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Introduction

Aaron Franklin

Lesson time 03:08 min

Meet your new instructor: Aaron Franklin, a Central Texas barbecue legend. In your first lesson, the award-winning pitmaster takes you inside his famed restaurant, Franklin Barbecue, explaining the techniques and recipes you’ll learn in the class.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Introduction

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] AARON FRANKLIN: My favorite part about barbecue might actually not be eating it. I think it's the process and how we get there. Even as a kid, I could sense the amount of love that went into this food. And that's the premise of barbecue. It's like, you cook with your heart. You pour your heart and soul into this thing. You make it as good as you can. And even if you fall short, it almost doesn't even matter so much as the spirit that's behind it and the soul that that represents. I feel incredibly honored to be able to run a restaurant that people line up for hours and hours and hours. It's just a piece of meat, and it's just fire. Nothing special. But it's the journey of how you get to the end, and then it's the conversations that you have to have at the end of it. That's barbecue for me. It is part culture, it is part process, it is part food. It's real soul food. It really means something. Really, what I want to be able to teach through MasterClass is the way that I think about barbecue. I've never really gotten to do this in this level of detail. When I go through the restaurant, and we've got new cooks starting out, we sit there, we stare at fires. I'm like, pick up this log. What does it feel like? What do you think it's going to do? I quiz people. So I'm going to teach you exactly like I would train someone at Franklin Barbecue. How do you pick up a piece of wood? How to look at a fire, how to pick up a piece of meat and know exactly what it's doing-- that's what you're going to learn. In this class, we're going to look at firewood. We're going to learn how to build fires. We're going to learn how to maintain fires. We're mainly going to talk about long-cooked barbecue, but we're also going to talk about grilling, because that also requires live fire cooking. We're going to cook pork butt. We're going to pull it. We're going to cook some ribs. I'm going to show you guys how to cook a brisket from start to finish, really get down to the details of how to trim, how to wrap it, and then at the end, slicing it. And just be prepared to make mistakes. It's totally OK. It's just about learning. I'm Aaron Franklin, and this is my MasterClass.

About the Instructor

Once a backyard hobbyist, Aaron Franklin is now the James Beard Award-winning owner of Franklin Barbecue, where the line for his famous smoked brisket is hours long. Now the Central Texas barbecue specialist teaches you his meticulous low and slow process for mouth-watering ribs, pork butt, and brisket. With perfectly seasoned cuts and optimal temperatures, you'll learn to handle an offset smoker like a true pitmaster.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Aaron Franklin

Aaron Franklin teaches you how to fire up flavor-packed Central Texas barbecue, including his famous brisket and more mouth-watering smoked meat.

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