 Hey, we are live this afternoon with Robby Schultz and I'm super excited that you've joined me today because there's so much that we have questions about for barbecue grills. Now it's about time that we jump into that grilling season and Robby has a unique experience and he's a celebrity chef and he owns a general store and this is the third generation that his family has been in business and what's really interesting is because of his recipes and because he's a celebrity chef and because he's been on the Bobby Flay show and because his recipes have been published in national magazines and news media outlets all over the globe. What we wanted to do is get him here on the show today and say, hey, listen, tell us the deets and the secrets about how to make sure that our barbecue grills are clean because you know what, Mother's Day is coming up and we know that mom's coming over and we're all gonna probably have a cookout. Then we got Father's Day, we got Labor Day, we got all kinds of events coming up this season. So how do we clean our barbecue grills? Super excited that you guys are joining us today. I'm gonna invite you to jump in the conversation, ask all your questions, we're gonna get them answered today from Robby Schultz. So Robby, how are you today? I'm super glad that you're here. Hey, Angela, thanks for having me. What an introduction, my hat is starting to tighten up. I think my head's swell a little bit but thank you for that, I'm glad to be here. Well, I wanna hear a little bit about your background and how you got involved in cooking and also the grilling end of your business because that's the reason why you're here today. Oh yeah, so you know, Angela, you and I talked briefly while ago, we are going into our 81st year so there is so much to talk about. I need to ask first how much time do I have because I've got 81 years to share with you. Oh my goodness, well, let's get started. I'm just kidding, I haven't been here that long, I took a few days off. Anyway, so yeah, Bear Creek Smokehouse started out in 1943, my granddad and grandmother started this farm out here that was bought by his dad back turn of the century. So, you know, the land has been in the family for a long time and my grandparents were, you know, trying to live off the land, they had cattle, hogs, they had a gardens, they raised cotton, they raised corn, all these sorts of things and you know, coming out of the Depression years and World War II, they were just having a hard time feeding their family. So they were looking at alternative means to have a farm income and that sort of thing. So my granddad had an uncle out in Grapeland, Texas with an ag teacher and he told my granddad, he said, Hick, you can put more pounds on a turkey per pound of feed fed than you can hogs and cattle. In other words, the feed conversion rate was better. So in the summer of 1943, my grandfather, his name was Hick and my grandmother Nellie, they got about 600 baby turkey, just day old, that big. And so they started raising them and you know, when Thanksgiving rolled around, you know, they started advertising, started taking orders for turkeys, that sort of thing. And so people would come from all over Harrison County, come out here to pick out their turkey for Thanksgiving. And it was so funny. I remember their story, my grandmother telling it. She said, we even had ladies that would come out and bring their roasting pan out and they would kind of sizing up their roasting pan and looking out there in the flock of turkeys and be like, oh, I think that one right there will fit in my pan. Did you, did I have that one right there? So my granddad would go and catch it and either dress it or send it home with them and they did it their self. So it started out, fresh dressed turkeys and on the foot and that sort of thing. And it wasn't, they did that for a few years and then in the late 40s, they finally built a little one room smoke house and they started smoking turkeys. And the turkeys are the one that brought us to the dance. We have a wide array of smoke meats and products that we sell nationwide, but still Turkey is the one that brought us to the dance. You know, we sell thousands of them during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Wow. So you created then some recipes to go along with the products that you sell. We did, you know, and we've got them all compiled in a fabulous cookbook. I don't know if you've seen that or not, but it's called Bear Bottom Bliss, Five Generations of Food, Family and Faith. And it's got a lot of their, I would say old fashioned type recipes because they came from my grandmother, great grandmother, aunts, my mom, a little bit of everybody contributed to the book, just recipes that we've had on file in the family for years, you know. And so we compiled all those along with some, I call them tall tales from Bear Bottom, that place where we live out here on the farm. And then some inspirational words of wisdom and that sort of thing. So it's a good read and it's a nice coffee table book and it's got beautiful photography of the land, the lay of the land down here and some great recipes and food photography as well. Awesome. Now, is that book available inside your country store? It is available inside the Bear Creek General Store right here in Marshall, Texas. And it's also available online too on our website. Oh, awesome. Okay, cool. Now, tell me a little bit about the general store. That sounds like a tourist trap for anybody traveling through Marshall, Texas. You know what, you get the nail on the head. We've got a sign up out here on the driveway. It says, finest tourist trap in Texas. And so we have people coming from all over. We have a world, one of those flattened out world maps and we let people put pens in where they're from. We've got people from pretty much all continents. And you know, it's mostly US visitors but we do get a lot of foreigners that come through. So when you come in, you're gonna get a big Texas. How do you do, where are you from? You're gonna get to sample all of our meats and our things that we make. The store is just amazing. It's filled with antiques and old signs and all kinds of fabulous merchandise. We feature all of our smoked meats along with a lot of other gourmet foods and gifts. We've got stuff