Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 31 - Chad Ward

Episode Date: February 26, 2018

Chad Ward is a professional Pit Master. You should think of him as the Yoda of BBQ, or perhaps Darth Vader. I'm not sure which he would prefer. I have drooled over pictures of Chad's work for months, and finally got to meet him during my recent hog hunt in Oklahoma, where he was turning wild game into amazing Nock 2 Fork meals. Chad is the co-founder of Whiskey Bent BBQ, a competitive BBQ team, and the name of his BBQ supply store. https://www.whiskeybentbbqsupply.com/

Episode 31, here we go, and I hope you have a healthy appetite, because my guest today is, I'm going to call him Big Chad Ward, because his personality is big, and he is a big boy as well. This guy gave you a bear hug. You might just disappear into his arms, but you're going to need your appetite, because I've been watching this guy cook for the last three days, and he's starting with ingredients that I recognize and that I think I know how to cook, but the end result and what he comes back with at the end of his recipe and the cook time looks nothing like anything I've ever created.

He is a pitmaster, a legitimate professional barbecuer. I don't know if a barbecue person, I don't know the right way to say it. All I know is that everything that I've eaten that he is cooked has been amazing. He is the owner of Whiskey Bent Barbecue, and I'll include the link to that in the bottom of the description of the podcast on iTunes or wherever you're finding this thing. But what a wealth of knowledge when it comes to cooking specifically on a barbecue. And this is something that I have been playing around with more and more. If any of you follow John Dudley, it's actually disturbing to me how good of a cook he is.

Not only can he hunt with the best of him in the world, but the guy is approaching what I would consider to be chef levels with his preparation game, and I just need to go ahead and start beating him at that particular game because I know there's no way it's going to happen in the archery space. So when I heard that Chad was going to join us in Oklahoma for the hog hunt we just finished, I knew I had to sit down and pick his brain.

I'm asking most of these questions selfishly for myself because I am trying to up my cooking game, and hopefully, it helps your cooking game as well. So bring an appetite and a napkin. Here we go. Episode 31 with Chad Ward. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke.

I'm looking at danger close now. Pull that big boy close to your face. Hey, hey. Oh, damn, you have got a voice built for radio, my friend. All right, so here we are. Big Chad Ward. I got to start up by saying thank you for the last three days. of unbelievable food.

My pants are a little tight right now because I've been eaten. Actually, they're not because the stuff is so good that I'm not overdoing it. Plus, I've been chasing our food around for the last three days. But man, you have thrown down quite an assortment of food. Well, thanks, man. And obviously appreciate you harvesting some of that food for us to enjoy. No, I mean, it's awesome. I love coming out here to the ranch.

and, you know, being able to, you know, hang out with you guys got to meet you this time. You know, we've talked a little bit in the past, but finally getting a meet and hang out. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, man, it's a good deal. What the hell is Whiskey Bent Barbecue? So Whiskey Bent Barbecue is a competition barbecue team that I started 10 years ago. God, that's a long time. 2007, August, 2007.

And going through college, me and my buddies had a house together and cooked out every weekend. And I tell people, you know, I kind of got started. cooking stuff that was about five minutes from going out of date. You know, whatever they had for, you know, 40, 50, 60 percent off, that's what I cooked on. And after I graduated college, where'd you go to college? I went to Florida Southern College. It's down in my hometown of Lakeland, got paid to go to school, so that's always a good thing. And I got my four-year degree, and it was awesome. How did you get paid to go to school? I had a bunch of state-based scholarships, and then they gave me a full ride academically. So. Yeah, Dudley was giving me

some inside dirt on you. Get a little horsepower in between the ears is how he described it. Well, that's, I appreciate that. I try to keep this barbecue persona up so I don't have to from time to time. But, no, it's, no, it's, it's fun. And Florida Southern was a great little liberal art school. You know, it was, it was cool. And being in my hometown, it was kind of neat too.

But graduated from there. And then, um, what did you get your degree in? Finance. You know, I started out pre-med. Wow. Anatomy and physiology, too. boil you right out of that one. And I got into business

and I really didn't know what I wanted to do in business. So I said, I'll get my degree in finance. If you can follow the money, you can really do anything in business. It's what people are after in business anyway. Right. Yeah, I mean,

not a whole lot of people come out with a degree and say, hey, man, I want to dedicate myself to nonprofits. At least not early in their career. You know what I mean? Maybe later on. So yeah, so I graduated with a degree in finance. I did a minor in criminology just because I know I'm a little bit of a loose canon.

It's better to know the law if you're up against it. I find it's always better at least to know where the boundaries and barriers are. I'm not saying you have to govern yourself by them, but it's a good step in the right direction to at least be cognizant of where they are. Very proactive. Very proactive. Yeah. Wow.

So, yeah, you know, graduated. And then it came down to, you know, we move out and we all got to get real jobs. And so I had been working at public supermarkets while I was going to college full time. going to college full time and working their full time in their corporate office. And then an opportunity came up to get into the startup software world. And to me it was cool. I always wanted to travel. I always, you know, I love Lakeland where I was born.

It's great. But I always wanted to get out and see things and kind of spread my wings. So started doing that and you're on the road 90% of the time. Software. Yeah. Yeah, software consultant. So they're contracting you out. You fly out, you know, Sunday night.

