Where to sample American-style BBQ in SA

Meet three groups enterprising South Africans who're serving up slow-cooked, smoky dishes at festivals, functions and food markets.

sub_head_start 1) BLACK SAM SMOQUE, JOBURG sub_head_end

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Lunch time at the hot new inner-city spot, The Sheds@1Fox Street, is a temptation for all the senses. Meat lovers should join the queue at the Black Sam Smoque counter where Anda Sebesho and Thokozani Sibeko operate the smoker.

What are you serving up? It is American-style barbecue, slow-smoked brisket and pork belly, with little seasoning apart from salt and pepper. The cuts are smoked at 110°C for a minimum of eight hours. The secret is smoke.

What is your name about? We brought two [black] portable smokers from the States, that's where black comes from. Sam is "serious about meat", and of course the smoque is what makes us different.

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How do you serve your BBQ? We do a sandwich (R50) on a bun with Southern-style coleslaw, apple and two types of cabbage. The platter (R60) comes with seed bread, two sauces, gherkins, jalapeños, coleslaw and a cup of spicy beans.

How did you start up? We ran a food truck in Parktown North before heading to the market.

Who eats here? Bankers and inner-city office workers, families, anyone who is interested in good food, like us.

Why did you start smoking? It started off as an experiment, a hobby we tried for a year around the braai. We realised the quality was good enough to sell. We went to the US to research, and taste, the different barbecue styles, and now we have people coming from all over the province for it.

We went to Texas, St Louis, New York and Chicago. In Kansas they are all about the sauce, which we do with ribs when we are serving them, and in Texas it is salt, pepper and smoke. That's what we enjoyed the most.

sub_head_start 2) THE SOUTHERN SMOKE, THE CAPE sub_head_end

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With their huge steampunk-style smoker "Bessie" in tow, Craig Glutz and maverick Swartland winemaker Callie Louw have turned The Southern Smoke into something of a cult in the Cape.

Where did you find Bessie? We built it ourselves using some plans and calculations from the internet ... the smoking chamber is actually an industrial compressor reservoir. That's the cooking chamber, and that determined the size of the firebox, the smokestack, the diffuser plate and how the heat and the smoke travel over the food we're cooking. Obviously bigger is better so we made everything a bit bigger.

Which wood is best? We've used a whole bunch, but kameeldoring [camel thorn] works the best. It's all about minimal smoke and very low heat... we smoke through the night at about 100°C, and never for less than 14 to 16 hours.

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What meat works best in Bessie? Ag, we can smoke anything, but the most popular are beef brisket and pork shoulder. They're sections of meat that are quite muscular, so they need to be cooked low and slow. In the "gunsafe" above the firebox it's much hotter, so we do barbecue chicken wings, pork spare ribs. We've also smoked potato bakes, some apples, whole garlic ... our next thing is bread; fire it up to 250°C and try baking.

What's the secret to a good smoke? Good quality meat and a constant temperature - you don't want the temperature to be up and down all the time. Also a good dry rub for the meat. It took us some time to get our dry rub together before smoking.

Where can people find you? We try and do a few festivals, and then we do private parties and weddings. We're also busy working on a smaller home-sized smoker that we can sell to the general public. That will be available towards the middle of the year. Follow The Southern Smoke on Facebook, or e-mail info@thesouthernsmoke.com

sub_head_start 3) PITMASTERS, CAPE TOWN sub_head_end

After a decade in Saudi Arabia, Deleen Lindeque (above), her husband Wouter and their three sons returned to Cape Town in early 2014 with a new-found love for smoked meats. Two months later, PitMasters was born.

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How did you get started? Living in Saudi Arabia we loved trying different cuisines, and discovered the smoking of meat. Smoked meats are fairly new to South Africans, so we started with a food truck to bring the food to the people.

What do you smoke in? My dad and my husband built our first smoker from scratch, but today we also have two large offset smokers - we call them the Smokinator 5000 and Smokinator 6000. We can do 30-40kg of ribs in our rib stack, and in the main chamber I smoke 40-50kg of meat at one time. We usually smoke the meat for 16 hours.

Can you smoke with any wood? We choose our wood very carefully because it makes a huge difference to the meat. In the US they use apple, cherry, plum and peach wood, but here we have lovely old wingerd (grapevine) that adds a very sweet taste to the meat. But wingerd also burns very quickly, so we use a small amount of slow-burning oak that has a strong smoky taste. We didn't think the South African palate was ready for the very strong taste of smoke from a wood like rooikrans.

Which meat is best for the smoker? We use pork leg and beef brisket. Brisket smokes well because it's so marbled with fat. We order our meat with the skin off and fat on... the more fat the merrier, as you don't want the meat to dry out. We serve our meats Texas-style; with slaw... it's all about the contrast between the warm sweet meat and the tangy crunchy coleslaw, on the soft bun. We also smoke cowboy beans to serve with our pork belly spare ribs.

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Any secret ingredients? Before we smoke our meat we put on a dry rub of sugar and salt, cumin, coriander and other spices ... but a good smoker will never part with their secret recipe! The rub forms a salty, sugary crust that we refer to as the bark. That crust is delicious, plus it helps to keep the meat moist. We also serve our pulled pork with a barbecue sauce that we make ourselves... again to a secret recipe! All fresh products - tomatoes, onions, garlic and a bunch of spices.

How hard is it to smoke meat - can I try this at home? It's not difficult, once you've grasped the concept. We have also replicated our very first offset smoker and are selling them [R2 999] to the public. We've built it so that the firebox also has space for a grid, so you can braai some wors and a chop while you're waiting for your 16-hour smoke.

Where can people find you? PitMasters sells at food markets in and around Cape Town. Follow us on Twitter (@PitMastersRSA) and Facebook.