Melissa Cookston on the State of BBQ Report

[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH. Barbecue Summer is here! Whether you're at home or going to the beach, lake, mountains, or city, be sure to support your local barbecue businesses. From the butcher shops to the pitmasters in food trucks, pop-ups, and neighborhood joints, for dine-in or catering,

[00:00:28] Carolina BBQ Festival reminds you to visit your locally owned businesses for barbecue summer. Visit CarolinaBBQFest.org for a list of local pitmasters that will get you started. And while you're at CarolinaBBQFest.org, be sure to sign up and stay connected. You'll get all the latest details on upcoming events, and coming soon, official dates for the 2027 Carolina BBQ Festival.

[00:00:53] Until then, be sure to enjoy BBQ Summer with your locally owned barbecue businesses. When it comes to local barbecue, you can't get much more local than your own backyard. And we know that pitmasters all across the United States are feeding their friends and family some of the best smoked pork every week. But are these backyard pitmasters really as good as they think they are? Maybe not.

[00:01:20] But today we're talking about that disconnect and how to solve it with Melissa Cookston. For those who don't know, and most of you probably do, Melissa is a seven-time world barbecue champion. She's a member of the Barbecue Hall of Fame. She owns Memphis Barbecue Company. She's the author of two cookbooks. Another book is on the way. And you've probably seen her on TV programs like Barbecue Pitmasters, Chopped, and my favorite Netflix show, Barbecue Showdown. Melissa, welcome to the Low and Slow Barbecue Show. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:49] So excited to talk to you and talk a little bit about a survey from Prairie Fresh Pork and the State of Backyard Barbecue. But before we wade into that, Melissa, I want you to imagine the perfect barbecue order for you and tell our audience what is in your ideal barbecue order. You know, I've always been a rib girl ever since I was, I'm going to say eight or nine.

[00:02:15] My mom used to drive us to Memphis, which was hours away, to get that utopian bite. And for her, that was the ribs at a restaurant that's sadly not around anymore. But we would drive and, you know, the drive was part of the experience. But once we got there and you dug into those ribs after spending all that time looking forward to it, that's still my utopian bite.

[00:02:43] Yeah, it's hard to beat a good rib and I know they know how to do it just right in Memphis. So let's talk a little bit more about pork and barbecue itself. I know Prairie Fresh released a 2026 State of Barbecue report earlier this summer. That included input from about 1500 adults who say they grill, barbecue or smoke. And there's a lot of difference between all those things. But Melissa, maybe get us started. Tell us what that report's all about. Tell us about the state of backyard barbecue in the United States.

[00:03:12] Well, it kind of lets us know where we are as a country with what we know and what we think we know. And it was very interesting to me. I mean, once the data came out that, you know, the confidence versus competence is lacking in about 32 percent. And, you know, that's surprising to me. I also have a barbecue retail store.

[00:03:40] And so I see a lot of these backyard guys come in and try to help and answer questions. But, you know, that's a that's a whopping number of people that, you know, they think they can. But, you know, they don't have the necessary tools as far as knowledge, maybe on, you know, just simple barbecue rules, you know, like like managing a fire, which there's not a lot of people managing fires like we did back in the day.

[00:04:10] With the pellet grills and easier tools out there today. But, you know, I guess you don't know what you don't know. And that's kind of what this data tells us. Yeah. And you can get more of that data at PrairieFresh.com. I just click over there in the drop downs under the barbecue pit stop. They got the full report there.

[00:04:34] You mentioned the difference between confidence in their barbecue abilities and what really their true capabilities are. You know, how do you feel like that difference is emerging? Why is that there? And why don't anybody recognize it? I mean, people like what I eat. Is it possible I still don't know what I'm doing there? I've been in the restaurant business, I guess, 43, 44 years now.

[00:05:00] And here's what I've seen in the restaurant business is people think, oh, my baked beans are great. I should open a restaurant. I think it's kind of the same, you know, when you're cooking in your backyard. Your mama says it's good. So it must be good. Which, you know, I'm not a purist. I think if you love it, if your mama loves it, then who am I to tell you that it's not good? Right. Right. Nobody.

[00:05:23] So I think that, you know, number one, we're so PC right now that nobody's going to say, well, you know, and be really honest. I think that, you know, we are now in a day and age of maybe blowing smoke a little bit. Blowing smoke. That's a good metaphor. Nice analogy there.