You fly home Friday night. So you're pretty much home Friday, half a day. Saturday, half a day Sunday, you don't want to have all your buddies over for a rager. You know, so my buddy Jared Hatcher that I lived with was doing the same thing I was doing. And we ended up having a short week and ended up one Saturday night getting together at my house. I'm like, dude, we got to get the old band back together. Figure something out, you know, we can't have cookouts every weekend, but we got to do something. And in Lakeland, there's a, it's been the 22nd year of it this past year.

There's a barbecue competition called Lakeland Pig Festival. And Jared goes, well, what about these barbecue contests? You know, maybe that's something we could do. And we're like, all right, let's figure it out. And so his, his grandfather had just died. We inherited, he inherited this huge, you know, smoker like you're using for, like, feeding a neighborhood. It's not a company later to be learned. Like the size of like an oil drum, basically?

Yes. Yeah. So oil drum, but on its axis. Wow. So with a rotisserie and everything. I mean, it's built to, like, cook 60 pork butts at the time. And so. Six, zero.

6-0, yeah. Okay. I might have to put up a picture of a port, but just to give people some reference to size. That's not tiny. No, that's 600 pounds of raw pork, yeah. Wow. And so we're like, man, we've got that.

You know, we can go to contest. Everybody says our food's the best. You know, when we feed them. I'll tell you about that later. And so we're like, all right, now we need to come up with the name. So we're having a couple of cocktails sitting there and listen to Country Gold Saturday night.

and Hank Williams Jr. Whiskey men, Hellbound came on, and I said, what if we drop the hellbound so we can do church caterings and we'll call ourselves Whiskey and a barbecue? And so it kind of started there. And I always tell people the first two years we were a drinking team at a barbecue contest. And our first contest was August of 2007 down the road in Consumie, Florida. And we were in the amateur division. There were nine teams. We finished seventh and lost a troop of Boy Scouts. I mean, let's be honest. The Boy Scouts can throw down sometimes.

They were there getting their cooking badge and we were just getting embarrassed. Oh, boy. But there was something about when we went out there, man, the camaraderie, the people. It's like, you know, it became a second family for me. And we stayed with it. You know, and one thing we learned kind of after those first two years was we can still go out, drink, have a good time. But make that second and trying to win first. And since then it's been awesome.

So I've watched, because there are many of them, cooking competition type shows on TV, but I also have enough experience in that world to know that the vast majority of the stuff ends up on the editing room floor. So you're getting, I mean, on a 30-minute episode, what is it, maybe 22 minutes of content? Yep. And the competitions, are they all day or are they all weekend? They're really all weekend. You know, you'll show up there. A lot of guys will even start showing up on Thursday night and they'll kind of have a big get-together, throw-down Thursday night. Other teams will start rolling in Friday morning, but Friday by noon, usually everyone's there. You have to get your meat inspected so that they know that it has already been injected or rubbed or anything of that nature.

And you know what you're going to cook prior to go in there? Yes. Every barbecue, great question. Every barbecue competition sanctioned in the KCBS or the Florida Barbecue Association. I love the fact that they're sanctioned barbecue. Yes. Yes. Is chicken, pork ribs, pork butt, and brisket.

So most guys on chicken. They'll cook either drums or thighs because they're dark meat and they're more forgiving. 90% of the guys cook St. Louis-style ribs over baby backs or full spares. Everybody cooks pork butt and everybody cooks brisket. So you have to cook all four of those at a competition? If you want to win a Grand Championship, yes. And that's where the main money is. So let's say at a contest, Grand Champ will usually take $2,500 and top category, you know,

whoever finishes first in chicken will get $400 or $500. So you want to cook all four so that hopefully when they take those four combined scores, boom, your grand champion that day. And how many people are on a team? Man, there's some guys that are warriors and they're one dude. They're solo teams. You know, I've got one of my mentors down in Florida, a guy named Rub Bagby. Rubs cooked by himself for...

Is his first name actually Rub? It's Rob, but... Okay, I was going to say, because that would be the biggest coincidence ever. Yeah, that's an awesome one. So, but him and my buddy Matt Barber, those guys are one. man teams and I would say your average barbecue team is two to four people um that's not a lot of even if you win that's not a lot of money to cut even two ways or four ways so no the reason I ask is it seems almost like it's more something you're passionate about versus something you're going to get

famous or make a ton of money doing yeah no that that's really a great part of it I mean you gosh I bet there's a less than 10 guys out of 7000 teams that solely based off competition barbecue Q winnings show a profit. The rest of it is, you're absolutely right. It's a passion. Because you got to buy all that meat too. Yeah. There's cost before you even show up.

That's why, you know, and some of us are super fortunate. You know, it costs an average unsponsored team with no help, depending on how far you travel anywhere from $1,200 to $1,200 a weekend to cook a competition. Because you're not cooking a Walmart brisket. You're getting a snake river farms or a, you know, some type of wagu biscuit if you want to be in the running. And that's anywhere from $175 to $225. Wow.

And then the Boy Scouts beat you. That was pre-wegoo biscuit. That's crazy. So, I mean, so what ends up on the cutting room floor of those shows then? Because it's basically, from what I can tell, it's the same, I guess, pun-intended recipe for the TV show. Yeah. Hey, welcome to the show. Here's what you're cooking.

They show the stressful moments. Yeah. And then 10 minutes later, everything is cooked. they're judging the food. Yeah. So what is not shown on that? Anything that's not dramatic and increases ratings. Man.

