- Hun, what are you doing?
- Didn't you see the cabeza I bought?
I bought a whole cow head.
I'm gonna dig a hole in the ground
cook it the way my dad used to do it.
Burned a bunch of wood down in there.
I'm gonna cover it with that tin.
Cover it with a bunch of dirt.
Make some barbacoa.
- Wait, wait, wait. Don't,
but don't you have like a lot of pits that he can use?
- I kind of wanted to replicate what my dad used to do.
Got a lot of work.
It's gonna take me two or three hours to dig this hole.
- You have three drums.
Can't that be like a hole in the ground?
- I guess technically a drum is a hole.
I could actually get some sleep tonight if I did that.
Let's go fire up a drum.
Let's barbecue some barbacoa.
Barbacoa translates literally to barbecue in English.
So does that mean that we're gonna barbecue some barbecue?
Not exactly. See what I mean is,
we're gonna be making some barbacoa the cabeza.
That means we're cooking a whole cow's head.
In South, Texas. You see barbacoa always means beef
but in many other cultures it can be lamb,
it can be goat, it can even be pig.
Are you confused yet? Don't worry about it,
because this cooking process is very easy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.
Traditionally barbacoa is in a hole in the ground.
That's the way my dad and my grandpa used to do it.
But sometimes you don't want to dig a hole in the ground
Just to enjoy some amazing and delicious barbacoa.
Not when you have a hole above ground.
You see, I'm gonna start with my cabeza.
In the drum smoker, above ground pozo.
This is basically a hole, it's just above ground.
Barbacoa in pozo usually has just a hint,
of that delicious smokey flavor.
Which I'm only gonna smoke it for about an hour
and that's gonna be it.
And then I'm gonna transfer it to a roasting pan
cover it really tight with foil and put it back in there.
And I'm gonna leave it there all night.
Normally in the hole in the ground
it's about a 10 to 14 hour cook.
The drum smoker is gonna be very steady
and consistent on heat.
I think it'll be ready in about eight to 10 hours.
So why would you want to cook a whole cabeza,
a whole head instead of just going to the meat market
and grabbing a pound of barbacoa?
See, when you cook the whole cow head,
you get that super moist and juicy cachete,
which is the cheek meat.
And you get the tongue, which is the lean meat.
And you also get that little hint of smokey barbecue flavor
that you don't get when you buy that barbacoa
from a meat market or a restaurant.
And lastly, just look at the wow factor.
This is gonna be some badass barbecue.
Now let's fire up this above ground pozo
and make some barbecue, I mean some barbacoa, vamonos.
All right, that took about a bag and a half, more or less.
I think that that'll get us through the night.
These drums tend to run a good solid 10 or 14 hours.
Try to cook it about 250 all night long.
In the old days when my dad cook them in the ground
you do get a little bit of that smoky
Mesquite flavor from the coals.
Which I'm gonna add a little bit of that flavor today
by just putting a couple little chunks
and I'm only gonna smoke it for maybe,
like say about an hour.
So all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take some OG here.
OG is the original seasonal. It's just a simple salt,
pepper, and garlic and the perfect ratio.
It's fantastic on everything.
So we're gonna gonna give it a just a nice medium coat.
We're gonna wait about another hour before we go to the drum
cause I want this big old head to temp up a little bit.
I really like that natural flavor
that the barbacoa has when it's fully cooked and rendered.
All right, friends. Now the tongue,
has a very thick membrane on it.
So I'm gonna put a little bit heavier coat on here.
In about an hour at 11:00 PM,
I'm gonna go put it on the smoker.
Then I'm gonna come back in about 45 minutes.
I'm gonna wrap it up and put it in a roasting pan.
We'll be back in the morning after that.
(upbeat music)
All right, let's go put it back in the smoker.
What do you think, buddy?
But of course gonna be pretty good stuff, huh?
But of course it's gonna be good stuff.
All right. There she is, in all it's glory.
It's about nine this morning.
I'm just gonna probe it a couple, oof.
Went like butter. 210,
211. I'm gonna call this puppy done.
Poking in several different places just to make sure.
Check out that steam right there. Oof we're ready baby.
Our barbacoa the cabeza is ready to go.
We cooked it for 10 hours in the drum smoker
the temperature hovered between 260 and 280.
And so I stayed up to one in the morning
to make sure that temperature stayed settled in.
It finally settled in at about 263.
I watched it for another hour.
Woke up this morning. It was still sitting at 260,
so I left it in there a couple more hours.
We pulled it at nine. So that was 10 hours.