for women, children, men, everybody. And it's just a great spot. And then you go in the back and we have a big huge event center where we host events. We have companies that do corporate events out here. We've had some worldwide companies come and host events here when they want their guests to get the true Texas experience. We've had people like from Russia, just all over the country, Australia just everywhere, you know, that work for these big companies and they come here. And so they get that full Texas flavor, Angela. Well, and rumor has it that when people come to your general store, if you are on site, that you'll go out and you'll meet them personally. Is that still true? Oh heck yeah, I'm happy to do that. Yes, we love people. We're passionate about what we do. And you know, it's all about relationships. And when people leave our store, we want their, we just wanna blow them out of water. We want their experience to be so much better than what they ever thought that they could have when they came through those red doors. Awesome, well, I gotta take a trip now down to Marshall, Texas so that I can get a selfie taken with you and- Well, we'll saddle up and we'll ride double on the Longhorn, how about that? I love that, that sounds like so much fun, awesome. All right, well, let's jump into our questions. And before we do, I wanna say hi to all of our guests that are here joining us today. Olivia says, love the cowboy hat, Robbie. Yes, I love it too. Oh, Olivia, thank you, baby. That is awesome. And then Dixie Doodle says, Texas Hill Country, hello, good timing for the subject, need grilling cleaning information. So yes, I'm super excited that we're doing that. And I have a couple of questions that have come in. So we wanna jump into some of the questions. And one of the first questions we have says, what are the essential tools everyone should have in their grill cleaning kit? Okay, so I've got some ideas on that that I like to share with everyone. What I like to have is like a metal, like an old metal paint bucket. It can be a gallon, it can be a five gallon is actually better. And then you'd want to have a good grill brush, you know, a wire bristle brush, you're gonna want like a soft bristle brush and a spray bottle. And maybe a sponge, add a sponge to that. And what is inside that spray bottle? You're gonna have it at different times. I don't give all my secrets away now because we're gonna talk about some of them later, but we're probably gonna have maybe a vinegar solution mixed up in that to help with some cleaning in different areas. Oh, good, good, good. So a spray bottle, a sponge and a grill brush. Is there something special about the grill brush? Well, it can be a wire bristle brush is what I like because they're a little stiffer, a little more rigid. And it helps with some of that super stuck and baked on debris that you get on your grill grate sometimes. Awesome, okay, cool. So let's suppose that we're pulling out the grill for the very first time and it's springtime. And if you're in North Carolina like me, there's bee pollen everywhere. What are we supposed to check for when we pull out that grill for the first time? I'm telling you, Angela, you could have all sorts of critters in your grill depending on how you stored it. You know, if you have room, it's great to store a grill maybe over to the side inside your garage. So it kind of helps keep the critters out. But I'm gonna tell you what, when you first opened that thing up in the spring and I've had all kinds of experiences in the past, there can be wasp nests in there. There can be bees just like you were talking about. Even in the stack, I've had little birds come and wanna build nests and those stacks before. So those are all things that you need to be watching for. The wasp are the worst. I've been chased away by a wasp before. Well, you know, I opened my grill and this is last season and a great big black garden snake slithered around the grill. And then I just, I froze for a second because I was like, that's so gross. And then I was like, do I turn it on? And then does he slither away? Do I remove him first before I turn it on? Like if I find a snake inside my grill cause I had stored my grill up against the side of the house but I had a cover on it and he slithered right up the back. Oh, what do I do? How do I fix that? Oh, I think you grab some tongs and maybe gently remove him. I'm just kidding there. No, he'll make his own exit. But I'll tell you, you know, this stuff, a lot of people have grill covers but maybe you forget to put them all. Grill covers will help a little bit but you still have bugs that can get up in there. You can even have rats and mice harbored up in there for the winter, you know, trying to get out of the weather and find a warmer place, you know, out of the rain and the elements and all that kind of stuff. So there's just all kinds of stuff you gotta look for. So when you open that grill for the first time in the spring, open with caution. That's a great tip because like you said, anything can sneak up there even if you have a grill cover on. And do you recommend a particular type of grill cover over another grill cover or does it matter? No, I don't think it matters that much. One of the main things that a grill cover will do it will help keep the pollen and dust out of there. Now you may not be keeping all your rodents and your insects out of there a grill cover will help keep the grill over all clean. So speaking of cleaning, how do we do a deep clean versus a quick clean on the grill? And I'm guessing when you first open it for the season you should probably do a deep clean, am I right? Well, you know what I would suggest is in late fall I would do that, make sure you do a deep clean. So all that, you know, like the fat and the drippings and stuff that collect in the bottom of your grill or smoker or whatever. So that's out of there. So that's not actually drawing insects and rodents in there for a source of food. I would make sure you do that in the fall before you put the grill up for the winter. You know, I think that's a great. That might have been my problem. I might have had a food source there all winter and who knows what was hiding up there? Yeah, yeah. So, but as far as a quick cleaning, I like to do just a regular