Like, I was on chopped. And when I was on it, you know, nervous the night before, literally, I just sat in my room, sipping whiskey and sharpening my knives. I sharpened my eyes for three hours. And so no. At some point, don't they start getting duller? No kidding, Andy. I go and they gave me a beef rib and the appetizer round, which is just ridiculous, right?

I mean, a beef rib takes, you know, seven to nine. hours to properly break down and render and cook. And they give it to you for a 20 minute appetizer. So I could have to open the bag that they're in and the point of that knife clips my finger. And just, and you know, you already got your adrenaline pumping,

heartbeats up there a little bit. Yeah, and a heart rate of 150. And then they had just went through like five minutes before we go live. Now, if you cut yourself and I kind of looked over at my buddy Ken, I'm like, you cut yourself on national TV,

do you just need to pack your stuff and go home. Get out of here. And there. Literally I am 90 seconds. into it, having to decontaminate and change everything out. But yeah, it's a lot of that. You know, and obviously they covered that. You know, oh, Chad cut us off at the very beginning.

What's going to happen? Oh, I love the whispered voices. Because they're probably not even in the same room where they probably do the voiceover after. They're in the same room when I, when I did mine. And mine was interesting because it was the first time chopped one outside the studio. So we actually filmed it at Old Tucson Studios in Arizona, which was its own set of craziness.

Like, I remember chopping some parsley and going to the pantry to get something and coming back in a 40-mile-hour wind, it just, who, right off the cutting board. Awesome. Yeah. On little parsley confetti party from my elimination. But, no, it's a lot of that to where, and I wish what they would focus on more is like, man, look at this technique.

So-and-so is using, I didn't think about that. But it seems to always just be something got burned or somebody cut theirself. Yeah. But I think that's why you've seen so many people now, now that we have a choice. on how we consume content. That's why you've seen so many people move online and move into other areas, you know, subscriptions for like America's Test Kitchen, places like that, where they can go and get the content they want without all the drama and production.

Yes. You know, like one of my favorite things we're out here with Dudley, obviously, hunting and, you know, cooking the food that we are getting. One thing I love about John is that he's so dedicated to education. Yes. And, you know, I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but for whatever reason in my feed, I'll see the Gordon Ramsey

master class. Yep. And I've never, I haven't bought it. I have no association with it whatsoever. But I think it's super cool that you can consume it that way. You could go watch a cooking show

or you can watch this dude who obviously knows how to throw down. Yeah. Teach you some basic stuff. It's, I actually think I'm going to buy it just because I want to, like after being around you guys,

I need to up my cooking game. Well, and a lot of times, too, it's, you know, and I feel like sometimes when it comes to, I don't consider myself a chef. consider myself a pit master. Me too. That's what I consider myself.

I like it, dude. That does sound so much stronger. Yeah. But, you know, I think a lot of things that are intimidating about, you know, chef type things is a lot of it's the vocabulary. A lot of French vocabulary. And you got to have all these tools. It is overwhelming.

Like, I don't know anything about sauces. I don't know how to make. I mean, I know what a reduction is, but I don't. Yeah. I know I drive my wife nuts because I, for years, you know, I had limited choices. for food. So I got really used to eating. I could eat the same meal three times a day, probably for the rest of my life. It doesn't bother me. Right. I'm not saying what would that meal be? I mean, even if it was chicken breast and rice, if I had to, if I really had to control it,

I'm not exploratory with my food. And I'll just say a lot of the destination locations I traveled to didn't get five-star ratings. So I'm not eating the local stuff. I've tried before and I was doubled over for days. So if I can, I mean, I'll literally survive off of beef jerky and an apple if I can. Speaking of beef jerky, what did you think about that triggered beef jerky last night? I already stole two of those rubs just so, you know. But I made eye contact with Tyler as I did.

Okay, it's okay. It's clean. I was just like, looking at him like nod in my head. Like, uh-huh, he's like, yeah, go for it. But it just, and then to me, temperature of food, like this drives my wife nuts. I will eat cold food and she's just put that in the microwave. It's going to taste better. And I can't do it because she's telling me to. Right.

Because I probably would taste better because she says it should. changes the, you know, the molecular structure, whatever it does. But I'm just so used to and did that for so long that, yeah, I think it's time. It's time to up the game for sure. I love it. Well, it's crazy. I mean, so watching, there's a couple different guys out here cooking. Everything comes to the end state of being utterly delicious.

But the route you guys took to get there, to me is what's interesting. Like, I like the grill aspect of it. To me, the grill is cool because I like turning it on. I like being out there. I like the noises that it makes. Yeah. And I like the fact that the smoke is outside instead of inside. Sure.

You know, it makes my house smell better. But, man, there's so much to learn. So how did you get attached to Traeger? Because you did competition barbecues for a long time, right? Yeah, I have. And so I started a brick and mortars in an online store in September of 2013. You still have it? Yeah, still have it.

Whiskey Venture Barbecue Supply in Lakeland, Florida, 4,000 square feet, 125 different rubs, 75 different sauces, 16 different varieties of wood. Wow. 12 different flavors of pellets. Yeah, we've got, we try to really be that kind of candy store

for people that like outdoor cooking. And we're Trager dealer, big green egg dealer, and Napoleon on gas grill and charcoal. So we found brands that we like and we've stayed really committed to them. So I got fortunate enough that one of the VPs,

a gentleman by the name of Luke Edgar, at Trigger, saw my weekly radio show and ran into Denny, which, you know, our senior vice president said, Denny. Yeah, it's hard to this guy. Like, you know, super. You know what?