There's got to be a fresh homemade salsa to go with it,
and some fresh corn tortillas.
My wife has learned how to make those great corn tortillas,
and I'm gonna make a quick salsa.
So we can put it on our breakfast taco, let's go.
Oh, it's got a bite.
Here's the cow head in all it's glory.
Think I got enough foil?
Look at all that Steam. Wowie Gazawy.
I see a lot of collagen and sticky stuff here.
I'm gonna set it aside, it's not meat.
We're after the meat here today, folks.
I was gonna use my fingers here, but woo, it's too hot.
Back in the old days the old timers
also used to like to eat the brains.
I have never eaten the brains.
I just can't get, get my head wrapped around that.
I wonder if it would make me smarter though.
Now normally folks when you buy barbacoa at the store,
it's just cachete. Cachete means cheek.
So it's all the cheek meat that comes from right here.
This is the best part right here. Yum yum.
Oh baby, that is so good. Wow.
We're gonna peel this skin off.
All we want is the meat right here.
This is some really good folks.
We are starving.
I literally did not eat dinner last night.
We don't want too much fat, although it is delicious.
But there's just so much good and juicy meat here.
We don't need the fat at all.
All right we got all this delicious looking cheek meat here.
This is the whole tongue right here, folks.
Look how pretty and stringy it is. This comes right apart.
Tongue is a very, very lean piece of meat.
And when you cook it this way, it's super moist.
We have this really soft, juicy cheek meat here.
We have this whole tongue right here, more cheek meat here.
Super, super good.
I'm gonna move these little eyeballs to the side.
I haven't got brave enough to do that yet.
So we have both meat, the cachete
the cheek is very, very marbled.
A lot of delicious juiciness in there.
The tongue is very lean.
So what I like to do is just mix 'em all up,
you know and and, and cut 'em together
so you get a nice balance of lean and juiciness.
How much you chop is really up to you.
If you wanna leave it long and stringy
if you wanna mix it the way I did, fine.
If you don't, if you want to eat your tongue separate
and the cheeks separate, you can do that too.
This is a fresh homemade corn tortilla
that Terry just made for me.
I'm gonna put me a little bit of this mixed up barbacoa,
all chopped up, blended together. That's all I need.
Just a little salt and a little salsa.
Oh my gosh, that's so good.
Folks, This is amazing. This is fantastic.
You know what really makes this extra special
barbacoa is wonderful, even in the crock pot.
But that one hour in the little bit of smoke,
had a hint of Mesquite in there.
This is one badass taco. This is amazing, folks.
Even if you don't cook a whole head
if you're a barbecue person, smoke the cheek
and the tongue together for just a little while.
Then wrap 'em up real nice and tight.
Cook em 'til they're done.
You will have an amazing taco.
I had to pause for a minute and finish my taco.
It was so good. I usually just take a bite or two.
I had to finish the whole taco. It is that good.
Mom, come over here. I wanna make you a taco.
Let's see if mother approves.
- [Mom] I ain't even put makeup on.
- She wasn't planning to be on the video.
- No, I just wanted to watch.
It brings back memories because my husband used to do it,
in a hole and I used to help him.
It was delicious in the morning.
But this taste just as good.
- Awesome. Well, I was gonna dig a hole
but Terry had the bright idea to use the drum instead.
So instead of a below ground hole
we had an above ground hole.
- When I saw him digging that hole, I thought Oh my God,
it's gonna take him hours to make it that deep.
- He lost his mind.
I hope you folks enjoyed this video.
Thank you for watching.
Remember to like, comment, and share.
Tell your friends and your family about our channel.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate each and every one of you guys.
And if you guys want to get some APC OG
which is the the original seasonal, it's just a very simple
salt, pepper, garlic with no additives.
It makes any meat shine really, really good.
If you wanna really wow somebody with some extra flavor
you get you some apc wow from pitmaster.us
you can get both of these APC barbecue rubs at pitmaster.us
If you want to up your barbecue game,
go to Pitmaster class.us
and check out my online barbecue classes from mild to wild.
Whether you're a beginner or a pro
there's something in my barbecue class that will help you
up your game to another level.
Thanks for watching folks.
Keep the smoke light, make it work.
Make it a wild kind of day. Boom.
Buddy's down here and he wants some barbacoa too.
You're in the way here, partner. You're in the way. Moo.
How's that folks?
So you used to use cumin and salt?
- Cumin and salt? Yes.
- Okay. That was before OG was available.
- Friends, this is one of my favorite salsas,
oil, tomato, chile de arbol , chile pequin
garlic. Wow.