Big Bar-B-Q in Hill Country

Everything is bigger in Texas.  This, of course, includes flavor! While driving through Texas we made a stop at Hard Eight Pit Bar-B-Q to get our first taste of real Texas ‘que.  We dined with the locals and had an experience that can only truly be found in the Texas Hill Country. We had tried “Texas” style barbeque before and were eager to get a taste of the real thing!

Hard Eight Pit Bar-B-Q is only a few years old, but this family-run joint has become a part of the cowboy town of Stephenville. Texas Hill Country barbeque is particularly unique in style and flavor.  The Hill Country of Texas is located south of Dallas and west of Austin and this area is famous for marbled brisket, sausage links, and chicken.

We pulled off the highway and into a parking lot that was just about full of pick-up trucks; this was a good sign that we had found our lunch spot! The air smelled of mesquite wood and seemed thick with the heat from the pits.

A dozen Texas style pits sat under a wooden cover working away in the still, quiet, warm October day. The pits were huge coffin-like boxes made from red brick and topped with a heavy metal top. The top was lifted by a crank that lowered a counter weight pulling up the hefty led that is used to seal in the heat very well.

Mesquite wood is turned into coal and packed into the bottom of the pit then a grill is put into place. They turn logs of mesquite into coal everyday by filling ovens with the wood and allowing it to burn in a high temperature, then use the red hot coal to slowly cook the meat. Using coals instead of using straight wood gives the meat a gentle flavor of smoke as opposed to a Carolina smoker-cooked BBQ that’s uses the logs for heat and flavor.

A variety of meat is cooked in this Hill Country style including pork shoulders, turkey breast, whole chickens, house made spicy Texas sausage link, and of course, beef brisket.

We took a place in line behind real cowboys, men in dung-coated leather boots, smelling a bit of the cattle and sweat.  Also, there were people in business attire and  10 gallon hats playing with their blackberry phones as they waited. We ordered our hot, smoking slabs of meat by the pound.  Our mouths were watering.

Two men in jeans, t-shirts, and light red aprons worked out of the front pit slicing, weighing, wrapping, and passing packages of meat to the guest. All of the meats were priced by the pound. This is the Texas way!

Inside the pit revealed stacks of ribs, chunks of pork shoulder, turkey breasts that were perfectly golden, shrimp wrapped in bacon, and more. Everything was being held at a warm temperature.

Once we reached the front of the line I was a bit intimidated by all the choices, it all look so delicious!  We got the bare necessities; brisket, half a roast chicken (this was the smallest portion they offered), and a shrimp wrapped in bacon.

As we waited in line to pay workers as if you would like them to make a sandwich for you with your meat. This would work great for the pork shoulder but we decide to try ours straight-up.

We took a seat at a wooden table near some of the cowboys. The tables were all set with a bag of white bread, barbeque sauce, and rolls of paper towels.

The beef brisket had a mild, steady smoke flavor that permeated throughout.  The meat was super moist, marbled with rich veins of fat, and just tender enough to be pulled apart with a fork.   This thickly-sliced brisket was an amazing balance of smoke, delicious fat, tender-cooked meat and it was a prime example of what Texas brisket should be.

We shared a house specially of shrimp wrapped in bacon and cooked along the other pork items in the pit. The shrimp had a nice fresh flavor with a gentle smoke flavor. The bacon was just a bit crisp and was a great addition to the shrimp.

The chicken was thick with the flavor of smoke. The meat was thoroughly cooked with dark, fatty skin to add another layer of flavor. There was no way that we could have finished all of the meat that hung onto the chicken bones so I picked off the meat and saved it for sandwiches the next day.

Just the meat between the white bread we also got from the restaurant provided the perfect meal in itself.

With to-go box and big cup of sweet tea in hand we headed happily to the car to hit the road. As we stepped back outside the same sweet smell of mesquite wood filled our noses.

Trucks still filled the lot, and one pick-up had a cute puppy in the truck bed. The puppy kept trying to climb over the side of the truck–the smell of slow cooking meats was just to much, he was trying to get at it!  This puppy was struggling to climb out of the truck, so Brian and I gave him a gentle push and he tumbled back into the truck’s bed!

Hard Eight Texas Bar-B-Q was definitely not a disappointment; it delivered all the Hill Country big flavors we had anticipated. The brisket and the other classic Texas barbeque we tried lived up to all we had hoped!