He just looks like he'd be great for the brand. And, you know, they had just acquired Trigger six months before this. And then he just happened to be coming to Florida to go on vacation and came by. And we chatted for three or four hours and, you know, told me about the product changes and what they were doing. And I said, well, you know, I'd love to. And we'd love to come on and be a part of the pro team. And, you know, we'd love for you to came here in the store.

And so we kind of started that way. And then about a year later, the Trigger guys always knew if they're in town, like, we're not going to go out and eat. Like, why would you? They bring over the whiskey. I usually get with my meat sponsor, mass purveyors, and get some meat. And, you know, we just have a nice dinner. And a gentleman by the name of Sebastian, we call him Seabass, says, dude, have you, you seen this new director of marketing for barbecue job we have. I'm like no, but why hasn't anyone told me? Why am I the last person to know

this position exists? Yeah, so I reach out the ditty and things like really you want to leave the software world and come do this? I was like I would man. So you were still doing the software stuff while oh man yeah so you had exactly zero minutes off yeah yeah no it was it was busy and um yeah so I was like man I would I would really I was like you know I love what you guys are doing as a brand I've been around it for a year um and software I I was always either a startup or a turnaround guy. And even though Triggers a 30-year brand, you know, since one thing I loved about it is we still kind of have that startup mentality.

I mean, we want to go out there and we want to, you know, take as much market share as we can, have the best products in the world and get people outside and get families together and have people cooking together, you know, and it's just when you walk into the office, there's just an energy that you get from a very successful startup or, you know, a business you've turned around 180. It just has that same feeling. So that's what I loved about it. So about 18 months ago, I was offered that job and took it.

And since then it's been busy. And you're based in Salt Lake now, right? You left Florida? No, I still live in Florida. Oh, boy. I'm just not home a whole lot. You're saying your commute is not short. Yeah, I did.

I think I did 205 days on the road last year. And right now I think I've been home 13 days this year so far. But, you know, I'm out there every three weeks. It's a great team out there. I love the one out there. And then on top of that, I get to teach some shop classes that we do at Trigger. That's going to ask you, because you run the shop classes too. And it's difficult because I know a lot of people who hear this aren't going to have Trigger, right?

And those classes are specifically for Trigger. I'll tell you not so much. I always tell people, as long as you're getting barbecue instruction, it's all about time and temperature. Yeah. Does the Trigger help you keep temperature better? Yeah, than a stick burner and some other things, it does. But you can take all the techniques that we teach you in a Trigger shop class and apply them to any cooking method, even the oven. You know, I mean, obviously, you're not going to have that wood-fired flavor in the oven.

Or the smoking. Right. You're still going to have the, you know, you're still going to have the texture you're looking for, the tenderness, the color, those type of things. So you can definitely apply things from the Trigger Shop class on other grills. So where do you start people when they show on? Or does each, is the classes you teach, are they modules? Like, this is going to be a state class, and then the next one will be a sides. So what we have is like our, what we call our day one class is really kind of an introduction to outside cooking.

You know, so we do a smoked lemonade with teetos. That's pretty good. I think we may have to figure out how to do something with Kilcliffe next time because, man, those were. They're tasty. Those were good this weekend. Then we go in, we do a pizza. So we do a pizza that we cook. You know, super simple margarita pizza recipe, you know.

But once again, gives people something besides so many people when they think about cooking outside, think burgers and ribs and, you know, pork chops and steaks. And, you know, it's a heat source. It's a, you know, a trangers, a flavored heat source. But any grill is just an outside heat source. Use it that way. See, I'm stuck in that world, though, too. For me, it's until extremely recently, and I have only messed around with going probably past

cooking meat on the grill very, very recently. some, in that it's just some vegetables. Yep. But that's what I, the world I was in, too. Like, I've turned some burgers into hockey pucks on a coal grill. Yep, yep. I mean, I've overcooked stuff on the treggar too, but that was also my fault because I was downstairs playing

ping pong with my son and forgot I was cooking. So that meal got thrown out. Pizza time. Yeah. I've done pizza on there. It was unbelievably good. But I was in the same world of thinking that it was only hot dog steak, burger. So where would you start someone?

who wants to go beyond that. Vegetables, I think it's a great start. Because you're already cooking the protein for your dinner. Depending on what temperature you're cooking at, you know, throwing that asparagus on the top rack or on the grate next to it is delicious. Potatoes are an easy one, you know, sweet potatoes. You know, hit them with a little bit of, you know,

hit them with a little bit of oil on the outside and some salt and throw it on the smoker. You know, just kind of cook it along with it. I poke a couple holes in it too. That'll help. but I think vegetables is an easy one and I think the other one that people don't think about a lot's desserts. Like in that

class we do a peach cobbler. Once again, you know, it's all you're looking for is a consistent temperature. I think I hit you up for the recipe. I smoked that huckleberry pie. Yep. Over Thanksgiving. That didn't last long. Yeah. No.

That thing, it was some of, I mean, I had never in my mind would have thought of cooking a pie on a barbecue. Yep. It was unbelievably good. Well, when you think about it, you know, You've got that constant heat, but you're burning 100% wood in the example of a trigger. And that dough actually picks up just an, you know, and that's the one thing I love about it is you never cook anything more that smokes overpowering. It just, it's another level of flavor that gets added to it, which is what I really like.