cleaning every time I get through, you know, grilling something. Go ahead and clean those grapes up. And then the next time when you get ready to throw something on the grill you're not faced with a big cleaning job before. It's like the Boy Scouts, be prepared, you know? Go ahead and clean that top grate a little bit, you know, after you get done cooking. And I would consider doing a deep cleaning several times through maybe the summer months or whatever. After you see you've got some collection of debris and fat and maybe you dropped a weenie down through the grates or something like that when you were doing hot dogs and, you know, be sure and grab that out of there because all those little food particles will attract rodents and bugs and insects and all that sort of thing. Fair enough. Is there something we can do to either line the bottom of the grill with, like put an aluminum foil down there or is there some kind of a silicone baking liner? What do you do to- I never have done that, but you know, I think lining it with some aluminum foil might not be a bad idea as long as you get it underneath the burners where that foil's not interfering with the way your burners are working. Interesting, okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to think if there's an easier way to clean it up because I know if I'm out on the grill and I'm not, I don't know how to cook. I mean, I'm like a microwave person, right? So, okay. Come on. When I go out there, there are huge flames and stuff's falling through the grill and there's all kinds of stuff. So I'm sure there's a lot of debris. I was just wondering if there's a better way to catch that. Yeah. Well, that would certainly catch it if you had some foil on the bottom and that would ease, you would have to pull your grill grates out and it would easily be removed, you know, for sure. So speaking of grill grates, Dixie Doodles says, how do you clean up the rust? All right, good question. You can actually get a mixture of vinegar and baking soda. Just make a paste out of it. Normally you'd do the vinegar, two parts to one part baking soda, make a paste out of it and you can put it on the grill grates and let it sit, you know, 20 or 30 minutes, something like that and then get it out in the backyard, get a water hose and get a wire brush and that acid and that vinegar will help kind of pull some of that rust off of there. And for those that are not familiar with the pH, the neutral pH balance of vinegar, it's about a 2.5, which is very close to something as strong as toilet bowl cleaner. And so we don't want to use toilet bowl cleaner but something that's as strong in acid is vinegar. And so using the 2.1 dilutes that but that it's very strong and so that will then release some of the stuff and it will eat through some of that rust and gunk that's on the grill grates. That's really an awesome tip. Thank you for that. Yeah, and let's see here, something else I was gonna say along that line. Nevermind, let's go ahead. I'll think of it in a minute. Is it also the vinegar that we would use for the stubborn baked on grease and food debris? Or can you- I'll tell you, for that, heat is one of the best things you can do. Crank your grill up and just fire it up, get it up to about 500 or whatever. And then once you open that lid, that stuff is gonna be, it's pretty much gonna be disintegrated. It's gonna be kind of ashy. And then you can just take your grill brush and just wipe it right off. So a lot of times that alleviates that problem just like that. Now, tell me about cooking. When you're cooking on the barbecue grill, is it possible that you are putting barbecue sauce and stuff like that on the grill and that's sticking to the grates themselves? At the end of cleaning that, would you then turn the heat up and try to remove all that the same way? I would. That's the way I would do it. And then you're all clean and prepared for the next time. I know what I wanted to tell you a while ago. When we were talking about putting the vinegar and the bacon soda on, I try to at all costs avoid putting any kind of like heavy chemicals or anything like that inside your grill because I'm just not comfortable with it. And I'm always afraid that you're gonna get that aftertaste from whatever you might've sprayed in there. But vinegar and bacon soda are natural products. And so that's something you can put in there with no aftertaste, no. And you won't have any problems out of it at all. Well, and that's awesome because I know that there are some people, we won't say any names, but there are some people that have used like what do you call it, the degreaser or whatever that you use to clean the engine of a car on site their barbecue grill. And then for forever, the hamburgers and whatever tastes like it. Yeah. Degreaser or whatever. And I'm like, hi, chemicals. Yeah, oh yeah. It's in the back of your head and you just, that taste will never leave your mouth once you do something like that, yeah. Awesome, great points. Thank you for mentioning that. You betcha. Dixie Doodle says, good to know my dad's solution to every cleaning situation. And I'm guessing that is the vinegar solution to remove the gunk from that. And that's awesome. What happens if you don't have a grill brush? How do you clean the grates if you don't have a grill brush? Well, you go in your kitchen drawer and you get some aluminum foil out and you just get a big wad of it, wad it up and that will work great for cleaning that grill off. It'll take the stuff right off. Interesting. Yeah. Well, that's really awesome. I like to have a grill brush but that will work right there if you don't have one. And I think if you're gonna grill long term, having a grill brush is probably a tool that you will use on a regular basis. Yeah, they're inexpensive. You could probably pick one up at a dollar store or something like that, yeah. Well, that was my next question. My next question was, do you prefer one brand over another or is there any particular kind you use? Not particularly. I like, if you're in it for the long haul, I like stuff with stainless handles like the tongs and all the utensils and everything. I like stainless because it's easy to clean up, it doesn't rust on you and you can storm inside the house during the winter months or whatever. So