Ep. 812: The Best Grub in Texas

Summary

The MeatEater Podcast — Ep. 812: The Best Grub in Texas

Release Date: December 25, 2025
Host: Steven Rinella
Guest: Jesse Griffiths (Chef/Owner of Dai Due, Austin, TX)
Location: Dai Due Restaurant, Austin, Texas

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Episode Overview

In this special live episode from the Dai Due restaurant in Austin, Texas, Steven Rinella and co-hosts join chef Jesse Griffiths for an in-depth exploration of Texas cuisine rooted in wild game, hyper-local sourcing, and a radical commitment to authenticity. The group shares an on-air meal while discussing the challenges, philosophies, and culinary joys of serving truly local food. The episode is both a love letter to Texas foodways and an inspiring argument for transparency and integrity in sourcing and cooking.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Dai Due Ethos: Radical Locality

• Opening Theme: Jesse’s distinctive motto is “everything is from around here.” As Steven points out, it’s a rare and bold claim even among farm-to-table restaurants ([02:23]).
  • Quote: "The premise at Dai Due is that when you come here, you're eating Texas food from Texas." — Steven Rinella (03:14)
• What Can't Be Local: Some things will never be on Dai Due’s menu, like pineapples, purely because they don’t grow in Texas ([03:54]).
  • Jesse: "I love pineapple... but since you can't get a pineapple from Texas, you're never going to get a pineapple. You'll never see a pineapple in here." (03:54)

2. How Local Sourcing Actually Works

• Logistical Challenges: Jesse details the logistical (sometimes “sketchy”) process of sourcing wild game and local produce, insisting suppliers meet both geographical and ethical standards ([04:41], [06:47], [07:36]).
• Example: Tortillas are sourced from a specific San Antonio producer—but only if their corn is confirmed local ([06:47]).
• Eggs: Preference is for pasture-raised, close-proximity eggs, but stewardship practices can override strict geography ([08:07]).

3. The True Cost of Real Food

• Local food is expensive not due to “artisanship,” but because it reflects actual labor and the absence of agribusiness subsidies ([09:03]).
  • Jesse: "It's the cost of real food. It's how much it really costs when there's not a subsidized, you know, agribusiness standard that's producing these things." (09:16)

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4. The Tasting Menu Tour

Wild Boar Flautas ([05:32])

• Wild boar (feral hogs) locally trapped and brought in whole for butchering.
• True Wild Meat:
  • "Wild pig carcasses come in [the back door]...every day get eaten by people who then say that's the best wild pig they ever ate." —Steven Rinella (10:43)

Audad (Barbary Sheep) Meatballs ([11:03])

• Often dismissed as “inedible,” Audad is rendered delicious via grinding and aggregation.
  • Jesse: "I love Audad. I think Audad is objectively good. I think that it's oftentimes cooked improperly...needs to be aggregated." (11:10)
• French fry inclusion is a nod to European/Middle-Eastern street food ([14:05]).

Flatbread, Pastrami Sandwich, and Housemade Paprika ([13:53], [16:06])

• Everything from the flour (Barton Springs Mill) to the housemade paprika is sourced as locally as possible.
• Handmade sauerkraut and preserves: Production is seasonal, staff process hundreds of pounds at peak harvest ([16:53]).
• Sauerkraut can run out for months if not enough is fermented during season ([16:06]).

Fat Rendering and Cooking Over Texas Wood ([18:00], [34:16])

• All beef tallow and lard is rendered in-house; firewood is local post oak — reflecting Central Texas barbecue tradition.
• Jesse: "Our sourdough starter to this day is from a grape starter across the road...a hyper local yeast." (33:45)
• Techniques are granular and resourceful, e.g., skimming out bits of meat for neutral fat, watching bubbles not just cracklings for doneness ([35:35], [47:07]).