[00:05:48] And one of those stats that kind of jumped out at me was that 76% of people say their barbecue rarely turns out poorly. That's that means they're doing good. But yet almost 80% can't accurately identify a smoke ring. So is that surprising to you at all? Melissa, what do you think about those outcomes? You know, the smoke ring aspect was pretty surprising. I mean, I thought, you know, when I started learning how to barbecue, you know, there there was there was no Internet.

[00:06:17] Let's face it. I'm old. So I couldn't go look at videos and I couldn't get on YouTube. And I mean, what a great tool to have for these guys who are just learning to barbecue. Right. Yeah. So that not being able to identify or know what a smoke ring actually is was was very surprising to me. 80%. That's that's all. That's a huge number. Yeah.

[00:06:42] So we talked a little bit maybe about some misperceptions and things that people don't really understand. Let's talk about what they're getting right. What are backyard pit masters doing right when they they step up to the smoker? One thing that I am so excited about is the fact that these backyard cooks are willing to bring in international flavors into their barbecue.

[00:07:06] So it's not just what I consider the four regions of barbecue, which is Carolina, Memphis, Texas and Kansas City. So they're willing to go internationally and pull some of those flavors in, which to me is fantastic. I mean, you know, you may not know what you're doing, but by golly, you've got the flavor. Right. You know what you want. So I think, you know, knowing what you want is half the battle. And we just need to figure out how to get you there.

[00:07:35] How to get you there. Before we get there, I want to talk just a second about backyard versus competition, because I know there's a difference. You know, you're there's a difference between what you eat and what you're putting out there on the competition. But maybe tell our audience, what's the difference between how what backyard barbecuers are doing compared to what the competition guys are producing? Well, I mean, let's face it competition barbecues for one bite.

[00:07:59] It is so rich. It is so I mean, nobody would want to eat a half slab or a full slab of competition ribs. They're just you know, they're they're there for a reason because somebody said this is the way it should be in the backyard. That's all about eating. You know, it's really whatever you define barbecue to be and being able to pull those textures, pull those flavors, working with different cuts. And that's some of the things that I see in the retail stores.

[00:08:29] These guys, they you know, they want to cook a whole pack of brisket. You know, they don't they they want to do the hard stuff. So, you know, that to me is saying, hey, you know, we're serious about this. And I think this all came about during covid when everybody was having to stay at home. They were having to cook for themselves and everybody interested in barbecue. So I feel like those backyard cooks are my people.

[00:08:53] They're the ones that I identify with because, you know, they're they're they're cooking some great food. Great food. Yeah. And a lot of those guys, as we found out on our show, kind of got started in covid. And then next thing you know, they get a food truck and then they've got a restaurant and then they're they're moving into that commercial world in the retail business. And I know a lot of folks you mentioned brisket, but I know a lot of folks cook pork.

[00:09:17] I was surprised to see in that that Prairie Fresh report that almost a quarter of Americans avoid cooking pork. And in North Carolina, we're the number three producer in the whole United States. It's a ten billion dollar industry. Do you feel like that aversion to pork is a geographic thing or is it is it just a nationwide problem? And why are people staying away from pork? Well, you know, you're talking to the to the woman who is in the pork cooking capital of the world.

[00:09:45] I mean, Memphis is the largest competition in pork and has been for for many years. So, you know, I grew up on pork. I think that pork is, you know, I kind of consider it a white meat. It's a great blank canvas for you to add whatever flavors and textures you want. So, you know, pork is my number one go to predominantly, I guess, because that's the way I was raised.

[00:10:13] I mean, you know, my people slaughtered their own hogs. So I'm kind of like you in North Carolina. That's, you know, that's just what we do. But, you know, for me, it's my go to just because it's, you know, it's a fantastic way for me to bring my ideas to life. You mentioned that the white meat part, you mentioned the portion about, you know, it takes seasonings. Well, you can flavor it in a lot of different ways.

[00:10:38] Maybe some share some other reasons that pit masters should should look to pork when they're first getting started out on that barbecue journey. Not in COVID, you know that we've already passed that. But let's say I'm getting started tomorrow. Why should I go with pork? You know, a pork butt is one of the most forgiving cuts that that you can cook. You know, so I think so many backyard cooks have heard of this money muscle.