if you were getting ready for, let's say a cookout this weekend, are there besides just your cleaning supplies and your stainless steel tongs and brush, is there anything else that you would do in preparation for that to keep your area cleaner as you're getting ready for a grip to cook out this state? You're talking about around the grill area? Yeah. You know what? If you get some little S hooks and put them on the handle, the end handles of your grill, it's kind of nice to have those, to say organize during the grilling months, you can hang all your tools out there. Earlier we mentioned the metal bucket for cleaning. You can keep all the scrub brush, your sponge and all that stuff in there and just kind of keep it over to the side or keep it out of the way place so it's not bothering anyone or so your kids don't get in it. So as far as that goes, I think that's about it, yeah. What about hard to reach areas of the grill? I know that when we open up our grill, there's like a little area behind the grill and it's not actually part of the grill. It's just kind of an area where stuff can fall and then it can get rusty and what have you if you're not like, I don't know, a contortionist that can get up there with. Right, yeah. Well, I will tell you, if you'll go to your local hardware store, you can find wire brushes in all the different sizes and they come with brass bristles or they come with steel bristles, but they can be about the size of a toothbrush. So they're a little bit smaller so you can reach those hard to get places and scrape that out of there. And if it's really, you know, you don't have a way to pick it up and get it out of there and we're gonna talk about this a little later. As long as everything's cool in there, stick a shop back down in there and just remove all those little particles that you might be able to remove with a toothbrush size wire brush or whatever. Oh, I love that. I never thought of using a shop back. Yes, ma'am. But if you were to go back to the tip that you gave us a minute ago about turning the temperature up to about 500 degrees and baking all that stuff off, it turns to ash, you could then come in with the attachments on the shop back because they come in all different sized little crevice tools and things like that. You could then get in all the hard to reach places and vacuum all that up. And with a shop back, the filter is dense enough that it would allow you to collect all that without ruining a regular household vacuum. That's right. That's right. So yeah, that's a great little tip. You just wanna make sure that there's no live ash or anything in there when you do that, when you use a shop back. So make sure that everything's cool and your grill's been off for quite some time. Great point. Thanks for that. Let's say the stainless steel grill cover and it's become greasy or has a film on the outside of it. What do you use to clean that? The grill cover or the grill itself? The grill lid. The lid on the outside? Yeah. I would use on that because it's outside of the grill. The cooking cavity, I would use a little bit of Dawn. Dawn is one of the best things to clean just about. They clean baby ducks with Dawn, right? So it'll sure do you the outside of your grill, but that's what that sponge is for. And your bucket, use just some warm soapy water on the outside of that. Just be sure and rinse it off really good when you're done. Well, and Dawn dish soap is one of the things that is used as kind of a universal degreaser. And I say universal in the European countries, it's called fairy, but it's the same kind of product and it's used just pretty much for all different kinds of things. And I also recommend that for grills because we've noticed over the years that it removes really thick gunk and is designed for pots and pans and stuff like that. So awesome, awesome tip on that. Okay, yeah. What would you talk about as far as cleaning the burners or the heat source on a gas grill? Well, so you know how stuff can leak out on the propane bottle, out of the bottom of the grill and everything, it can get really nasty. Here again, I would probably just unhook the pipeline or the connection there, take the propane bottle out in the yard and I would scrub it down with Dawn really good and some warm water and that's gonna clean that up. Now, as far as the inside, you were asking about the burners, is that right? Yes. Okay, so the burners, most of the time, those will remove pretty easily. You can take those out and you can take like a pipe cleaner or take like a paper clip and you clean all those little holes out, all the little gas ports that, you know, there's just rows of them going along there. Take that and, you know, poke all those out and make sure that they're nice and clean. You know the canned air that you get to like clean your keyboard off? Yes. If you wanna have one of those handy, you can actually blow those things out with that, blow them off and make sure that, you know, that they're in good working order and that you don't have clogged gas ports and all that kind of stuff. So that's a way to tend to that right there. And I'm assuming that if you're using a compressed air that you would use it when the grill is off and it's cool so that you're just blowing it on there and then it turns into flames. Yes, ma'am. And here again, once all that stuff, you get all that cleaned out, you can go back and use the shop back and suck all that right out of there. