 Welcome to Rational Alchemy, though today we're going to be talking about BBQ Alchemy, BBQ Alchemy. Why that, you say? Why not Rational BBQ? Simple. Only with BBQ do you rush out by an incredibly expensive piece of meat, gently cover it in butter, cover it in spices, cover it in herbs, and then throw it on a 500 degree fire and burn it. There's something wrong here. However, I'm going to be giving an education this morning. I'm joined at the table by Glenn Hatchetson, better known as Louisiana Glenn. Glenn, welcome to the table. How are you welcome? Thank you. Thank you. So where do I go wrong with my opening about throwing it on a 500 degree fire? 350. 350? 350. You mean I've been doing it far too hot? Yeah, 225 to 350. That's good. Yeah, but I want to eat today, not tomorrow. Sometimes you got to let it go a little lower slow. I know we're going to be talking more about this during our interview. You're bringing the Bayou flavor to Colorado. So give us a little bit about what you're doing here in Colorado. We're doing gumbo, red beans, sausage, shrimp, po' boys, fried catfish, done it. Oh, okay. We call it a southern fried Saturday. And we're just trying to bring all the flavors from home to Colorado. So give us a little bit of taste of the Louisiana cooking style. Yes. Talking of that, where did you where did you learn your trade? I learned initially from my grandmother because I stayed with her. I was raised by my grandmother. So she cooked and baked. So she needed a quality control kid. Ah, that was my job quality control. Nice. Tastes everything. And that's where it started. And then, you know, just kept on, you know, going through doing different things, but always wanted to be able to cook. And she made sure she taught me how to cook for when I got old and move on on my own. Okay, because you're not formally trained, are you? But you have an experience, right of working different jobs. Tell us a little bit about that. So I started in a casino at home. And it's called Cypress Buy You Casinos. So I started there as a breakfast cook in a short order cook. And from that point, learned work there for about a year or two, and got the real just of really getting in it and cooking, prepping, and really enjoying it, liking it. So from that point, when I did offshore work, cooked on the offshore rigs. Oh my goodness. That was fun. Did that for a little bit. And also worked for Ruby Tuesdays. I was a corporate trainer for Ruby Tuesdays. And just worked a lot little restaurants back on the buy you. And you can consider these five star restaurants are breakfast places. And just just never lost the love for cooking. So you actually started to teach people how to cook, right? Talk a little bit. Let's talk about catfish first, because catfish happens to be one of my all time favorite foods. How would you want me to cook fish fry season lightly with a mustard base, mustard marinade, season and fried till GBD, golden brown and delicious. I do make sure they're golden brown and delicious, but I haven't tried the mustard. Is this a hot mustard or a regular mustard? Just a good old. That's just and that was something that I learned from my grandmother. Other cooks around me, other people around me, like even with fried chicken, I'll take mustard and I like to marinate it with it and let it sit and then batter it up and fry it. It's just a thing that I do. But it obviously works. And I do it on fried catfish, shrimp, everything that I fried up is a mustard marinade. Oh, interesting, interesting. So literally any kind of seafood or even fresh water fish, you can use this concept. Right. And it works. It works. I will find out this weekend because tomorrow we are having catfish. So I'm going to follow a little bit of your advice here and if I start coming out to Firestone yelling your name, you'll know it didn't work too well. Well, you won't, I know the voice. I will know the voice. I will know the voice. Poe boys. What is a poe boy? Shrimp, catfish, roast beef, and it's on the French bread. I hate when people say it's a sandwich or a hoagie. It's a poe boy. Okay. That's his name. It's a poe boy. And your base is mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and cut it in half and serve it up. Nice. And you can do shrimp, catfish, oysters, anything you want to put on that poe boy. Interesting. Interesting. Is poe boy sort of like a Louisiana term or? Yes. Ah, okay. So it literally is a word that came out of Louisiana. Yes. So you can do literally do anything with a poe boy. And of course, we got a really good example here of a poe boy. That's a beef short rib poe boy right there. So I actually smoked the beef ribs and then took the bone out. Oh, okay. Okay. And the same concept mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles. That blasted picture is making my mouth water. I hope you realize that. I believe you actually did this particular dish when you filmed the cooking show. Yes, sir. Interesting. So you did the whole thing live. Let's talk about smoking for a little bit because I think a lot of people get confused about what is the best way to smoke a cut, cut of meat. So it's different. Different people do different variations and different cooks. Okay. So you can do a hot like you said, put throw it on 500. You can do hot and fast or I prefer low and slow. Right. And then when you get to Louisiana, then you have grilling is barbecuing, but it's over the fire. Okay. And they put barbecue sauce on everything. Right. You know, so it's different variations to it and different ways. I like low and slow. I love it. Mm hmm. Yeah, just just to sit just just to crank up the fire. Just let it sit there. And when you see the clean smoke come out the the smoker when you see the clean smoke, that's that's, oh, you know, it's done. Not done. You know, you you're good. Okay. When you first start, you'll have a lot of blue smoke. Yes. Yes. That's dirty smoke. That's a trick. I had never heard that trick before. It's a great tip. But it's a lot of things with with with this barbecue where people think it's okay, we can just do this. But it all comes with fire management. Right. First off, you have the fire management know when it's time to throw your meat on. Yes. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yes. When it's time to add another log, you don't want to add too many logs because it'll get too hot. You'll get the dirty smoke again. Right. And then your meat will taste like basically like you have lighter fluid on. Oh, wow. You get a strong, very strong flavor. A strong flavor. You don't want that strong flavor. So it's just, you know, it's a time it's windows where everything happens. And you know, long as you follow, long as you follow that. Right. And a lot of people, like I say with me personally, when I smoke meat, I like to take my wood and put it on top of the fire box. Oh, okay. Because once that wood heats up, you can put it in your fire and it's going to automatically heat and it won't smolder and cause that blue smoke again. I'm with you. I'm with you. That is another very good, I'm with you. Yes. Take your logs, what you're going to use is sit them on top. Sit them on top, get them nice and warm, and then use them as required. And then it'll flame up and you'll get your same temperature wherever you add to 225 to 300, 350. It'll stay right there and never drop or move longer if it's warm or heating up. Right. And it's not not cold. It's kind of interesting. We're talking about slow cooking here because see, I'm our director Kirk, when he has ribs, he likes the meat to still be on the bone. Right. So he likes to rip it off with his teeth. Whereas I prefer the meat to fall off the bone. What's your favorite? Either one. Either one? Either one. I like it both ways, but I'm part of the Rocky Mountain Barbecue Association. So I do backyard barbecue competitions. So that's where cooking at home won't be the same as cooking for judges. Oh, right. Okay. Because the fall off the bone at home, they don't want that. They want that bite. Oh, they want the bite. They want the one bite where you pull it, where it comes off the bone when you bite it. That one bite. And that one bite will either make you or break you. Right. Right. That's kind of interesting because it means that whenever you go to a cooking competition, you have to know what the judge's favorite is. And you never know. And you never know. Well, you must do after a number of competitions. It is the same judge. A lot of politics with it. But once you, once you go through it, you find where you're at. So if I place in a competition, I try to go back and write down what I did. Right. To get to that point. Just so you can reproduce. The same. Exactly the same. And it also gives you a chance to go home and look at it and go, you know what? If I hadn't done that there. Right. So you can sort of fine tune your recipes. As you go. As you go. That's good. There's another interesting photograph on here, which I had never seen this before, which is the chicken sitting on a can. I'm going to assume there's something in the can. It's a beer. And actually that's called Happy Dan. So that's like a salsa. So you would back at home in Louisiana, instead of calling it beer can chicken, we call it drunken chicken. Oh, okay. Okay. What else can you use? I suppose you could use orange juice. You could use orange juice, pineapple juice. I've done crowning seven up. I've done that really is a drunken chicken. Just different, different, different things. It's you're the king and queen of your own domain. Yes. So it's whatever you want to do. And if it works, we take it and roll with it. So so how obviously you do a lot of experimentation at home. How often do you do something like this? And you put something that you've never used before in the can. And then afterwards you go, well, that didn't work. I've never known. I never had whatever I'm dragging for the day. It's going to pair with whatever I'm cooking. Oh, okay. Okay. That makes an awful lot of sense. That really does make sense. Now one thing else we desperately need to talk about is I've noticed a couple of bottles on these Ramanize prints with your name on them. Yes, sir. Tell us a little bit about your barbecue sauces. So it's a barbecue sauce. And I'm going to say it all happened through God. Oh, okay. Not this wasn't nowhere in the picture. And then all of a sudden a guy that I know came to me was like, Hey, my co packer wants to help up and come in entrepreneur. Oh, okay. So I'm like, okay. So we did he was like, since you barbecue. And he sat and went through my Instagram and everything. He said, you have a lot of barbecue. He was like, why don't you come up with a barbecue sauce? Oh, so I'm like, I actually got a recipe of my dressing jar that's been there for since 2011 when I moved to Colorado. I've been tankering with it and playing with it. But never had a professional person right to actually go in the lab and and build and make it and build it. Right. So we did that and we came with Louisiana Glen barbecue sauce. How many different types of just one just the one just one