[00:11:01] So they get tied up in, you know, this little bitty strip at the opposite end of the blade bone on a butt. But, you know, in Memphis, we we pull pork. You know, we that's what we do. We cook at a low and slow kind of internal temperature that we that we pull it. So, you know, there's no fats or collagens remaining.

[00:11:25] And, you know, to me, that's that's what, you know, good barbecue is. And pork butts are one of the easiest things to get right the first time. Yeah, it's a great gateway to other barbecue things. Start with the pork butt, then move maybe to the brisket or the ribs or those tenderloins and all that good stuff. Well, what are some mistakes that backyard pit masters might make when they're they're trying to get started cooking on pork?

[00:11:55] Oh, honey, they want to smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke. And my friend Tuffy, he says, treat smoke like any other ingredient. You don't want to over salt it. So you don't want to over smoke it. Now, along with that is, you know, the type of wood that you use to smoke. I like to use lighter woods, pecan, peach, maybe some oak with with with pork and then into your red meat.

[00:12:22] You know, you can get into the hickories and the mesquites and maybe the stronger smoking. But, you know, don't over smoke things and try. You know, when I was doing competitions, I would use three quarters apple wood with a quarter cherry wood just because I felt like that's where I got my best smoke flavor. So but if I went to Georgia to compete, I would add hickory, you know, because that's what they were used to.

[00:12:49] You know, back in the day, people used whatever wood they had locally. That's what they used to cook with. So, you know, it's it's interesting here. We have a lot of hickory, but we also have a lot of apple trees. So, you know, now because we can get wood shipped to our door in a box, you know, use what's best for you. Yeah, you can go to the hardware store and pick up a bag of it.

[00:13:16] This backyard smoker is fortunate to have a bunch of pecan trees in the yard. So I use a lot of pecan and I like to mix apple and cherry in there, even though I live in a place called hickory. We don't always use hickory around the smoker. Let's talk a little bit about sharing the tips with the smoke and maybe you don't need to over smoke it. But if I'm a backyard pit master and I'm looking at my meat and I've cooked it for what I feel like is the appropriate time, maybe share some visual cues that people should be looking for at each stage of their cook,

[00:13:45] maybe before they wrap or they sauce or they they really get into starting to pull the pork apart. Yeah. One of the most common questions I get is when should I wrap at what temperature should I wrap? I don't wrap to a temperature. I wrap to color. So once you get the pork a beautiful color, which, you know, could be a little lighter for me, could be a little darker for somebody else.

[00:14:07] But that's when you need to wrap and always wrap with a liquid because, you know, that's really going to break those fats and collagens down when you when you do that wrap. And it, you know, in the restaurant business, we can't wrap because, you know, I'm cooking 250 bucks at a time and I'd have them out of the smoker too long. But in the backyard, wrap to color. And the other thing is, you know, putting sauce on.

[00:14:33] If you're going to wrap the entire cooking process, then you can add sauce. But most sauces include sugars which caramelize, turn really dark, burn, make you a bitter aftertaste. So the only time I sauce is right before serving. You know, in the Memphis area, we like to kind of cook the sauce down just a little bit. So I put it on like the last 15 minutes of the cook.

[00:15:01] But that's another thing that people love to do. And I know that the Kansas City circuit is hitting a lot of sauce during wrapping. And I think that depends on how long you're going to leave it out of the wrap. You know, I unwrap and immediately sauce and serve. So, you know, I think it all depends on what your method is as to when you should add the sauce. And of course, in the Carolinas, it's heavy vinegar.

[00:15:29] And depending on whether you're in the east or the west, you add tomato to that. But I always like to sauce mine at the end. You mentioned the wrapping part. One great part of the pork butt is that bark, that burnt outside. That's not burnt, but it's so much flavor in there. When you wrap it up, does that not jeopardize your bark? And how do you maintain that nice and crispy and that great flavor out there? Yeah. So bark really comes from the rub in my cooking style.

[00:15:58] So you're going to get a lot of bark just from the first two hours of cooking. You know, I think you will sacrifice a little bit of the bark when you wrap, especially if you wrap for a long period of time. But, you know, you're going to sacrifice something. You're either going to sacrifice color. If that doesn't matter to you, if you're feeding, you know, your friends and family, don't wrap, you know, and your bark will be better.