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you for that. That's important to know. What about homemade products instead of regular cleaning chemicals? Homemade products that you would recommend for cleaning? Well, the vinegar and the baking soda is one of the biggest ones that I've used. Now, as far as the grill grates themselves, you can take an onion and cut it in half or you can take a lemon and cut it in half and have that grill grate hot but hold on to it with your tongs and just wipe back and forth across there because that onion and the lemon both are gonna have some acidic value to them and they'll help. That's a natural product that you could use as well as the other things that we talked about to kind of help scrub and clean the top of those grates off. Oh, that's awesome. All right, now lots of people are building these back patios that have like a set-in grill where the grill is then set into stone or something like that. Do you have any tips for cleaning around those areas where it's not just a freestanding barbecue grill or a fire grill? Yeah, so I had one of those at one time and I had like a little granite slab on both sides of it and I just used a regular countertop cleaner for that. The outside of it of that one was stainless so you could actually use a stainless cleaner on a grill like that and mine actually had a big wide tray, the width of the grill and you could pull that tray out so you could easily take it out, dump it, use a water hose to clean it off with and here again, I would probably use a little dawn on that because it's not in the cooking component, it's down below catching grease, right? So it would be fine to clean that with a soap but I don't ever put like soap or chemicals inside the grill itself. Yeah, okay, good to know. And how important is it to have like an outside grill cover that's like parachute material or something where it goes over the top of it to try to keep out rain from getting the outside of the grill rusty? How important is that? Oh, I think it just ensures the longevity of your grill. If you wanna invest on a cover, I think it's just gonna make your grill last longer and you can get a lot more years and seasons of use out of it. So I certainly think it's worth the investment to go ahead and get one and try to keep your grill covered when you're not using it. So, all right, let's say that Robbie Schultz is going outside to do a great big weekend grill. What are some of the favorite tips that you recommend as far as just making that a pleasant experience for everybody, whether it's cooking, whether it's the cooking ingredients, whether it's the setup of the grill, what do you recommend? Oh, well, you know, I love cooking outside and around, whether it be a smoker or grill or whatever, you know, it's time for me to pop a wheelie and put on my dog and pony show and go out just a little bit. So, you know, I like to say that food has been bringing people together since the beginning of man, you know, because early man, they hunted together and they sat around a campfire together and cooked what they were able to hunt and find. And so, for me, it's just such an enjoyable experience. I would make sure that I had plenty of snacks sitting around the grill, plenty of chairs for people to be comfortable. I would probably have some games out there, maybe cornhole or something like that. You know, got kids, guys, everybody loves playing cornhole, so have that available in the backyard and just make it a fun all-around experience for everybody and try to include the kids. You know, we need to try to teach our kids things like this because it's a life skill, learning how to cook, and it just brings people together and makes them closer when they can all work together to cook a meal and put things together and all have a good time while the meal's cooking. And Dixie Doodle says that she would also add in cold beverages. Dixie Doodle, you're absolutely correct, yeah. Well, and it sounds like not just going out grilling food to cook the food, but it sounds like you're making an event of it where you're welcoming everyone in and they're playing games and everybody's sitting around and kind of chatting because it takes a few minutes to cook. And so not just one person out there cooking and everyone else is inside having fun, but it sounds like you're making a big event of it. Yeah, that's what we do down here in Texas. It's all about getting together and it's all about relationships and making that human connection and everybody just enjoying the day together. And I'll tell you what, Angela, we're sure starting to get some pretty weather down here now and you're making me itch, you wanna get out there and buy the old smoker up outside and have some folks over, you know. Now, what's the difference between a barbecue grill and a smoker? Well, a barbecue grill could either be charcoal, it could be electric or it could be gas. Now, most of the time smokers nowadays, the type I like to use, of course, they've got all kinds of fancy smokers out there. There's the Pip Bosses, the Triggers, all those brands and they've kind of made them and I think they're really nice and we own one of them. We don't do a lot with it, but they're pretty much hands-free. They make it where we can get kind of lazy and just set the temperature control and make sure you got plenty of pellets in it and you can go on and do your own thing. I like a wood burner where I'm having to stay out there with it, keep everybody outside with you and we're constantly feeding it wood throughout the afternoon or the day or whatever, depends on what meat we're cooking and smoking. But, you know, that's my kind of cooking right there. I like that old wood burner, that little more old fashioned. The wood boxes, it's what we would call, if indirect heat, the wood boxes set off to one side and then you have the smoke and the heat flow into the pit and then they exit on the other side. Does the food taste different depending on the fuel source? I think so. I think, I like burning, I like burning cut wood that we cut ourselves out here on the farm. Yeah. Wow, okay, cool. Yeah, but that's just me. I give my brother-in-law and his son, my nephew, a hard time because they have pellet smokers and I have one too, okay? But the little pellets, they actually look like chicken feed and I say, boys, we do this for a living where I'm from, we don't use chicken feed to smoke with. You know, I have to ride them pretty high, you know? You use the pellets to feed the chickens and then you use the pellets to cook the chickens. That's right, right. So what is the difference between pellets and let's say like barbecue briquettes and then the wood and then the gas? Like what, what as far as temperature goes, does one burn hotter? Is it, is it just a prepped? Well, I think, yes ma'am, I think once you get a wood fire going, it's gonna always, can be the hottest because you, now, bricats, you know, you, most of the time you've got to add like a lighter fluid or some, you know, igniter to that to get it going. So some people will argue that, you know, that they, that taste remains in there and you can