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5. Creative Substitutions and Economic Realities

• Tomato Ketchup vs. Beet Ketchup: Making true local tomato ketchup is “exorbitantly expensive”—beets provide a practical and economical alternative ([30:04]).
  • "In a real system that, that, that, you know, everybody wins from the farmer on down, tomatoes, they're not cheap."—Jesse Griffiths (31:10)
• Dry goods (like vinegar and sugar) are sourced responsibly but not always locally; some exceptions are necessary ([31:52]).

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6. Sourcing and Meat Processing Details

• Wagyu and Longhorn Beef: Partnership with Mariana Peeler near San Antonio—cattle live on pasture with some grain for balance ([25:08], [26:16]).
• Hamburgers are primarily grass-fed longhorn, with older animals providing richer flavor ([27:03]).
• Game meats (like nilgai) are harvested under strict USDA oversight and unique field processing protocols—headshots from helicopters, shock treatment for quick processing ([58:09]).
  • "They have this shocking technique where they hook them up and they zap...to speed them through rigor mortis." —Jesse Griffiths (59:37)

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7. Technical and Philosophical Cooking Insights

• Potato sourcing is a “cheat,” sometimes coming from Colorado or New Mexico but always organic (15:35]).
• Dairy (yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream) is made in-house, often using culturally significant starters (e.g., 200-year-old yogurt starter from an employee’s family; [21:05]).
• Rendering animal fats: Watch for small, straw-colored bubbles (like a light beer) as doneness indicator, not just crackling behavior ([47:07]).
  • Jesse: "As soon as it looks like a really light beer...as you get a straw color and tiny bubbles, you're done. At that point, you need to strain." (47:07)

On Animal Fats and Wild Diets ([49:54])

• Wild hogs eating pecans produce soft, unsaturated fat unsuitable for some purposes.
  • "The fat that we render off these hogs does not solidify in the refrigerator...it's polyunsaturated fats from eating a diet of probably only pecans."—Jesse (49:57)

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8. Venison Hot Dogs and Future Projects ([41:02])

• Steven and Jesse brainstorm the perfect “gas station style” venison hot dog for a future video—emphasizing accessibility, flavor, and authentic emulsification ([42:28]).
• "If we can...publish a recipe and have an instructional video of how to make a gas station hot dog that your kid would be excited to eat and have it be 50 venison, that is success." — Steven Rinella (43:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Commitment to Local Sourcing:
  "If it comes in the back door and we see that it is not from Texas...we ship it right back." — Jesse Griffiths ([07:36])

• On True Food Costs:
  "It's the cost of real food...if we want to ensure that we keep farmers that are doing the right things, you know, in these smaller...family farm[s]...then we have to buy from them." — Jesse Griffiths ([09:16])

• On Rendering Fats:
  "As soon as it looks like a really light beer...as you get a straw color and tiny bubbles, you're done." — Jesse Griffiths ([47:07])

• On the Philosophy of Dai Due:
  "You've created something of a lot of beauty. And also, you just play by your own rules...when someone's like, oh, it doesn't work that way. You can't do it that way. You're just like, I'll figure it out." — Steven Rinella ([65:13])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:23] — Introduction to Dai Due and foundational philosophy
• [05:32] — The meal begins: flautas, wild boar sourcing explained
• [11:03] — Cooking with Audad; overcoming perceptions of “inedibility”
• [13:53] — Flatbread and the story behind Texas-grown flour and rice
• [16:06] — Importance and logistics of housemade sauerkraut and paprika
• [18:00] — On barbecue woods: post oak, cooking fires, and tradition
• [21:05] — Housemade yogurt from a 200-year-old starter
• [25:08] — Wagyu & longhorn supply; burger and steak decisions
• [30:04] — The economics behind beet ketchup vs tomato ketchup
• [34:16] — Sourdough starter origin and breadmaking methods
• [35:35] — In-house tallow and lard rendering
• [41:02] — Gas station-style venison hot dog brainstorming
• [47:07] — How to judge rendering fat by the bubble (light beer test)
• [49:54] — The effect of wild animal diets on rendered fat
• [58:09] — Nilgai harvesting: helicopters, field dressing, and USDA regulations
• [61:05] — Egg sourcing and supporting local sustainable farmers
• [62:05] — Reflections on what makes Dai Due a unique, values-driven restaurant

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Tone & Atmosphere

The conversation is candid, humorous, and filled with camaraderie, but always returns to a deep respect for food, land, and ethical practices. Jesse’s humble expertise and Steven’s enthusiastic curiosity keep the tone lively and informative. There is frequent laughter and friendly ribbing, but the underlying themes are sincerity, regional pride, and reverence for the natural world and its bounty.