I don't like overly smoked food. It almost comes off a little acrid and a little bitter to me. So I just kind of like that kiss of smoke. Yeah. Where do you start? I mean, because I'm actually basically just asking you questions for a buddy now who looks a lot like me. Selfishly going to monopolize your time. Yeah.

So when you're looking to cook a meal, where do you start? Like, I always start with the protein. Okay. You know, and depending on what the protein is going to be, well, I mean, well, let's just go into it. Let's talk about how I menu planned for this trip. Yep. So I looked at it and I said, okay, well, you know, we're probably going to end up having some wild hog. So God, I hope so.

Yeah. And so that's why obviously I just. brought along some asparagus and Brussels sprouts just to make sure we had something. And then I was like, you know, before it gets crazy with, you know, the stuff going on today and last night, I said, let's, let's have a nice dinner we can all enjoy. So I said, okay, it's going to be prime rib, boom. All right, well, we're going to need something green to go with that in a starch. And so then from there, I just kind of looked at knowing what I had out here, like, you know, let's not go something level five out of five difficulty or four out of five because we're busy. We'll be doing stuff.

you know, just something that's easy to execute that people will just really enjoy. What would five out of five be? That would be like a... What's incredibly hard on the grill? Like a creme brulee or... Didn't think you were going to say that. I don't think anything meat-wise,

I consider really a five out of five. It's when I get into the sides and desserts that you can just almost get a little too elegant. Yeah. But let's take, you know, so let's take that meal. So we said we're going to do a prime rib, smoked it for what six six and a half hours we ate late it was on there a long time dully reminded me of that like ten times that we ate late here's the thing though because we were

just so hungry but when you started carving into that it was worth the way it's worth i would have waited two more hours yeah but but then let's look at the other star the show that all you guys loved the saracamao potatoes oh my god unbelievable so so literally all we all i did with those was um that the small new potatoes whenever you're going to do potatoes, I always say on a grill, I either do the really small new potatoes or the small red potatoes. If I want to have a baked potato, that's fine. Just know you're going to have to throw it on there and give it an hour and a half, two hours. Time investment. Right. But, you know, these, man, I just tossed, um, I tossed with a little bit of olive oil and some of our Traeger prime

rib rub and threw them on and just let them cook, um, gosh, for 45 minutes. And the thing was, went ahead and got those done and just held them, you know, just kept them warm in an unlit oven. And then when it came time to eat, they were still nice and warm. I added the saracha mayo, tossed it around, a little bit of parsley. And man, it's an amazing dish. But it's so simple. And it's sarah mayo was unbelievable. It changed the, it didn't change the texture of the potato, really, but it changed the unbelievably flavor profile. Yeah, a lot of depth. And then we did the Brussels sprouts that night. For me, when I cook Brussels sprouts on the grill, I always cut them in half. once again, just trying to make it a more manageable cook time.

And I hit those to be different with a little bit of sesame oil. Because sesame's got that little bit of nutty to it. And then I used our Trager rub that has a little bit of sweet, a little bit of savory to it. And just charred those off on cast iron for 15 minutes, you know, flipping, you know, turning them a couple of times to make sure they had, you know, nice caramelization across. And I'm not a big Brussels sprouts person. But I think anytime you can cook them and you don't have to add bacon and they're still good and people like them, then it's a pretty good thing.

Yeah, you mentioned with the rub too, the sweet and the spicy. So for people who don't have the Trigger rub, what are those things? Canisters? Yeah, canisters. What would you recommend for like, have to have in your kitchen for go-to spices? Because a lot of the Trigger stuff, if you, I look at the cans, they're paired. Like coffee and, what is it, molasses? Yep.

So where's that coming from? How are you guys doing that? It's all about a dance, right? So, and you're hoping the dance happens on your taste buds. So to me, you know, top six things I would have if I were just going to make my own rub, salt pepper, garlic, onion powder, a little bit, you got to have some sugar. Anytime you're using sugar on a heat source, over 350 degrees, always use turbanado sugar. The brand name is usually sugar in the raw.

One thing to know about sugars is the finer the sugar, the lower the melt. point. So if you take a really fine brown sugar and put it on some, you know, put it on a slab of ribs. Yeah, it's going almost immediately, right? Well, you start seeing all these little black spots because it over caramelizes because it's such a small granular of sugar. So your larger pieces of sugar just melt, have a higher melt point. So always use turbinato sugar. And then I like to look at like, you know, cinnamon can be interesting. If you're one of those people that like goes to the spice market. Vietnamese cinnamon's really interesting to kind of add into that, you know, savory block. That would probably be the majority of my go-toes. And then for Wild Game,

I know you were talking about what you put on the bore to loosen it up. Yeah. It was the vinegar, right? Yeah. So. Yeah, explain to me that because I was, I had never heard of that. Yeah. So it's really just the acid in the vinegar that will start to help break down. You know, because Wild Game, especially, you know, boars, the muscles can be a little more tense, which is going to make it tougher to eat. I will say, and just I had never, this is the first time I've ever hunted hog. Yep. I've seen pork

products in the grocery store. The difference in the color of the meat alone. Yes. Between the wild animal and I would say almost the colorless pork chops was very surprising. So it doesn't surprise me at all. And there was almost no fat on the hog.