[00:16:25] So I think it depends on what you're looking for and what you might need to sacrifice in order to get that most important priority one for you. Okay. Okay. Let's step away from the meat for just a moment and talk about that equipment, the smoker that I'm using out there. And everybody's got a different one. You mentioned the pellet. I like the Weber Smoky Mountain. There's big green eggs, Kamado Joe, all kinds of different smokers out there.

[00:16:49] But maybe an important part of getting that cook going is knowing your smoker and, like you say, maybe building a relationship with it. How can folks build that relationship? How can they learn their smoker to maybe get to good results faster? Yeah. I think that, you know, practice makes perfect. You have to learn your grill or smoker. You know, people ask me all the time, you know, what temperature should I be cooking at? Well, I think that's a personal preference, number one.

[00:17:19] But say if you're cooking on a drum smoker, a drum smoker doesn't cook like an offset smoker or a pellet grill. A drum smoker is constantly funneling that heat. So it's like I liken it to cooking in a regular oven versus a convection oven. So it's going to cook much faster. Now, when you cook much hotter and faster, then you need to increase your internal meat temperature in order to get that same tenderness.

[00:17:49] Mm hmm. So everything cooks differently. You really have to practice a lot. Do your homework. There are so there's so much information on the Internet now. You know, do your homework and really understand what processes are happening and how the type of grill that you're cooking on works, even if it's homemade. I mean, it's going to be similar to something. Mm hmm.

[00:18:14] You can kind of find out more about that in PrairieFresh.com and their state of barbecue report. One of the things that I thought was really kind of cool in there, Melissa, was the personalities page that you've got there. I think it's eight or nine there in the report. You've got the showman, the apex pit master, family flame kipper, all the different personalities that are out there. Can you get a feel for what most of America is when it comes to one of these barbecue personalities out there in the cooking world?

[00:18:44] I don't have the personalities, but I took I took the quiz. And is there one that says humble? Humble mentor. Yeah, that was me. Yeah. And the questions I thought were really interesting. So I think that you can you can you can garner a lot just by what personality you get. And I didn't really want to be a humble mentor.

[00:19:12] I wanted to be a I don't know, you know, somebody I wanted to be a showman. But everybody knows that I'm I don't have the personality for that. But well, you're the apex pit master seven time world champion. It doesn't get better than that. Well, there's a lot of luck that comes in with competition barbecue. A lot of luck. You got to be good. Sure. But you got to have luck on your side that day, too. Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:19:35] So you can folks can go out there, visit PrairieFresh.com, take the barbecue quiz, figure out where you fit into that personality and your grilling style and learn more about that. And I want to get into Melissa, your barbecue backstory just a little bit. I know some of that's known, but I want to talk about your barbecue journey. And I know that the latest stop involves a new book that's coming out. So why don't you tell our audience a little bit about what's new with Melissa in this new publication? Yeah.

[00:20:01] So the first cookbook I wrote was more about smoking. Mm hmm. The second cookbook was grilling. And the third cookbook really brings my it's my love letter to my international travels. Oh. Cool. Anytime I go somewhere, I try to find ingredients that are indigenous to that area and put my southern spin on them. So there's a lot of those type recipes.

[00:20:28] There's just some, you know, what I call regular Joe barbecue in there, too. But, you know, I love traveling. It's, you know, something that I always wanted to do. I come from a wide spot in the road in Mississippi. We didn't even have a red light. So and I don't think there was a stop sign when I was born, but got a stop sign now. But, you know, I guess because I was from a nobody from nowhere, I wanted to travel.

[00:20:58] And there are so many unique things that you can find all over the world. And, you know, every culture has some form of cooking with fire. Yeah. And that's my definition of barbecue is anytime you're cooking with fire, that's barbecue to me. So, you know, visiting with these people, understanding their history of cooking with fire is so much fun. It's so much fun. And this cookbook was fun. Are there any international styles that maybe come to the top?

[00:21:28] Anything that stand out? And I know you probably got a whole bunch in there. But what's one thing that maybe folks could look forward to that they might seek out in your book? Yeah, the Peruvian chicken is to die for. I mean, it's and I love Peruvian food. I had my first taste of Peruvian food in Miami. And so anytime I was in Miami, I would I would go hit up Peruvian places. I know that paninis are huge down there. So I don't want to insult anybody, but I went for the Peruvian food. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:58] And then I got to go to Peru. And that was so exciting. And I had some of the you know, this is the thing about South America is you can taste fruits down there that we've never had because the shelf life on them is so short that they can't export them. And we can't import them into the US because we just don't have the time. So I love, you know, taking a cashew apple, which is you get one cashew off of an apple. So I took a cashew apple and I made a barbecue sauce with it.