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Final Reflections & Takeaways

• Inspiration: Diners and listeners are inspired to try harder at home and to respect the true cost and value of honest food ([64:24] Emily's closing concluder).
• Authenticity: Dai Due’s philosophy is about genuine creativity, sustainability, and building community around meaningful, delicious food.
  • "It's a community and it's really good." — Brent ([67:02])
• Invitation: Steven urges listeners to visit Dai Due whenever in Austin ([65:16]).

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Summary Table of Key Dishes

| Dish | Sourcing Method | Notable Points | |---------------------------|---------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | Flautas (Wild Boar) | Trapped, inspected wild feral hogs | Hyperlocal tortilla sourcing, seasonal cabbage | | Audad Meatballs | Aggregated Audad harvest | Grinding for tenderness, challenge of invasive species | | Flatbread Kebab | Texas flour & rice, house yogurt | French fry inclusion, historical flavor inspirations | | Pastrami Sandwich | Wagyu brisket, house sauerkraut | Fermentation logistics, true rye bread | | Burger | Grass-fed Longhorn, bit of wagyu | House bun from grape-based sourdough, beet ketchup | | Lettuce Wrap (Nilgai) | Headshot-harvested wild nilgai | Hydroponic local lettuce, field-processed game |

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Best Quote, Summing Up the Episode:
"You've created something of a lot of beauty. And also, you just play by your own rules...when someone's like, oh, it doesn't work that way. You can't do it that way. You're just like, I'll figure it out." — Steven Rinella ([65:13])

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in wild food, regional sourcing, culinary craftsmanship, or the everyday heroics behind real, honest cooking.

Transcript

[Jesse Griffiths]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Brent]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Brent]

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[Steven Rinella]

Auto parts. Welcome, everybody, to the third and final flop from the Meat Eater Live Christmas tour. Today finds us in Austin, Texas, at the esteemed restaurant Dai Due, owned and operated by Jesse Griffiths, who I argue not only is America's greatest chef, I mean, maybe not. I don't know. That's a big claim. He is definitely America's greatest wild game cook and chef. And we're in his restaurant. What I used to like about this restaurant, what I used to like about it, I need you to know. Last night, some people came up to me and they were from somewhere far away, like Massachusetts or something, and they had recently come to Austin to eat at the restaurant.

[Jesse Griffiths]

All right.

[Steven Rinella]

They came to the show and told me that story. Why I liked, why I liked Dai. I used to like. Used to like Dai Doe. Where we're sitting right now is you'd get to the menu and you encounter this very intriguing line down here. Now, you think most restaurants would put the line up here in big letters, but Jesse had a line down here that said, everything is from around here. And he was a master of subtlety and just left it like that. I was shocked and dismayed. Today I asked for a menu so that I could reference everybody to the everything is around here line. And what did I find is a broader explanation backing up the claim that everything is from around here. The. The premise at Dai Due is that when you come here, you're eating Texas food from Texas.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Correct.

[Steven Rinella]

And that is not an easy thing to do. I know that when I've had Jesse on the podcast before, we've laughed about. I remember Jesse and I were somewhere and he ran into a citrus stand and bought a truckload of citrus. Because when citrus is ready, that's his year long chance to get citrus. I've been with you buying a truckload of pecans because when pecans are ready, it's time. Because you're not going to get them from somewhere else. Things like, give me a thing that you'll just never have here. Like, tell me the thing that's the biggest bummer that you'll never be able to have.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Pineapples.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I love pineapple.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. But since you can't get a pineapple from Texas, you're never going to get a pineapple. You'll never see a pineapple in here. Barring some kind of agricultural innovation pretty much.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. You could conceivably grow a pineapple in far south Texas.