Almost no fat, but like that that bloom, that redness that the wild game has compared to that pale pink I mean it's really awesome you know what I mean I mean it it looks great and it kind of makes you sit there and go

damn man how are they getting that so like how's that losing so much color in the domestication process you know what I mean I almost think that if you just took it blind and put like a tenderloin cut on a white plate yep and put it in front of somebody and asked them what kind of meat it was

I bet you nine out of ten people who had never seen the wild game wouldn't guess pork No, I don't think so either. I think they would pick something more buffalo-ish, bison. I just don't think they'd associate it with the normal color of pork that you see in the grocery. Because it's so red. Yeah. And so because of that, because of the difference in that that's where the vinegar comes in, right?

Yeah, so the vinegar helps just kind of break down those tense muscles to where, you know, it just has that better mouth feel to it. Would you do that with a lot of wild game or just bore specifically? Not really bore specific. Yeah, more bore specifically like venison, especially when you're talking backstraps and tenders like I don't like to mess with much man like I just like to cook them really really well make sure we pull them off at the right time you know a little bit of seasoning but once again not overpower it you know I mean you've harvested that animal that animals gave itself up let's not covered up with

a bunch of BS you know let's truly enjoy the animal so a little bit of season some smoke and uh you don't overcook it do not overcook it no if I have made that mistake myself and it is a pit in your stomach feeling when you owe it And we were talking earlier today. The sweet spot on wild, like elk steak is an example. The sweet spot is very, very narrow. You go through that and overcook that sucker in about, I'd say less than five minutes. Well, and I think exactly what you're talking about too is, you know, when we were talking earlier, when you mentioned, you know, hey, if it's close, I'd just rather keep it foiled and let it ride in my cooler.

And I totally am game with that. you know I'm a big fan of the reverse here anybody that's heard me talk about it you know with Dudley and Rogans brought it up a ton of times that you know heard it from Dudley's podcast and explain it though real quick we can't for people have no idea of it's awesome so let's take um you saw me down there here earlier do that venice venison tenderloin or uh yeah backstrap so I uh I usually start at 225 degrees and you know with a venison and a backstrap like that I'm going to take it to about 110 to about 110. It took me for that size, 35, 40 minutes.

And I will say one thing that I've seen all the people who know how to cook really well constantly using is the little digital thermometer. Like you're on your A game with the temperature of the meat. I always tell people when they say, how can I become a better cook? You can become a much better cook overnight using an instant read thermometer. people always ask, well, how long is that take? Well, how long is that taking?

I'm like, I can give you a range. Yeah. But every animal has lived a different life, especially when you're talking about wild game. And some people pour an entire bag of charcoal briquettes into the grill, and some people don't. Right, exactly. So, you know, I can give you temp ranges and I can give you, you know, time estimates. But, you know, really it's that internal temperature, that cut that you're cooking. So once I pull that backstrap off at 110, I'll take and just kind of rest it.

in my cooler while I turn my grill all the way up to, you know, 500 if I'm doing it on a tray or if you were doing it on it like a charcoal grill, you would open up your vents. Let the airflow come through. So you could get it pomp and I've never cooked on a gas grill, so I can't relate to gas. Ever? Ever? I have for a while. I don't know if you're missing out on much. Yeah.

For some people, like the economy of being able to do it and where they are. Like, I mean, I've had some pretty good meals on it. Yeah. But again, like I said, I kind of suck at cooking. that's going to change. I need to beat it's going to change. It's going to change.

If I got to become your cooking shirper or not, we're going to make it happen. Oh, I'll listen to what you say when it comes to throwing down meals. Again, it's something new and challenging in this. I was listening to Dolly talk today

because obviously people don't know what we're doing out here other than hunting. You guys are shooting a advertisement. Yeah, yeah. So we've had a lot of advertising in the past that you'll see late night

and on a bunch of TV. where we're educating folks on Trager and I'm fortunate enough to be on the new one that they're doing. Dudley, we've got a great section with him talking about the outdoors. And I love when he was talking, you know, why he hunts. The interviewer was asking him why he hunts. And part of his answer was because I want to do something awesome with the meat. So he's thinking about the cooking before he even goes out into the field,

which I started thinking about that. I was like, damn, that's the way to go. I mean, that's exactly why we're doing this. in the first place. Yeah, I'll tell you a real quick story on Dudley. Then we'll get back to finish this reverse here. He, um, first time I'm going to go meet Dudley, I'm meeting him down in Osceola County, like hour and a half from my place at a Hoppy Kempfer's ranch down there.

And I said, hey, man, I want to do a whole wild hog on a pro 34 Trigger. And he's like, all right, well, what do you think we need? I'm like, man, you know, based on the time that we've got and the size of the chamber, I'm like, I think I need a about a 60 pounder and he's like, all right. I'll be right back. And with the head off and everything, I'm like, yeah, yeah.

And mind you, I don't really know much about Dudley at this point except like, he's tall. He's his outdoorsman that's pretty good with a bow. Yeah. And I'm talking to one of my friends. I'm like, dude, I've never like 24 hours out, like put in my meat order and the guy's going to go harvest it. You know what I mean?

