Jay

Meatstock, Sydney, it must be.

I think it was over the weekend.

It is, of course, a cautionary tale.

I'm a well-educated Aussie male that works in a very high-pressured role, needing to make lots of significant decisions every day, and I do this very well.

Well, strap yourselves in and let me tell you a tale where none of those skills were used at all.

I'm a low and slow Texas-style barbecue cook using a Traeger smoker.

These are pellet-driven smokers where you set a temperature and an auger delivers the right number of pellets to the firebox to keep the smoker at your selected temp.

A beautiful piece of machinery.

They're fucking good.

The people that hate on them just don't get it.

Like, if you have time for them, they're amazing.

All good so far.

To the day in question.

The parents of some friends were coming over for dinner and they are Texans and cockily put it out there that you couldn't get good Texas barbecue in Australia.

Challenge accepted.

I took the day off work and spent hundreds of dollars on brisket, pork butt for pulled pork, baby back ribs and a full plate of beef ribs.

I was going fucking all out.

I'd cook these...

many times before and I was confident that I could deliver.

The meat was prepped and my smoker was ready to accept an expensive bounty.