Big Wayne and his Famous Water Bathed Brisket

This is my buddy Wayne.

Wayne is about 6’5″ and two inches shorter than Todd.  Wayne is tall and big, he is very sensitive.  Here is Big Wayne feeding the wild life pototoe salad.  This little doe will probably not make the cute little poop pellets like she should tommorow morning.

You may recognize him from our wedding because he was in charge of smoking the 12 pound New York cuts in the Traeger smoker.

Here he is folks, checking the smoker.

That day, the boys hit it out of the ball park.  Everyone was very impressed with the meat produced by my buddies.  This was a huge success and both Steph and I were indebted to them for the huge gift they gave us that day and we both went to bed that night thankful of all our great friends that we are truly blessed to have.

So there is a little background on my buddy Wayne.  He is forever, in the Hunting Chef Hall of Fame.  He arrived at camp with the La Caja China.  I bought it for my 40th birthday party to do a 100 lb. pig in.  It is from Cuba and essentially a metal lined wooden box that you cook coals on top.  They say you can do an entire roasted pig in three hours but Wayne and I learned that 4-5 hours is more appropriate.  I gave the La Caja China to him as a gift for helping me cook a pig twice, plus he is in the hall of fame.  He recently did some turkeys, and chickens, and meat in.  So I was excited to see that he was going to prove me wrong about brisket with my old weapon, but remember this was a familiar feeling.  He told me he has marinated the brisket for 24 hours, at this point I am still not buying it.  After a few cocktails on the boat, he told me his secret.  He waterbaths them, which essentially means he puts them in a pan and puts beer in them and cooks them.  I am still not a believer at this point.

Why Wayne is working his magic we have a botchy ball tourney, which Steph and I lose to Alice and Bo in the finals.

Wayne is still over with his water bath brisket.  It has been in the Caja China for roughly two hours and I think at this point he starts to realize he might be in trouble.

It’s roughly 6 pm at this point and the brisket has turned color but has not made the process that is needed.  Todd walks over to me and under his breath whispers “We got a problem, there is no way that it is gonna be any good, its gonna be as tough as a leather boot.”. I reply “Dont worry I got an idea”.

So we busted out a rotisserie and I went and grabbed a marinated tri-tip that I brought for those food emergencies such as this one.

So we begin the rescue mission, Wayne doesn’t really notice what we are doing…well because…..

Asleep on the couch, he abandoned his bbq post.  Meanwhile, we are completing this beautiful piece of meat on the rotissierie.

This is a picture of me with the tri tip roast coming off the La Caja China.  Notice two things in this photo.  One, I am representing….a little shout out to all my Bronco fans out there. Secondly, where in the $#^@ is Big Wayne?

We pull off the tri-tip roast, and the sleeping giant awakes to check his brisket.  He pulls it out of the hot box and makes one incision down the middle of this masterpiece.

He is devastated, and I am laughing at him saying “I told you, that is one shitty piece of meat.”  However, I have you covered with a tri-tip.  We put the brisket back into the box and left it until morning.  The meat was broken down but still dry and well….shitty. His neighbor comes down and we asked him if he wanted brisket.  He said “that brisket is a delicacy.”  I replied “Where are you from?”  He snorted “Texas”.  At that moment it hit me.  I knew now why the South had lost the civil war.

“No Sir, I am not going to go charge the line.  I have been eating that shitty hard tack brisket for 3 weeks, I am so bound up I can hardly walk.  I am going to sit this one out.”

Wayne, returned to his couch as a defeated bbq pit master.  I know he is still awake in the picture but faking he is asleep.  He is thinking, “That brisket is one piece of shitty meat” then he and his belly full of tri-tip went to sleep until his wife told him to go get in his bed.