And so it's certainly not the grocery store. No, no. So literally that night, you know, we had this conversation. in the morning that night after the evening honey texting this picture and it's got the head off and he's measured it out and he's like I think it's perfect and like oh fits like fits like a fit's like a champ but yeah so it he is obviously thinking about it from the beginning yeah and it's good out in the field man yeah so reverse here finish it off yeah so after that 225 for you know 30 to 40 you know 35 to 40 minutes wanted to get to that 115 110 um I take it put it into a

Usually a hopper is pretty easy, like a Yeti hopper. That's what I use too. I'll put it down in there, crank my grill all the way up to high. Once it gets to 500 or, you know, if you want to go higher, if you're doing charcoal, that's fine. I'd let the grates get hot three to five minutes and then throw it on there and get that sear on each side. If you want to get a really hard sear like I did today, I use the cast iron crittles. So once I was going to say, I've seen a lot of people do it on, they'll hopper it and then bring it inside of the stove. Do it cast iron, yep.

And most people I see are heating up just grass-fed butter. Yep. Same theory, heat it up, both sides. It kind of all depends on how hard of a sear you want. Dry cast iron will give you a very, a much harder sear than a wet cast iron. But same deal. They're both really good. But yeah, grass-fed butter is a huge one that people throw in there.

And then just boom, sear it off. And what you're looking for when you sear it off is I'm usually, Depending on how thick it is, two to three minutes each side. I like to pull it off around 120, 125 degrees. And then once again, pull it out, tent it with some foil, get it back in that Yeti. What does that do? I mean, it may be a stupid question. I only do it because people have recommended it.

What does that actually serve a purpose of? So what it does is it manages the carryover cook. So you're always with a wild game or any protein. when you cook it, it's going to carry over-cooked because you're just pulling it off of a 6, 700-degree heat source. The molecules just don't stop moving. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

So that's what really is the cooking process. So until some of that heat's dissipated out of it, it's not going to happen. And by putting in a cooler, you can, and timing it, you know, that 10 or 15 minutes, you can keep that carry-over cooked from just running away from you. Which is what I think has gotten me, taking it to like the temperature that I wanted

to eat it at. Yep. And then you, when you cut into, you're like, what's going on here? Yeah. Yeah, you always,

you know, in something like that that you're going to see, or I would say, like in a backstrap, you need to, you need to calculate an extra five to seven degrees.

So I like eating mine, like 130, 132. Yeah. So that's why I said I usually pull it off 123 to 125. I just kind of add

that five to seven in there. And to me on wild game, if it's, you know, two degrees underdone. I'm damn sure we'll take that over two degrees overdone. And with all the numbers you're saying, again, from a guy with very limited experience, without that digital thermometer,

you're throwing darts with your eyes closed. And don't be the guy who wants to throw up looking at the meal that you just ruined. And you can go over. I mean, you know, if there's a brand out there that I can recommend everybody, it's Thermow Works. At Trigger, we did a collaboration with them

that we sell on our website or... Therma works? Thermal works. Yeah, it's an American U.S. company in Spanish Fork, Utah, and they've been around for years. They are an instrumentation business. I mean, they... And they're not that expensive, right? They're not like... 15 bucks? Well, they can range anywhere. Like, the one I was using today, it's called the Thermopop. It's 2975. Okay. And then you can get all the way up to like the one that, you know, the other one that I use, which is 99 bucks. But yeah, you can start as low as what there's, I think, 1475. most people are cooking a piece of meat that's more expensive than that right you know what I mean

I would make the investment and the one thing I would tell you about thermworks is they stand behind their product I've had I've had thermopens that I've had seven or eight years and they'll go out and I'll ship it to them and it's not because of me or knowing him or whatever but I guess I had plenty of other friends do it um and they'll say all right man it's it's 10 bucks and parts and the postage back you know and so they really stand behind it their their firm believers they build you a product for life. And so, yeah, that's what I would definitely recommend. But even until then, if you can't get over to the website, whatever,

just get you a digital thermometer, bedbath, and beyond somewhere. Something to tide you over until you can get, you know, what you really need. Any other tool essentials that you can think of? That one's a big one. You know, I will definitely throw out there. You know, if you have the opportunity to get a Trigger, I think it really helps with keeping a consistent cook. It changed the way that I cook. So when we moved to Montana July 1st, we crossed the border.

And the first thing I bought for our new house there was a treger. I didn't tell my wife, though, because the price point, I mean, they're expensive. Yeah. And I'm not going to call it a luxury item. I'm going to say it's something that's really nice to have. And if you have the money, I'm from somebody who has no relationship with the brand. I'm saying, go out and get the thing if you can. So my wife was like, what did this cost?

I told her as I was cooking. burgers. I smoked them. I actually think I looked in the recipe book that came with the Trigger, which is cool, because I didn't know about the app yet. I don't even know if you guys had the app yet. I've been relatively new. It was really new. Yeah, because on the app is, I mean, there's categories from everything from wild game to cocktails, and I think you should explore all of them. Yes. And pair of them, of course. But one bite into that burger, and her response was, okay, this thing's staying. It's awesome. Wise investment. She goes, you know, a little bit in peaks and valleys with coming to eat meat.

And the more I can present stuff that is super flavorful, it helps in my kids. Right. I can't, man, man, my kids can throw down some protein. They love it. Favorite meat group, I would say, for all three kids is elk. I mean, how awesome is that to be I say that? Yeah. And an elk roast coming off the trigger, I did one in the oven.

