A barbecue how-to for your Lowcountry holiday

Go easy on the sauce during the holiday.

Watch out for green meat.

And please — please! — quit opening the lid to the smoker. Unless your fire’s out, it’s cooking, and looking under the lid won’t make those Boston butts and briskets cook any faster.

Before you fire up the smoker, here’s three things you should know from some Lowcountry barbecue experts:

Don’t trim the fat ...

Unless you need to.

Luke Fairchild, a butcher and chef at Islands Meat Market in Beaufort, says “the fattier the better.”

“If I trim anything, it’s brisket,” he said. “If the bulb end” — Fairchild’s favorite part, also called the point — “has too much fat on it, I’ll trim some off. ... I’m a strong believer in fat’s flavor, but too much fat is overkill.”

Too much fat is “more than a half or three-quarters of an inch.” Leave it on and risk your dry rub not seeping in — and watch your cook time increase.

But before you cut the fat, you need to choose the right meat.

If you want pulled pork, get a bone-in Boston butt, Fairchild said. A beef brisket should be firm — never squishy — and the fresher the better. For butts and briskets, look for good marbleization, thin strands of fat that snake their way through the meat.

Remember that butts and briskets shrink when they cook. If you’re smoking for 10 people and you want everybody to have about a half pound of cooked ‘cue, buy a 7 1/2- to 10-pound cut of meat.

Looking for ribs? Fairchild suggests the baby back variety; they’re smaller and easier to manage on a grill, he said. Spare ribs and St. Louis-style ribs are bigger. Regardless of what cut you choose, make sure you get a rack with plenty of meat atop the loin. And get a rack that already has the silverskin — the thin, tough membrane that coats the underside of the ribcage — removed.

Don’t buy pork on clearance, Fairchild said. The meat shouldn’t smell funky when you open the packaging. And if you see any green on a cut, steer clear.

Preppers

Orchid Paulmeier, the former Food Network star and owner of One Hot Mama’s American Grille on Hilton Head Island, likes simple ingredients for dry rubs: salt, pepper, paprika, brown sugar and garlic.

Fairchild suggests a dry rub for briskets and likes to brine his pork butts overnight in a half water, half salt solution with zest of lemon and orange.

Bob Sutton, owner of Bullies BBQ on Hilton Head, says to be careful with the brine. Too much time in salty water can dry out the meat, he says.

If there’s one thing you can say about barbecue, it’s that there’s not just one way to make it. (But you already knew that.)

Our local experts do agree that wood is the way to go. Hickory, oak and pecan are popular choices.

But you don’t have to have a wood-only smoker to get those smoke rings on the meat. Paulmeier suggested making foil packets — water-soaked wood chips wrapped in tin foil — to throw on a gas grill to get that smoke.

Sutton used to set up a Weber charcoal grill with a water pan in the middle surrounded by hot coals and water-soaked wood chips to smoke meat.

“Experiment, practice and have a good time of it,” he said. “I did plenty of ribs on a Weber grill, and it was an afternoon project. Something to do and drink some beer.”

The meat will only take smoke for about the first four hours of cooking time, both Sutton and Paulmeier said.

Sutton said a pork butt can be finished off in the oven or a Crock-Pot. For her baby back ribs, Paulmeier starts them in the oven and finishes them over hot coals to get that nice char effect.

Watch the heat, not the meat!

“You’ve got to monitor your heat,” Paulmeier said. “Check the temperature, not the meat. If the fire gets too hot, it’s not breaking down or cooking the right way.”

And if it gets too cold, well, it’s not cooking at all. So, stop opening the smoker and letting out the heat.

Paulmeier cooks St. Louis-style and spare ribs at 275 degrees but cooks everything else a bit lower, between 210 and 225.

Depending on its size, a brisket can be done in six or seven hours, she said. You know a pork butt’s done when the bone easily slides out.

You can mop your meat with an apple-cider-vinegar-based sauce while it smokes, she said, and you absolutely should mop your ribs “to get that caramelization on the outside.”

When you’re serving your brisket, Paulmeier said, remember to cut it against the grain, otherwise it will be stringy.

And, for all of your meat, go easy on the sauce.

“People think they have to put sauce all over everything. … You let the meat speak for itself. Serve the sauce on the side. And have two different sauces, too. Have a mustard, have a vinegar, have one sweet and one spicy.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 11:47 AM with the headline "A barbecue how-to for your Lowcountry holiday."