Texas Tradition. Territory Timber.

There's a moment, early in the morning, when everyone else is asleep, when it's just me and the fire. The alarm goes off, I head out to the smoker and I drop another piece of wood into the firebox. The coals catch alight, and I check the temperature gauge. That moment — that's why I do this.

What I'm trying to do is give people barbecue the way it tastes in Texas. Not a version of it. The real thing - cooked over hardwood, low and slow, for as long as it takes. And if you want it to taste that way, you've got to cook it that way. No shortcuts.

I cook on an offset smoker, so the wood is everything. It brings heat and flavour, and I use local hardwood. We’ve got some good wood in Darwin – I use both woollybutt and stringybark. Long burn, steady heat, they help create the B'RAD BBQ flavour profile that you know and love.

I source it myself. Cut it, split it, stack it, season it. By the time a log ends up in the firebox I've probably handled it half a dozen times. I know where it came from, how dry it is, how it's going to burn. After a while you get to know your wood. You start to recognise which pieces will take off, which ones will sit and hold the fire, which ones need a bit of coaxing.

You just get to know your wood. That's a part people don't see. They see the brisket come off — the bark, the smoke ring, the slices on the board. They don't see me out there months earlier, cutting and splitting timber and stacking it to dry.

When you are cooking your brisket and pork for up to 14 hours, that’s important. With an offset you build the fire and keep it consistent for the whole cook. Adding wood, managing the airflow, watching the temperature, reading the smoke. Sometimes you might need a couple of logs. Sometimes a bit more air. Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave it alone. You learn that by doing it over and over (and over!).

The fire isn’t just heat, it's also building flavour, to make it taste the way it does at the end.

I source it, prepare it, build the fire with it, and I stand beside that fire until the cook is done.

It's more work. There are easier ways. But the wood and the fire are a big part of why my food tastes the way it does — and if someone's going to eat at our truck or have us cook for their event, I want them to taste real Texas barbecue.

Texas tradition. Territory timber.