taste it in the burgers or whatever. And I, you know, there may be some truth to that, but personally, I like the wood burning smoker over the pellet and the briquettes, but that's just me. And not everybody has access to going and cutting a tree down and, you know, getting fresh, you know, or seasoned wood or whatever. And if you wanna talk about that, I can give you some tips on what kind of wood we smoke with, that doesn't have any- Yeah, tell us that, that would be awesome. Okay, so here in East Texas, we have a lot of hickory, post oak, and pecan that is indigenous to this area. And so, you know, we can use one of the three or depends on what kind of mood we wake up with in, you know, we may use a combination of all three. So I guess that there are some, I know in my area, people go and they buy logs, if they don't have the ability to cut them down or whatever, and I live in the city, so maybe cutting down the trees is not available. So if you were gonna go looking for logs, is there a particular type of log that you would look for if you were gonna buy a log to go inside the smoker? Yeah, I would make sure it was post oak, hickory or pecan. Now, up north, there's a lot of folks that smoke with fruit wood, like apple, cherry, those kinds of things. I just don't have any experience with that, smoking with that kind of wood, because we don't have those types of trees down here normally, but, you know, the others, you can go out in the woods and find them just about anywhere. So when you cook, and I know you've got lots of recipes and stuff, but when you cook, do you put the seasoning on and marinate the meats before you cook or do you do it as you go or a combination of both? Well, you know, it depends on what it is. Like if it's a brisket or whatever, yeah, we use a dry rub on that, Angela, and it's a topical rub. We make it ourselves right here at Bear Creek and we sell it a little shaker jar. There's no huge secret to it, but we like to share that with people. It's the same thing we use right here in our barbecue restaurant and it's great. Now, during the cooking cycle with, like on a brisket or whatever ribs, we use the same rub, and as a matter of fact, on ribs that we do the brisket. We will spray a little bit of apple juice on those meats as they smoke, so to try to help keep them moist and that sort of thing. What does the apple juice do other than keeping it moist? Does it add flavor? It will add a little bit of flavor and I think it helps create maybe a little bit of that bark on the outside. But it will help keep the product moist while you're the meat moist, while you're smoking and cooking it, yeah. Well, and that's important because I know that me specifically, since I don't know much about cooking, especially grilling, the meat is either overcooked or it's tough or it's just not, I'm just no good at it. So how do you keep the meat tender while you're cooking? Is there any tricks besides the apple juice? Yes, ma'am, there is. Be prepared to have plenty of time on hand and don't rush it, Angela. It's better to cook at a lower temperature and go way longer and that will help guarantee that your brisket doesn't turn out like a new pair of cowboy boots. Oh, I think that's my problem because I always turn as high as it goes. I cook it as fast as I possibly can cook it. Yeah, don't rush it. Okay. Don't rush it. You've always heard the barbecue people say low and slow and we've been saying that for years. So low and slow. So that there is my mistake because I've blown that every time I've tried to cook. So then I gave up on it because I didn't do it the right way. Yeah, Angela, take your time. Get the cornhole out there. Get the cornhole out, have your friends over. Take your time. Life is too short. Life is too short. Alrighty. Okay, so let's suppose that there's somebody, maybe me, not skilled at grilling, but I'm now confident that I can clean up when I'm done. What would you recommend as far as learning or training? How do I learn how to use my barbecue grill? Well, you know what? There is a wealth of knowledge on Google and all the different websites that are out there. I would suggest just at night sit around and do some research. And then when you get brave enough, try to go out in the backyard and implement what you've learned by doing some research and trying to implement some of those recipes or techniques or whatever you may have found out. But Angela, you can do it. You think so? Yeah, you can do it. It's not hard. So if I don't have, and here's the catch because I'm moving right now and I've already given my barbecue grill away. So as I move to my new house, I've got to get a new one. So do I get one of those like little green egg things? Do I get like a regular barbecue grill? Do I get a smoker? Like what if I was gonna invest in something and I was gonna learn how to do it? What is the starter kit for someone like myself? The starter kit, probably the simplest and the most inexpensive would be just like a little charcoal unit that you can go and buy charcoal put in there. And it'll do just about anything you want to as far as smaller muscle meats, hamburgers, dogs, all the hot dogs, all that kind of stuff. It would be pretty tough to try to do a huge brisket or something like that on there. But if you have a small family, I really suggest just a small brickette cooker. Awesome. Well, that may be where I start. I know that we went out and we bought a really nice grill and I don't know that we ever really learned how to use it. It had like- You didn't use it that much? No, it had like a built-in pot in it so you could make corn on the cob and it had like all kinds of special things in there and you could roast like a rotisserie chicken, promised all these things. And I think I fell in love with the pictures that were on the ad like, oh, hey, I think I see myself doing that. And I didn't really utilize any of the features very well. It sounds like you don't need a whole lot then. So I think the small little charcoal grill would do you just right. It's not gonna have any bells and whistles or anything but if you're not gonna be using it a lot or cooking huge meals out there or whatever, it probably worked perfectly. Got it. Well, and then the interesting thing was because I was and I'd used it a couple of times