It wasn't bad. But again, I think I overcooked it a little bit. then that's probably a common theme with my cooking. But if you follow the recipes and put the probe in there with the alarms on that thing, it's pretty hard to mess up. No, I completely agree. And that's one thing too to remember, you know, like on the Pro Series and the Timberline series of the Trigger is, you have a temp probe that we give you.

And I always say that's a great yardstick. And then I like my instant read once I see, oh, it's around 110. Let me get my instant read out and take a hit. It has to be more accurate because those things, things that are built to stay in the heat like that? Yeah. I mean, they're built to stay in the heat with probably a secondary purpose of measuring temperature. Yes.

That's the way that I look at that. Yeah. That's a very good point. So a grill, a digital thermometer. What do you think about cast iron? I think cast iron is great. You know, obviously it allows you to add a little bit of seared things. And also, I think it'll make you do more vegetables, desserts, cobblers, things like that,

because now you have a vessel that it works really well in. And those things last forever. Yeah. And take care of them. I mean, it's super simple. I mean, when you get done using it, you know, clean it out with a paper towel, hit it with some oil. Yeah. I usually still have my trigger going.

So I'll clean it up, hit it with some oil, put it right back in the trigger for maybe 10, 15 minutes. Kind of let that oil, kind of let that oil just kind of bake back in. Does that help with people call that conditioning? Yeah. The PAM? Yeah. Yeah. I get a whole freaking universe in front of me that I got to figure out.

So, I know you've got to catch a flight pretty soon. We're coming right up to the 45-minute boundary. So where can people find and follow you? So people can go Instagram, Twitter, Whiskey bit at BBQ. And then if you want to go online, Whiskey bit at BBQ supplies my store and where I kind of list my events and stuff like that and anything you need. But yeah, that's kind of the best way to get a hold of me. And I try to be pretty active on social as far as if you have a question, you reach out to me.

I mean, if you take two seconds of your day to reach out to me, then I can definitely give two seconds to reach, you know, to answer your question. Has Dudley drug you out hunting yet? Yes, so Dudley took me hunting. Oh, he told me. You were sitting on a Yeti with a crossbow. Yeah, with my loudmouth shorts on. It was awesome.

What did you end up getting? I ended up, I smoked like about a 70-pound hog, and literally from the time I dropped it till me and John were serving it to people at archery country was nine and a half hours. It's hard to, I mean, that's what happened the first night, It's, we brought the animal back, did all the skin in the animal, got the animal, cut it up the pieces, and he was seasoning that thing. And it was on the initial smoke setting within about two hours. Yep.

And then you took over, because he and I were investigating the bottom of a Tito's bottle, making sure that it was still there. And it is, because people were curious. Along with a few more. Yeah. No, we definitely had a good time out here, man. I'd love to get you out hunting some more, too. No, I would love to. you know, to me it's something that I did a little bit of it growing up,

and then kind of life just got busy. But, you know, how can't you love being out here and, you know, and just, you know, stalking and hunting and just, you know, enjoying nature? No, it's, I'd love to. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if there's any truth to it at all, but I honestly think it tastes better when you had to work your ass off for it. Oh.

And crawl around, you know, and you had your hands involved in every phase of the off. I mean, I don't know, probably physiologically tastes the same. but to me, you might placebo effect, whatever it is. A little sweeter. Yeah, it really does because you sit there. One of my favorite things to do is talk to the kids about where the elk came from. And everything was involved. And now all three of my kids are like, hey, dad, I think I could get a bow.

And my response was always, you got to go, you got to say that when we're at the dinner table in front of mom. So I can justify this. If I just go to her and say they need a bow, she might not believe me. But if you say you would like a bow and we're both there, your odds are better. Much better. Yes. I also say dad needs a ducati.

I love it. All right. Oh, man. Thank you again for all the cooking dude the last few days. Great to meet you in person. And I'm going to keep using you as my personal recipe resource. Not, dude, anytime. And that's why I always tell people, you know, they're like, man, I hate the text.

I'm like, man, it's what I do. And I've always got my phone on me, man. And plus, man, I just love getting the picks back or the text back. Like, oh, dude, it was so awesome, man. Thanks so much. Like, dude, that means. world to me and just you know being able to watch people grow and become better cooks i mean that's awesome yeah let's end it on that man thank you for the time thank you thank you as always thank you

everybody for tuning in really appreciate all of the reviews and feedback you've given me on both iTunes and social media if you reach out with an email i'm going to do my damnedest to get back to you i can't get back to every single one but anytime that i have downtime whether i'm traveling or i'm up early or staying up late i'll try to log on and it'll leave get back to you. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to reach out to me. The very least that I can do is try to do the exact same thing for you. Thank you to everybody who's buying the shirts and hats. Amazing to see the response.

Got a couple other design ideas up my sleeve. I guess pun intended on that. But it's going to be a little bit. I want to not over, I don't know what it would be, over brand, overmarket. I want to keep it simple. That's what I'm trying to say. I don't want to have too much stuff out there because I want it to be about the podcast and the guests on the podcast and not really about the shirts of the hats. Even though I love seeing the pictures that people send of those things out in the wild.

And it certainly does help me facilitate doing some more cool stuff with the podcast. Just ordered a new microphone yesterday. So one step at a time, just like I tell people when they ask me how to achieve their goals, I'm trying to live the exact same way. One step at a time, incremental improvement. before you know it's success is right around the corner. So thank you again to everybody listening. I'll see you next week.