Oklahoma City Backyard BBQ Finds (March 2021)
It’s our Spring Break, and today I explored a couple local backyard barbecue stores in Oklahoma City and Moore. Here’s a summary of what I found for locally sourced brisket injection, BBQ sauces, rubs and seasonings. Many of these are also available for online purchase, and in those cases I’ve included links. For more of my food and cooking related recommendations and recipes, check out this playlist of my YouTube cooking videos, and our “Fryer and Ward Family Recipes” website on food.wesfryer.com. There are 11 older posts here about cooking, and I’ve also created a “cooking category” for even older posts (mostly) I shared on my primary professional blog (“Moving at The Speed of Creativity”) before I setup this family learning blog. Cooking is something I’m enjoying more after 5 decades of life on our planet, and I continue to enjoy documenting and sharing about my own journey as an aspiring home cook too. (Frequently now on Instagram too!)
One of the great things about living in Oklahoma and the midwest in the United States is we have a lot of great barbecue choices for both backyard enthusiasts and hungry eaters. Kosmo’s Q BBQ & Grilling Supply is located just north of I-40 west of downtown Oklahoma City a few miles, and has a variety of backyard smokers and grills in stock (including Kamado Joe, Traeger, and Masterbuilt models) as well as their own line of rubs, injection blends and seasonings.
I usually use a simple injection recipe for my Texas-style backyard smoked brisket, which includes about 40% apple juice or apple cider, 40% beef broth, and 10% Worcestershire sauce. I haven’t ever tried a different injection, so I picked up a 1 pound bag of Kosmos “Smoke House Reserve Blend” brisket injection today. To mix it, you combine 1/3 cup with 2 cups of liquid (beef broth, distilled water, or another liquid) and inject it into the meat before putting it on the smoker. The Kosmos employee who recommended it said all their brisket injections include “phosphates” which help keep the meat moist, and this particular injection will add a lot of additional smoke flavor to briskets cooked on a pellet smoker. I’m going to give this a try!
My second find and purchase from Kosmos today was their “Garlic Parm Wing Seasoning,” which is one choice in their “Wing Dust” lineup. I love eating and enjoying chicken wings, but I’m NOT a huge fan of spice heat. Wingstop has become my favorite fast food chicken wing place in the past few years, and I do enjoy garlic parmesan wings, so we’ll see how this “Wing Dust” compares next time I grill up or smoke some wings.
Our second stop on today’s OKC-area backyard barbecue store exploration outing was J. R.’s BBQ Supply Company in Moore. They are easy to get to just east of I-40, in Moore and will be relocating soon just down the road. They have a BIG selection of locally sourced, Oklahoma barbecue rubs and seasonings. They feature a large collection of “Butcher BBQ Stand” creations from Wellston, Oklahoma. I picked up their “Grilling Addiction Dry Rub Seasoning,” which I may try on some steaks or brisket. It does list ‘sugar’ as one of the ingredients, and I’ve heard it’s important to be very careful with rubs including sugar when you’re smoking low and slow. So I may try this on grilled steaks first, in lieu of “my usual” Mccormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning.
The last two items I picked up today at J.R.’s are sauces. Sweet Spirit Foods is a unique fundraising and outreach ministry of Christian Life Missionary Baptist Church on 23rd Street in downtown Oklahoma City. The byline on the label of their “Mild BBQ Sauce” is:
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good…”
Psalm 34:8a NKJV
I know that Scripture is true, we’ll see how applicable it is to this specific barbecue sauce soon at our house! 🙂
The last barbecue find and purchase today was “Payne County Hog’s Bane BBQ Sauce.” It’s a product of Big Rock Foods in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and sold online by Barn Door Gourmet. It’s described on the website as:
a sweet, smoky, Kansas-City-style sauce. It’s the perfect dipping sauce for bbq ribs or for smothering your favorite pulled-pork or brisket sandwich. Brush it on your shrimp, wings, grilled chicken or pork chops for a sticky charred crust, or finish your competition-style ribs in the smoker. Any way you use it, you’ll notice its unique background spices with every bite. Hog’s Bane BBQ Sauce has been praised by BBQ chains, butchers, packers and retailers across the country.
via bigrockfoods.com
We’ll be trying this with the next pork shoulder I smoke.
Incidentally, www.barndoorgourmet.com has a variety of other Oklahoma and midwest region food items, including BBQ but also other things. As an example, they offer, “Okie Fish and Chips,” which look like seasoned oyster crackers, by a company called “Over the Fence Farms” based south of Enid in Waukomis, Oklahoma, on Highway 81. These are the kind of locally sourced products I really enjoy finding at local farmers markets. I think this kind of local entrepreneurism and small business food product production is great, and I love learning about (as well as trying) things like this.
Spring is coming and that means “Farmers Market Time” will be here again. I can’t wait!