[Steven Rinella]

And if they did, you would buy it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, I would buy. I'd drive down there and get it.

[Steven Rinella]

Jesse buys. People bring things. I hesitate to say this because I don't want to have people just showing up at your door. People will show up at Jesse's door. You tell it because I want you to. I don't want to say anything wrong.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I mean, yeah, we get some kind of sketchy sales transactions sometimes. I mean, we don't participate solicitations. Thank you. Usually it's in the form of a. Of a dead feral hog.

[Brent]

Okay.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Maybe some mushrooms, which I will buy.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Jesse Griffiths]

But feral hogs I will not.

[Brent]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

But other things, a purveyor would just call and say, I happen to have a bunch of.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And you'll go. Go for it and do it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Jesse's been on the podcast before. I'm big. Like, I love his restaurant. If you were to ask my wife about her favorite restaurant, she's going to say this is her favorite restaurant. It's. It's far none, far and away my favorite place to eat. What we've never done with Jesse, we've never sat down to eat. So we're going to try to eat with headphones on, which is. Which is complicated. But the main thing we want to do is in trying to capture this essence of like Texas Food. Can you tell us what we're looking at and. And prove to me that everything is from around here?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Sure, sure. We'll start right. Right in front of you. So those are some flautas made with shredded wild boar. Our feral hogs come from either the hill country or east of Austin.

[Steven Rinella]

And these are real wild pigs.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Real. So they're. They're trapped live. Okay. And then they're brought into a licensed facility, at which point they're inspected and then killed.

[Brent]

Crunch.

[Steven Rinella]

Who did that? Move your thing away.

[Jesse Griffiths]

What's the. There's a phrase for someone that cannot tolerate the sound of other people chewing. There's like, I don't have that.

[Emily]

I don't know. They're not gonna like this.

[Jesse Griffiths]

They're not gonna like this episode.

[Steven Rinella]

If you move your thing. If you move your thing way away and then move it back when you have to talk.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So shredded barrel hog, these tortillas, we buy them from a very specific place in San Antonio. Shredded cabbage. So cabbage is in season right now. When cabbage is not in season, we will pickle or ferment it so that then we can use it on top of here.

[Steven Rinella]

I got a question already. If you buy a tortilla, you then I'm assuming you then need to call that tortilla place to find out the.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Source of their corn.

[Steven Rinella]

You do?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

Huh.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So not for everything, though. And I want to be really transparent about it too. So, like, we will carry. We have a bottled lemonade that we serve, you know, mostly because we love the company. You know, this little girl started, like, basically a lemonade stand. And so we buy that. That's a local company, but our fresh ingredients, and I wouldn't go 100% on it, but are going to be very diligently sourced from Texas to the point where we. We. We will often get shipped lettuce. This butter lettuce right here, the company we source it from, some sometimes are often just throws whatever in there. If it comes in the back door and we see that it is not from Texas because there's a. There's a company that. That grows these hy. Hydroponically. We ship it right back.

[Steven Rinella]

Really?

[Jesse Griffiths]

And that confuses the hell out of the driver. He's like, what are you talking about? Like, this is not what we meant. He's like, it says butter lettuce. We're like, well, talk to the rep.

[Steven Rinella]

Not the right butter lettuce.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Not the right butter lettuce.

[Emily]

One time, I think we were in here, you were telling us that at one Point, you got eggs that were like five from five miles away, and then you found out that you could get eggs that were from like a half a mile from here. Do you still sort of roll with that ethos, too, of like, the closer to this restaurant that stuff has grown and made, the better.

[Jesse Griffiths]

There's going to be a lot of different things that determine where we get things. Now, proximity would be the. Would be one. But really it's going to be. It's probably going to boil down more to how those businesses are run. I mean, what, you know, land stewardship, what they're. How. How they operate, you know, especially with eggs. You know, we want a pasture situation. We don't want a warehouse. We want chickens to be able to live on pasture freely and feed on insects, things like that. So we will do the research. And if we have. So. So, I mean, to that point, if we had to get something from farther away that fell more within our standards, then we would absolute.