to crank it up to full heat and then cooked it too fast and ended up with, what did you say, cowboy boots? Yeah, it'll turn it in a boot leather pretty quick. Then it wasn't memorable enough to try it again, right? So I don't think I really got the full use out of it. Tell me how to store the propane tanks because I'm guessing you don't store them inside the unit during the winter time or do you? Most time you can leave them hooked up if you want to. I would make sure that the gas is turned off. Make sure that it is turned off for the winter because nine times out of 10, you may have just a small leak in a gas line or whatever and you'll drain your bottle. And those bottles are expensive when you go get them filled up. So to protect that, make sure it's turned off and you could even unhook it, unhook the gas line but just leave it sitting right where it is and it'll be fine all winter long. Okay, and if I'm not using gas, if I'm using wood burning and it's the wood that you mentioned, how would I clean that out in time for the winter time? Well, you just opened the door on it and you would have a little flat shovel and that's where your five gallon metal bucket's gonna come in. You just dip those ashes right out, put them in the bucket and if you'd been smoking any time within the last day or two, I would let those ashes sit in that metal bucket. There's no danger of it catching anything on fire for a couple of days before you dump them out to a board of an unwanted fire or whatever. You can actually take those ashes and you can put them like in your flower bed or on your lawn or whatever. It's pot ashes, what it is. And anyway, so it can be useful there in the yard as well. And that was my next question. Yeah, that was my next question. Is it compostable or do you have to discard of it some special way? Yeah. But I love that for the pot and the plants because unlike what I did, I use a juicer and then when the pulp came out from my carrots and stuff I put it around my plants for compost and attract your whole bunch of deer and bunny rabbits. Nice, nice. And I think they ate my plants. I think the pot ash would not do that. So that might be a better solution. So tell me of all the things that you grill what is one of your favorite recipes for grilling? What do you enjoy most? You know what? I think, and I want to share this with you because I think pork butts are probably one of the most forgiving cuts of meat and you can do so many things out of it. That's the cut that most people use, barbecue houses use for pulled pork. And you're in the Carolinas, so you got to try this. We just, we put our brisket and rib rub on the pork butts, put them on the, because they have a good amount of fat content to it, a layer of fat around it and that's what helps keep that meat moist and makes it a little more forgiving during the cooking process. And it won't like turn into boots so quick with you like a rack of ribs or brisket or whatever. But that's one of my favorite things to do. Now up there in the Carolinas, I think y'all use a little bit different sauce than we do down here in Texas. But once that pork butt gets ready, you'll be able to take the bone on the side of it and you'll be able to just slide it right out. You'll know that it's perfectly done and tender and you take it out, we fork it up and we put our tomato-based barbecue sauce on it. I think you guys, do y'all do a vinegar and mustard base in Carolinas? We do use a lot of vinegar in our barbecue sauces here in the Carolinas. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm not real familiar with that, but the pulled pork is one of my favorite things to cook because it's so easy. If you needed to run an errand while that pork butt is on there smoking, you could probably get away with being away for an hour or something to come back and you're still gonna be just fine. And this is where you're talking about cooking it slow. On low heat, cooking it slow, letting it kind of simmer and do its thing. Yes, ma'am. I like to cook it around 225 to 250, just for those out there who are wondering. And about how long do you cook it? Well, as far as ribs go, we'll do ribs for about four hours. Briskets can take 15 to hours plus or minus just depending on how big they are. Pork butts, probably a good six to eight hours, something like that on pork butts. Depending on how big they are too. And so I'm guessing the preparation for all of this stuff is gonna also require some sort of cleanup. What is the preparation cleanup that you do for all of the getting the rub ready, getting the stuff ready, putting it in the, you're gonna have dishes or trays or what? Yeah, you know what, Angela, what I like to do? I like to actually get a big food service pan there. You can get them as a dollar store wherever they're, what we use to serve when we're doing big caterings, but they'll hold a brisket, pork butt, racks of ribs or whatever. I like to use one of those because they've got sides on it, you know, about three inches tall. So you can just take your brisket and rib rub and just shake it all over there. You've got that, you know, the raw meat juice that's in there. So you're not either gonna wanna wash that out or I just throw them away and there's no cleanup at all. Oh, wow, that's nice. Yeah. What a great tip. And these are the, these are the big thicker pans that you would see like that you might put a turkey in for Thanksgiving or something that you find at the Dollar Tree, got it. Yeah. So you use that for the preparation and then you then put your meat in it when it's done or no. Usually I don't, but I tell you what, that it does sound kind of wasteful, just throwing those away after one use, you could just rinse them out with some hot water. I wouldn't even put any soap in it. I'd just rinse them out with hot water. If you wanna use that to put your brisket, your ribs or pork butts right back into. Well, that's awesome. Oh yeah. All right, so what about wiping down the counters if it has meat on it? How do you clean that area? Well, I would use something that, you know, some type of disinfectant or whatever, just wipe it down. I like those little wipes that come right out of the thing, you know, the, I can't remember the name of it. Well, maybe Lysol brand, but yeah, just wipe the counters