Chef Profile: Scott Roberts
Scott Roberts, "BBQ Mop" aficionado, at work
The Chef: Scott Roberts of The Salt Lick in Driftwood, Texas.
The Toolbox: None.
The Tools: Roberts and his crew use rakes and hoes to move the fire around in the pit. But, says Scott, perhaps the most important tool is a mop attached to a shortened handle used to baste the meat. “We don’t use tomatoes in our sauce, instead it has a high sugar content, so we’ve always basted the meat until it gets nice and carmelized,” he explained.
The moment of truth
Good thing, but then things got tricky. We wanted to know more about the mops. “We go through six mops a month,” Roberts offered up. Uh, not good enough. Then, after downing most of a bottle of wine and literally swooning over the ribs, I marched over to the pit for a close look at the “mop.”
Wait. A bar rag? Scott held it up, and grinned a bit sheepishly. “A bar rag,” he nodded.
We now know the truth, but for others, the lowly mop myth will live on.
First Tool: The pit. “When I was a kid, my father — who was six feet tall — made a mark with his boot, held out his BBQ fork, and built the pit so he could always reach the middle of the pit no matter where he was standing,” he said. All forks now are the same length as the original fork. There are also variable temps in the pit: 225°, 185°, 155°.
The Pit
Interesting Factoid: “We compost everything, even the meat,” says Roberts. “We have five catering trucks and a delivery truck, and the ethanol we produce will eventually power the entire fleet.” The motto?
“From beans to gas.”