[Steven Rinella]

The other day with this, people that came up to me and they were telling me about how they'd come a long way to go to your restaurant. He made a comment, he says, man, it's pretty expensive, though. I'm like, dude, do you even know what those guys go through to put that stuff together? I'm like, they take basically all that money to go buy the stuff to make, like.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Correct.

[Steven Rinella]

It's complicated.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It is complicated.

[Steven Rinella]

It's like. It's like you're doing things. You guys are doing things that make the least business sense.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the cost of real food.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's how much it really costs when there's not a subsidized, you know, agribusiness standard that's producing these things. Or it's just. It's just how it really costs to operate like this. And if we want to ensure that we keep farmers that are doing the right things, you know, in these smaller. And we're going to throw the word family farm out there. And I mean that for real, like a family's run in this place. If we want to really ensure that they are in business, then we have to buy from them. And then their. Their product is more expensive.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Almost invariably.

[Emily]

Let's.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's back.

[Emily]

We talk about what Randall's eating.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, yeah. I just want to do a quick recap. Sure. Quick recap on this first bite. And then we'll try to get through without all the interruptions. So, Texas, you buy tortillas from a Texas outfit. The tortillas filled With a kind of braised down, cooked down. I haven't eaten it yet. Feral hog. Yeah. Wild pig that was trapped in the wild 100 and brought to you on the bone.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah. I mean sometimes, sometimes we'll buy trim. But typically, like especially these days, for probably the past year or so, we've really trended towards whole carcasses on feral hogs.

[Steven Rinella]

So in the back door of this restaurant, wild pig carcasses come in.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. We have a rail system which is really cool because we can just hook them up on a rail and it's like a little railroad. Goes from the back door into the walk in on a big loop and then it comes out, goes down the hot line and into the prep area right here to our right.

[Brent]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Meaning those inedible wild pigs that can't be eaten come into this restaurant and every day get eaten by people who then say that that's the best wild pig they ever ate.

[Fellow Guest]

Very edible.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Very, very edible.

[Guest Clay]

No doubt.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, let's move on.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, speaking of inedible, part two, that's our Audad meatball. Right.

[Guest Clay]

I knew it was the odd ad.

[Steven Rinella]

Meatball, the inedible audit.

[Jesse Griffiths]

The inedible is here with french fries. Audad gets more inedible the farther across that canyon that people shoot it, you know, and also that guide is like, yeah, man, you can't eat those things, you know that, you know, so they go chop the head off. And I, you know, I, I love Audad. I think Audad is objectively good. I think that it's oftentimes cooked improperly and you kind of need to aggregate it. Much like the feral hog is slow cooked and shredded or ground or made into sausages, things like that. Odd. That again needs to be aggregated. So we're going to slow cook that or we're going to grind it. And that's what that is.

[Steven Rinella]

Help me understand that word you use in aggregated.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Put like, so with feral hogs especially. So if we, I can't pick up the phone and say, hey, can you bring me five 65 pound feral hogs tomorrow? I can say, can you bring me some feral hogs tomorrow? And he's like, sure. I mean, one of them is going to be 138 pounds. Two of them are, you know, probably siblings out of the same sounder are going to come in at £47 and so forth. So it's very difficult to achieve consistency in size and fat content. So if I want to run chops, we got to get a little bit lucky and so, you know, they, our processor either selects certain animals of size and quality or, or we just get lucky with what the, the trapper got. And so it's. The much more easier thing to do would be to aggregate that. Meaning we're going to just pull everything off the bone and grind it and then make something out of it or we're going to shred it off the bone and make something like that. It's an equalizer.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it. And on this, this audit here that we're looking at as we discuss this dish has been ground. But these I imagine too, you don't say like I want a bunch of 100 pound carcasses or whatever. You just get in what you get.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, we get what we get.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And how do these odd ads show up to you?