[00:22:28] Wow. So, you know, that kind of stuff's fun for me. That's what I enjoy doing. Yeah. Experimenting. And I know a lot of the backyard folks love to to do that experimentation stuff. So that'll be a great guide for you there. Another one of your cookbooks I know was was smoking in the boys room. Right. Do you feel like that's changed at all now that Melissa's out there? There's a lot of other ladies out there that are making their names in the barbecue world. Do you still feel like it's a boys room in the smoking category world?

[00:22:57] You know, my husband came up with that title. I'm not gonna lie. And I did feed Motley Crue and they thought that was that was an awesome title, by the way. Yeah. But I never really realized that I was an anomaly. You know, I didn't I didn't think that way. We were all just people out having fun doing what we love to do. And I think the media made much more of that than than I ever did.

[00:23:27] I didn't know any other female pit masters when I started. Now there's a lot more, thank goodness. But, you know, that just never was a thing for me. Everybody just treated me like one of the guys, which is what I wanted. So, kudos to them. Right. Yeah. So you mentioned kind of those early days visiting Memphis and getting those ribs and long car ride there. How did your barbecue journey begin? Obviously, that's an early foundation. But when did Melissa get into actually doing it herself?

[00:23:58] When I started dating my husband, he took me to a barbecue competition and I didn't even know that those things were a thing, you know. And I said, oh, this really appeals to my competitive junkie nature and my love of barbecue. And I'm like, I can do this. I know I can do this. So I spent about a year just on research and development. And, you know, at that point, I didn't realize I was so naive.

[00:24:27] I didn't realize that people would go to their butcher shop and get a rub and add something to it and say, this is mine. So, you know, I started out at the grocery store pulling ingredients off the shelf, seasonings off the shelf. And I think that was one of the reasons why I got so lucky is mine was very original because, you know, it was it was made from scratch for real.

[00:24:54] Yeah. So those competition elements were there from early on that kind of pulled you into it. Do you still find yourself as a backyard barbecue or do you think of yourself more as a competitor? I think of myself as old and tired. My husband and my daughter cook for me a lot. I'll go taste stuff at the restaurant. And I do like to play a little bit here and there.

[00:25:22] But, you know, I'm going to have to be a backyard cook. I mean, there's no way that my barbecue now, what I love and what I would feed my mama, which she loves barbecue, by the way, would be competitive. You know, it's just any time I'm cooking for other people, whether it's judges, whether it's a catering job in the restaurant, I approach those all different ways.

[00:25:51] So, you know, but but I'm definitely a backyard or because I like to, you know, constantly test things. And I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes there's pizza, you know, because it did not turn out the way I thought. So I think that definitely qualifies me as a backyard barbecue. I've got thirty five grills and smokers. So. Wow. Yeah. Do you have any that you like the most or is it you use the grill or smoker per what you're preparing us?

[00:26:18] So, well, back to my previous comment, I'm old and tired. So, you know, I'm not I'm not going to just on that pellet grill, although I have a really good cheat with my pellet grill. My neighbors do not know if it was cooked on my jambo or or my pellet grill. They don't know. And the cheat is just take one of those stainless steel boxes that has the perfs in it and put wood chips in there.

[00:26:49] So what you're doing is actually creating and just sit that on the shelf. What you're doing is actually creating smoke, real wood smoke, as opposed to, you know, I don't know what they make pellets out of, but they don't look that way because they're using all wood. That's all. Well, it's a fuel. It gets it cooked. So that's a great cheat there from Melissa. I'm sure you picked up some of those cheats all along the way in this this lifelong journey of barbecue.

[00:27:17] Maybe can you share some of your biggest influences during the journey as you were going and and maybe who do you look to now for barbecue guidance? My husband's always been he's always been my mentor. He started cooking barbecue with his fraternity in college, and I'm pretty sure it was just a reason to party as you have, you know, as you can imagine, fraternities might do.

[00:27:44] But he's one of the smartest people I know. And we've been married, I guess, 30 years now. And so if I need some advice, if I if I look to somebody's opinion who really, really matters, it's his. That's great to have him nearby there for 30 years, a sidekick of advice there. What about challenges? What are some of the biggest challenges that you've encountered along your barbecue journey? Don't try to make a living off competition barbecue.