because it's basically is it's like a Carolina base. Okay. So it's a mustard ketchup vinegar base with a couple of other little secrets in there. It's working out pretty good. Good. Oh, by doing the barbecue competitions, we have the big toolbox out in the Centennial and Parker. They want to actually put it in the stores. Oh, nice. In both of those stores. So we're actually trying to get it so we can put it back on the shelves and everything. Excellent. Excellent. What are the chances of being able to sign up with one of the big supermarket chains? It's all it's it's all to the man upstairs, whatever happens happens. And a little bit of luck as well. It's not what you know is what you know. That is that is one of the biggest problems. That really is one of the biggest problems. Yeah. I'm gonna have to find out how to get hold of a bottle of that because I'd love to try it. I'll be the first to let you know when we get it back together when we get it back on the shelf and then bottles. Okay, you'll be the first to know. Let me know because I really am interested in trying it. It'd be nice just to know I sat here with the guy that put that together. Yes, sir. That's interesting because that's never happened to me in the past. And it's a real and this bottle that this bottle that's the only bottle I think I'm gonna do but I think I want to do some gallons too. But this bottle is able to do three racks of ribs. Oh, okay. It's able to do three racks of ribs and you can do wings, fried wings or smoked wings without you can fry them and then toss them in the sauce. Nice. You're making my blasted mouth water again. You can use that barbecue sauce on the steak. I bet. And I bet it really brings out the flavor of the steak. Oh, yeah. Excellent. Excellent. And we use local honey too. Oh, good. We use local honey in it. That's one of the secrets. I'll give you that one. Okay. We use local honey from our lovelin. Do you have any closing words that you'd like to leave with us or a barbecue tip that people just have never heard about before? When it's barbecue and smoking, always take your time. Don't rush it. Don't rush it. Once it's on the smoke and the fire, it's pretty much you have to let it do its own little thing. Right. And it just don't rush it. If you don't rush it and it comes from the soul, it will be a whole lot better. Oh, okay. Put a little love in it. Don't try to do it fast. You don't want the microwave barbecue. No. You don't want it fast. You're slow and slow. Right. Actually, I have thought of one final question I'd like to ask you. These pellet smokers have become all the rage and you can see them in ace and all the rest of it. Would you go with a pellet smoker or a straight wood smoker? What would be your preference? I don't do pellet. I don't do pellet smokers that I don't wear skinny jeans. Oh, really? Don't do pellet smoking. Don't do skinny jeans. Okay. We real would. So what about myself? Would a pellet smoker give me what I want or do you say? It will. It will. Okay. It will. If you are the type to sit in the house and do it from your phone. Oh, that's not me at all. You know what I'm saying? You know, if you want to do it from your phone and sit down, you take all the joy out of it. Right. You know, that's my opinion. That's my opinion. And I respect that opinion. That's my opinion. That's my opinion. I really do. And can I add something to the end? Of course. And I just and I want to throw something in and we can we can get all these different flavors, the ribs, the gumbo, the red beans. We can get them here in Meade, Colorado at the Mercantile on Highway 66. And we do it every other Saturday. Oh, okay. We do it every other Saturday. And if you need anything, smoke, grill, fry it, dye it, lay it to the side. How about that, man? Excellent. Now I know where to find you every other Saturday. So this is an off Saturday. So I imagine next Saturday, December 16. December 16. December 16. We will be doing the roast beef po' boys. Yeah. The catfish po' boy. And I will break out a surf and turf po' boy, which will be the roast beef with fried shrimp over the top, not your your average surf and turf. Understood. Understood. We throw a twist at it. Excellent. We throw a twist at it. Most excellent. Glenn, it's been a pleasure talking to you. And oh, sorry. And one more thing. Yes. This is your second one more thing. So always remember when you're doing this. Yeah. Always remember one thing. Once you put your pellets or your wood in the smoker and the meat starts smelling, the smell will be leaking and the neighbors will be peaking. That's true. That has happened to me, actually. Yeah. Glenn, thank you so much for coming in today and talking about yourself, your background. I mean, we could probably talk for a whole interview just on your time on the rigs. Because I bet you've got some really interesting little stories along those lines. So, Glenn, once again, thank you so much for coming in. And thank you for having me. And it's so nice to sit down at the table and talk to you. It really is. Okay, everybody, I hope you have picked up a couple of tips and tricks when it comes to barbecuing. I know that I have and this man here has made my mouth water three times now on camera. I'm hungry. Glenn, thank you, my friend. Everybody out there, thank you so much for joining us at the table. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel. It's right there. Hit the subscribe button. Please. Okay, everybody, I'm Nigel Aves, your host signing off. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.