[Jesse Griffiths]

So that's either. That's probably going to be a coal. Sometimes they're trapped, you know, so sometimes they'll go into hog traps, things like that, at which point they're fair game, you know, and they might be coals off of high fence places as well. I mean, for complete transparency, you know. But I, I think that at that point we're kind of toeing the line between eating an invasive and also trying to demonstrate that that invasive is edible as well.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

You know, so it's also like a, it's an object lesson right there, you know, like, well, you can, you can eat it.

[Guest Clay]

Hey, what about the, what about the combination? Excuse me? Like what we're. This is a, I don't know, a fl. What we call that.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's a, it's our flatbread.

[Guest Clay]

Flatbread.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So we make a flatbread and then it's got grilled meatballs on there. Those meatballs are, are bound with rice. The rice comes from out near Houston and Anahak.

[Steven Rinella]

Really. So Texas rice.

[Guest Clay]

But then the french fries is really like.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Guest Clay]

Whose idea was that?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, that's, you know, if you go to Europe and you get these like donor kebabs and these, these, these classic Middle Eastern pita sandwiches, a lot of times they'll put French fry. Okay, so that's.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah, I like that.

[Steven Rinella]

So what's in the flatbread? Is it a flour based flatbread?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Flour, Texas flour, yeast. So we use some, it depends on the bread. Some flour we do get from larger mills, but we use a lot of Texas grown flour from Barton Springs mill.

[Steven Rinella]

And then you're able to get taters from Texas.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yes, sometimes or most of the time. And off season. That's one of the COVID provisions that that we made was that we. That's kind of our. Our. Our cheat ingredient is potatoes. And so you just have to have them. Yeah, it really hit hard during COVID in that we. And it's really funny because I think, you know, like, that potatoes represent like one of like 200 ingredients that, that we get. And it's. And it's the one that's not consistently from Texas end up there. And I always end up talking about it too long. But during COVID I mean, people, I don't know, we were just like, we really need to provide some comfort. We need french fries and mashed potatoes and things like that. And we kind of went down that path. We're very conscientious about how we source them. They have to be organic. Prefer. Preferably we get them from Colorado and New Mexico, so we're able to do that. But again, if they hit the back door and they're not organic, they.

[Steven Rinella]

What do you feel like you're getting.

[Emily]

From an organic potato versus a non organic potato?

[Jesse Griffiths]

You know, I, I don't. I mean, at one point, years ago, I. I had done some research on it. I don't know how the standards have changed. And so maybe it is a fool's errand to think that I'm doing anything, but at the same time, I just, you know, whatever that standard means these days, I support it. You know, I think it's just better. If we're going to make a concession, I want it to be the best possible.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, what's next? We haven't talked about this one yet.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, so that's our pastrami sandwich. So that is beef, some. Some wagyu beef, brined, smoked, and then steamed. A rye bread and then sauerkraut. I think the real star of the show here would be the sauerkraut and that, you know, we. We had to pull this off of our menu for about three weeks, and then people were really upset. It's a good pastrami. And we had to pull it off the menu because we ran out of sauerkraut because we didn't put enough away the previous spring. Like this spring, we just. We didn't do enough. We should have shredded more sauerkraut. It's about a three week process of fermenting the sauerkraut. And then we can sit on it in the walk in for months and months and months.

[Steven Rinella]

So when you get. How much might you shred? Like how. How much cab might you do when a cabbage is available?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Hundreds and hundreds of pounds. We we make our own paprika. So we bring in hundreds of pounds of sweet peppers. During peak pepper season, you just make paprika. It's amazing. Our paprika is like probably one of my favorite things that we make, and it has one ingredient, and that's. It's a pepper. We bring in just beautiful thick walled, late season, ripe red peppers, and we're in. This is going to kind of mess with y', all because you're from the north. We're in the tail end of pepper season right now. So November, maybe the first part of December is when we really just start, get a lot of peppers in. We gotta walk in full of them and we, we smoke them over post oak and then we dehydrate them and then grind them into a powder. And when it's fresh and made with a really nice pepper, it's, it's, it's incredibly good.

