How food safety helped push Texas barbecue cooks to use offset pits

Smitty's Market Lockhart

Above-ground brick pits with a firebox to the side (offset) of the cooking chamber is the quintessential cooking appliance of Central Texas-style barbecue. This device gave rise to “indirect-heat” cooking, in which heat and smoke flow horizontally over and around the meat, cooking and flavoring it, rather than the “direct-heat” method, in which the fire is directly […]