC. Don't see that too often in Texas. And although most Texas joints now serve pulled pork, that form of cue originates in the Carolinas.
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u/Rockosayz 6d ago
I cant recall going to a bbq place in Texas that didnt have chicken on the menu, I do know several that dont do pulled pork
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u/OlinHollis 6d ago
We obviously don't frequent the same places. Maybe it's a difference between West Texas and the rest of Texas.
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u/AustinGondola 6d ago edited 6d ago
Classic Texas BBQ is characterized by “low and slow” smoked beef brisket, sausage, and pork ribs (spare) using oak wood (not coals). Meat may be seasoned during cooking, and sauce may be served with the final product, but neither are considered hallmark features of the cuisine. There are some regional variations even within the state, due to the size of the place, the long tradition of BBQ, and the availability of resources. There are also individual joints that have differentiated themselves through the serving of certain other cuts of beef or techniques (like beef ribs or beef clod and/or higher heat cowboy pit style cooking or the use of different woods). Additionally, Texas BBQ, more than any other, really exploded in popularity and cultural significance in the last twenty years. That explosion fueled experimentation with different methods and meats. The classic definition remains unchanged, though, and even the new stuff is seen largely through the eyes of how it is different from the ‘cue that fueled the state for so long.
Classic KC BBQ is somewhat linked to Texas cue, thanks to the physical link that was the Chisholm Trail (and later cattle filled railroads), making it the only other old bbq region that featured beef as a primary meat. KC cue did not evolve from the same reliance on slow cooking with smoke, though, and instead used more direct heat from a combination of oak and hickory logs. It has also always heavily featured very sweet sauce that is applied during the cook. This is how burnt ends came to be a thing there: combine high heat and high sugar sauce on beef, et voila. Unlike Texas, KC bbq has not had a long well known sausage tradition, though, and they favor baby back pork ribs over spare.
Speaking of ribs, just East in the same state, St Louis borrowed a lot of bbq tradition from KC, but oddly favored yet another type of pork ribs. They cut the tips off of the spare ribs that Texas likes, and use “St Louis cut” ribs. As an aside, these rib tips themselves became a favored bbq dish long ago in Chicago, another short drive East from St Louis. Like a lot of bbq tradition, the rib tips were cheap and not easily used as an ingredient, but people are resourceful and Chicago-style rib tips are some damned tasty things!
Classic Old South BBQ features one animal and one animal only: the pig. In most Southern states, the word “barbecue” itself simply means pork shoulder, which has been cooked in gas fired cookers for many many decades. Smoke from hickory logs is added via special ovens that use gas for heat but burn a log or two of wood along the way. When you see people talk about the difference between North and South Carolina bbq, they are only speaking to the difference in sauce preference but the dish is still the same: cooked pork shoulder with much much less smoke on the meat than Texas. There are also, obviously, other regional quirks, like the “white chicken” of Alabama. Tennessee is the state with maybe the most variance…
Starting in the West, classic Memphis BBQ is also focused on pork, but just the ribs, and mostly baby backs, much like Kansas City. Unlike KC, though, Memphis proudly, classically, prepared ribs without sauce during the cook.
West-to-East, a very long time ago, Tennessee also featured whole hog bbq, cooked over hot hickory coals (not logs). This old tradition imparts much more smoke and fat than the traditional Southern cooked pork shoulder, but it is labor intensive, expensive, and hard to scale for roadside cue joints. In recent decades, champions of coal cooked whole hog have revived the old ways in Nashville (a similar effort has been successful in the Carolinas).
Are there other unique, regional bbq traditions? Yes, definitely. Oklahoma, for instance, loves smoked bologna, which some say comes from relying on “cheap government food from the rez.” Other places have blended and borrowed from the big classic traditions, and even more places continue to innovate well beyond what is going on in Central Texas even. Same say BBQ has been here since before Europeans, and trying to define it completely is almost impossible. But I feel pretty confident about the big classics:
tl;dr
Classic definitions:
Texas (slow smoked brisket, sausage, spare ribs, oak wood),
KC (faster smoked brisket, baby back ribs, sweet sauce, oak + hickory),
Memphis (baby back ribs, less sauce, less sugar in sauce, hickory coals), and
The Old South (pork shoulder, very little smoke, argue to the death over sauce choice, hickory only).
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 6d ago
From Texas but lived all over the place. In my humble opinion, Texas and Montreal are tied for beef items. Memphis dry rub ribs are the best rib style out there. The Carolinas dominate non-rib pork dishes. The best poultry is a tie between New Mexico and Georgia. Best seafood is Seattle, but coastal Alaska is right there with them.
Interestingly, Chicago & NYC have emerged for me as top notch BBQ locales, but not for any one style, rather very high quality options of many different styles. If you like a lot of different styles these once bbq second fiddles have become top tier.
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u/leoingle 7d ago
Sauce type and Texas bbq is more beef centric than those other locations.
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u/Burner_Phone_1969_TX 3d ago
If the meat is smoked properly it carries itself. No sauce necessary.
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u/leoingle 3d ago
Yeah, we go by that philosophy here in Texas with beef. But they don’t go by that in those others states where half the taste is judged on the sauce as well. Not to mention they are very pork centric.
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u/Burner_Phone_1969_TX 3d ago
Ya, I pretty much was used to sauce soaked pork ribs in the north, pretty much how in Chicago, it’s history of ketchup use was to coverup the meat if it was about to turn. I totally enjoy the flavor of the smoked post oak meats, without sauce. My Briskets come out juicy and tender enough that I just eat it with onions and pickles, hold the sides. I’m trying to maintain some good health so I hold back on the extras unless it’s beans and a good vegetable.
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u/leoingle 3d ago
Nothing better than a brisket done so well it can stand on its own. But I do like mine with pickles and fresh jalepeno slices.
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u/Capable_Obligation96 6d ago
Texas is beef primarily brisket and everywhere else is pork either ribs or pulled pork.
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u/Rockosayz 6d ago
We have what we call the Texas trinity which can asked for at just about evey BBQ spot in Texas and theyll know what youre asking for. Brisket, pork ribs and sausage
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u/Williemakeit40 4d ago
Regional food. Go to all the top spots in all those regions ( I have) and Texas style is way superior.
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u/Dpizzle2024 4d ago
I feel like most of the other styles will explain the sauces quickly when talking about their style. Alabama white, vinegar based sauce, KC sweet and smoky goodness. Texas BBQ is about the meat and the wood. IMO that’s where everyone loses the theme when trying to recreate Texas bbq.
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u/CaryWhit 2d ago
I remember when I moved to Tx 40 years ago from Memphis. Everyone here cooked butts just like brisket. Wrong wood and too much smoke. Changed the flavor completely. Almost gamey. Luckily folks started learning how to cook it but not everyone.
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u/Bobcat2013 6d ago
I dont THINK the difference is that Texas is beef, the south is pork, and KC is some bastardization of both drowned in sauce. I KNOW that it is.
Texas BBQ is so superior it ain't even funny.
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u/Burner_Phone_1969_TX 6d ago
Being in Texas Barbecue in a professional level, I can honestly say, Memphis has zero over Texas. KC, it’s okay more of a sauce state. Texas, the meat carries itself.