[Emily]

So that's all paprika is, is the ground up pepper?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I didn't know that.

[Steven Rinella]

So you make it smoked, you make a smoked paprika, correct? Yeah.

[Brent]

Predominantly what you use is post oak.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, I mean, you know, when we do off sites and fun other things, you know, we mix up that wood. But, you know, post oak pecan, another favorite. And then when we go south, I almost invariably amusing mesquite. And I mean, there's a, I have this whole thing about wood and you know what, what those different styles of wood and direct heat cooking, off offset cooking. And you know, it really has influenced the cooking culture here. But where this, where this restaurant sits in Austin, Post oak should be the fuel, right? It's the most prevalent thing. It, you know, it has influenced our barbecue culture incredibly. Like, like we are like in Central Texas. It is that offset indirect heat of barbecue. Whereas you get further south, they're kind of cooking over mesquite, but there's just a lot of distance. It's. It's really fascinating to me because these woods burn differently. But where we're sitting right now, post oak would be, would be the wood.

[Steven Rinella]

How many cords of wood do you think you go through?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, one a week. Not. It's not incredible. Like, we're, we're just, we're burning in the, in the grills. And then our smoker, we have a, we have a rotisserie solid fuel smoker, which is really cool. And so it burns whatever wood we want to put in.

[Emily]

But you're one quart a week. Sounds like a lot.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Your. Your cooking fire is running all the Time.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all day, and then. Then, you know, five, six hours a night.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's back up cabbage for a second as we walk through this.

[Emily]

Who made that?

[Jesse Griffiths]

That pickle?

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I don't know. I'm gonna find out. It's a.

[Emily]

You don't think it was made here in your kitchen?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, I thought you wanted a name. I was like, it's gonna be Hector or. I don't know. No, we made that. Of course.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Emily]

That's the cool thing about being in here is, like, down to the smallest detail, like the pickle. When you eat this pickle, you're like, oh, this? It came in as a cucumber.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]

And then right there, it turned into a pickle.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, I got a good one for you.

[Steven Rinella]

So, yogurt, I want to back up to that because we left behind the kraut, and I had a kraut question.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

So it comes the day when cabbages are ready to come into dai. Do a. Do you.

[Jesse Griffiths]

October.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. And now it's not like you're prepping for tonight, but you're prepping for the year. Yeah. How do you handle staffing to say, hey, everybody, come in. We're going to go through a truckload of cabbage?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, it's. No, it's. We. We're buying it. I mean, in total, we're buying hundreds of pounds. So we'll bring in 10 cases, and then a week later, another 10 cases, and then.

[Steven Rinella]

So that's season. Yeah, I see. Okay. You'll spread it out throughout. However long the window of opportunity.

[Guest Clay]

Still, that's a. Yeah. I mean, I guess you got people here that all their whole job is just making stuff.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Pickles. I mean, like, ferments, things like that. They're not.

[Guest Clay]

Their. Their job isn't even to make something for a customer tonight.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Absolutely. It's very heavy on prep. So we have a lot of staff because every single sauce, every pickle, every. Everything. The paprika has to be made. The yogurt on that flatbread. So years ago, one of our.

[Steven Rinella]

Made the yogurt.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Years ago, we had an employee, and she was from India, and her family's yogurt starter had been going for over 200 years continually. Wow. But she brought us that yogurt starter, and so we still use that yogurt starter. That's amazing. To create our own yogurt. So we make our own. We make some of our. We make our own cream cheese. We make our own sour cream. We make our own yogurt here. So anything like that that we can make, we'll make it. And there's just fun stories.

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[Guest Clay]

There anywhere else that does this like you do?

[Jesse Griffiths]

I, you know I'm sure and I think that there's a more of a proliferation of restaurants like kind of what we're doing like really kind of taking deep dives and just definitely more focus on, on locality and support of things like that. But I would, I would like to Say no to an extent. You know, like we. We've been doing it for a long time. We've been in business for 19 years. And so we. With the same ethos and the same functionality.