down with something like that. And that's all you gotta do. Chicken is the worst. That's the one that you really gotta make sure that you clean up good afterwards on, you know. And why is that? Well, it's just the different germs and bugs and bacteria that chicken can host. And I think more so can be a little more so dangerous to us than say, be for pork possibly. And we're told the same thing about egg whites. If you get egg whites on your counters, they say wipe it up, you know, clean it with a disinfectant, wipe it with a paper towel and stuff and don't use a sponge because sponges can hold bacteria and stuff like that in it. So I'm guessing that's the same for the meats that we are cooking with to make sure that we're wiping that up with a disinfectant and making sure we're not cross-contaminating our cleaning supplies. And then maybe a cloth or, I don't know, a drying towel or whatever you have that's inside your kitchen, making sure that they don't come in contact. Yes, yeah. Yeah, so if you just wipe it down with a paper towel, you just, I mean, you're just smearin' it across there. It's not really clean. I mean, you wipe any liquid or juice that might be there, but you're not really cleanin' it, you know. That's why you need to run that Lysol wipe over there. Got it. Well, is there anything that I forgot to ask that you would want to share with us that might be insightful in preparing for our next big barbecue? Wow, I would say just, you know, pick your meat ahead of time, whatever you feel like you're gonna be comfortable with. Depending on what size crowd you wanna invite over or whatever, if you wanted to tackle a brisket, you better make sure you got all day to play with it, you know, because it's gonna take a while. Probably the quickest things to do would be burgers or hot dogs. Hot dogs are, you know, hot dogs are ready to eat right out of the package. So if you want something pretty effortless, I would go with hot dogs. Patties would be the next step up, hamburger patties, and you can either make those yourself or buy them already preformed, season them however you want to. You can get those done, you know, in 30 minutes to an hour, just depending on what type of unit you have that you're cooking with. And then, like, ribs are so easy to do. And if you'll cook those ribs at about 225 to 250 just right in that range, and if you go under or over that, you know, you're not gonna mess them up, but that's just the range I like to stay in. But those ribs you can have done in about four hours. So it just depends on how much time you have, plan your meal around that and your guests and all your outdoor activities, and have a good time, enjoy each other. So if you have guests that are coming in the afternoon, do you schedule when they're coming and when you plan on eating around when the food is gonna be cooked or do you try to cook it a day in advance or what is the process there? I wouldn't cook a day in advance. I'd do it out there and make it an event for everybody to enjoy, you know, and enjoy the great outdoors, get some fresh air, enjoy your backyard or your side yard or front yard, whatever you got, and just make it something that everybody can have a good time all the way from the kids up to the adults. And the adults know how to have fun, right? I love that, that's so exciting. I'm now rethinking this whole barbecue thing. I'm thinking that maybe it's possible that I could do this and then certainly we can clean up when we're done. You're thinking bells and whistles now, aren't you? You're going back. I know. Well, I'm hallucinating about the family event and everybody playing cornholes or frisbee or flanakite or something like that just spending time together outside. One other thing you mentioned when you were talking about the pulled pork and you said that in the Carolinas we have a different recipe. Is the recipe that you use available inside your general store? Oh yeah, we sell the brisket and rib rub in here. Yeah, you can order it online. You can get it in the general store. And I would like if any of your viewers are happened to be coming through Texas, we would love to have you come by the general store. You're gonna have a great time. You're gonna eat some great barbecue. We got great shopping, a great environment. It's an experience in itself. So we would welcome you and just like a family member. Well, it sounds like so much fun. I can't wait. I've got to come to Marshall, Texas and I got to come visit you. Tell our listeners where they can go to find you. Yeah, so we have a website, bearcreeksmokehouse.com. You can find all of our products on there, including the cookbook. You can follow us on Facebook. And I would encourage you if you're watching to follow us on Facebook or Instagram, it's Bear Creek Smokehouse. And you can keep up with all the latest and greatest things that are happening out here in the country at Bear Creek. Well, I really appreciate your time today. I have learned so much about your insights into grilling and you gave me the confidence to think that I might make another effort at grilling. Come on, you can do it. I've got confidence in you, girl. Instead of just cleaning the barbecue grill, now I actually want to go out there and I want to try to cook. So what I might do is I might take some before and after pictures and then show you my attempts at cooking and see if, yeah, see if this is something that I could actually participate in. I'm sure you can do it. I've got all the confidence in the world in you. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it because there's a lot about the barbecue grill that many of us, because we haven't really known how to clean it and we haven't known how to set up for it, we haven't known how to prepare for it, that it has been an elusive thing to us and we've kind of avoided it. So I'm hoping that because you came on our show today that you've given us the confidence that we might attempt this one more time and then also be able to clean, keep our grill sanitary and that we have a really good, enjoyable experience this spring with our families. So thank you. You betcha. Thank you. I hope you all have a great summer and I hope you haven't failed with lots of yet-togethers and barbecues. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.