[00:28:14] It's not. I think I won two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in 2010, but I probably spent three hundred and twenty thousand dollars to do it. You know, it's just it's it's not a lucrative production. It is for the love of the sport. Now, I'm not saying you can't bounce off of that or springboard off of that into something that will make money. But, you know, it's it's a love. It's a passion.

[00:28:41] You know, I can remember one weekend sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. And I had to be in L.A., I think in seven days. And I'm the only one that drives because I get car sick. So, you know, dragging that trailer all those miles. I remember we came home from D.C., threw out the dirty clothes, put in the new clothes.

[00:29:07] And it said you have something like eighteen hundred miles on I-40 East. And I was I made I-40 West. And I was I was like, oh, Lord, I'm not gonna make it. But I did. But you did manage to persevere along the way. And that seems like a kind of a great place for us to conclude here. I do want to ask you again and mention quickly PrairieFresh.com is where folks can find the State of Barbecue Report. Visit the website. You can take the grilling quiz as well.

[00:29:34] They've got lots of great recipes about what you how you can use pork and some blogs, lots of other good advice there. So visit PrairieFresh.com. But Melissa, I know you're involved with Prairie Fresh. I've mentioned some of the TVs. You've got three cookbooks. You've got all these competition accolades in your cabinet. Let me just ask you as we close, what keeps your fire burning? Why do you stay in this barbecue world and keep it going? You know, it is the most fun.

[00:30:03] It's a lot of work, but it is the most fun. So much so, in fact, that I retired from competition to start a nonprofit foundation teaching teenagers how to cook. Great. So now they really keep my fires burning because watching what they can produce is something else. It's some of the best barbecue I've ever judged. That's wonderful. Tell us the name of that foundation so folks can find out more about it. World Junior Barbecue League.

[00:30:34] World Junior Barbecue League. That's great. And it's a great way to keep young people moving and into the business and keep the next generation coming. Can you see any of those next guys coming up or guys and gals coming up that might be cooking at Rendezvous or Slaps or over here, Midwood Smokehouse or John G's or Sweet Lose? Anybody coming up that you see that could be the next legend? Oh, honey, I steal all of them from Memphis Barbecue Company.

[00:31:04] Except the international kids. You know, they don't. I do have one international kid that is graduating this year that wants to come over and work with me. But for the most part, yeah, I steal them all for myself. I taught them. You taught them, you may as well keep them. And that, my friends, is the final word from Melissa Cookston, seven-time world barbecue champion. She's a barbecue judge, Delta chef, book author, breaking so many barriers in the barbecue world. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:31:34] Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. You've been listening to the Low and Slow Barbecue Show, where local barbecue summer is sponsored by Carolina Barbecue Festival. Whether you head to the beach, the lake, the mountains, the city, or even your own backyard, be sure to visit your local barbecue business this summer. Go to CarolinaBBQFest.org for a list of local pitmasters that will help you get started. While you're there, sign up to stay connected. You'll be the first to know the dates for the 2027 Carolina Barbecue Festival in Charlotte.

[00:32:03] To our audience, thank you for listening to the Low and Slow Barbecue Show. If you like what you hear, share our podcast with your food-loving friends, and please subscribe and give us a five-star rating on your favorite stream. You can find more local barbecue people at our website, LowSlowBBQShow.com. We've got a whole library of podcasts with interviews from local pitmasters all around the Carolinas and beyond. Just pick a pitmaster podcast, give it a listen, and make plans to visit their barbecue business this summer.

[00:32:31] While you're at LowSlowBBQShow.com, check out the blog. We'll have a link to the PrairieFresh.com State of Barbecue Report. Look for it there, all at LowSlowBBQShow.com. The Low and Slow Barbecue Show is proud to be part of the Mesh.TV network, a podcast. That's where Andrew Moose is our producer of this podcast and so many more on the Mesh. Thank you for your help, Andrew. And once again, thanks to our guest, Melissa Cookston.

[00:32:55] And thank you all for joining us on our Low and Slow Barbecue Show adventure, where I'm your host, Sugar Willard, reminding you that for the best barbecue and the best barbecue podcast, make it low and slow. You've been listening to The Mesh, an online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts, sports to entertainment, music to community.

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