[Brent]

There is distinct differences between everything I have tasted so far. There's nothing like, oh, that kind of tastes like that, or this has similarities. Everything is so far different.

[Fellow Guest]

Commonality, though, is that it all has a ton of flavor.

[Emily]

Yeah, there's amazing.

[Fellow Guest]

It's very bold.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Brent]

As my grandfather would say, this tastes like more.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, no.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I love the burger. Was.

[Fellow Guest]

Burger was like shocking.

[Steven Rinella]

I didn't do it.

[Fellow Guest]

I'm like, there's a lot of meat.

[Emily]

Is this definitely like top 50 burgers I've ever had?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Awesome.

[Fellow Guest]

Top 50.

[Emily]

I mean, it might be the best one I've ever had.

[Steven Rinella]

Who do you buy? The wagyu. How's that work?

[Jesse Griffiths]

That's Mariana Peeler, just south of San Antonio. We've had a great relationship with her for years and we settled on that. It's like, it's a. It was a kind of a compromise between grass fed, which what I am fascinated by, and grain fed, which is what the customer is fascinated by. They.

[Emily]

So it's not hip anymore to eat grass fed. The customer likes the cornfish.

[Steven Rinella]

Even though it's like a breed, there's like an expectation about how it's been.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Certainly, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

She can take a wagyu and lock it into a shipping container and starve at half the death and. Right?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, yeah, I mean, you can definitely get almost obscene amounts of fat in there. She pastures her. So they live on pasture. They have an opportunity to like a free choice grain source. So they are still eating grain. But most importantly to me is that her processing facility, which she owns, is seven miles from the ranch. So on their bad day, they get loaded up, they got a quick trip over there, and it's all done.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And there's no feedlot in between.

[Steven Rinella]

And then how do you buy that?

[Jesse Griffiths]

We, we buy mostly big rib primals like you saw on the way in that we dry age.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And then a lot of that trim from those rib primals goes in there. I'm sorry, I completely misspoke. There's only a little bit of wagyu in the burger. The pastrami is wagyu. We buy grass fed longhorn from a ranch in South Texas, the one that you've been to where we turkey hunted. So he has just completely pastured long rangy longhorns. And we buy older animals from those and Then we mix that with some of that wagyu and then some of the aged wagyu.

[Steven Rinella]

So your burgers are longhorn burger, mostly?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Huh.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. I mean, and it's like you get a really incredible flavor. I totally misspoke when I said wagy. It is.

[Steven Rinella]

But the wagu is over here. I might have directed in the wrong direction.

[Jesse Griffiths]

No, no, the, the, the brisket for the pastrami is, is waggy. But this is a grass fed longhorn. And by grass fed, I mean that thing just lives out there in the range that, that eastern peninsula. And there's no, I mean, it's just eating whatever it can.

[Steven Rinella]

Is that expensive for you to buy? Because like the longhorn market collapsed. Does that make it less expensive for you to buy?

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's about average as far and often don't. I don't know what like commodity pricing is on these things. We're unaffected typically in meat prices because we don't have the, the variations in markets.

[Steven Rinella]

I see.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Because we're, you know, I'm buying from a guy that I'm, he's one of my best friends.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, no, I understand. You know, you're not out shopping for the cheapest stuff in the marketplace. Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And I started hitting them up for these older animals that had kind of naturally developed more fat and more flavor. Just beautiful bigger animals. And, and we started using that for the burger because I thought, we thought that that would be the best platform for it. The steaks didn't go over well. People just weren't into them, you know, and they caught, they cost us just as much and so they cost the customers.

[Steven Rinella]

People didn't want a rangy longhorn steak.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yes. It would be like. Did you like them wild cows? I love them. We ate a big old steak when we were down there. Right.

[Guest Clay]

There's a wild longhorn.

[Steven Rinella]

Big.

[Guest Clay]

Just tastes like a, like a Western Sizzler buffet steak.

[Jesse Griffiths]

No, no, I mean it is.

[Brent]

And that's what's good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's got that intense iron flavor and it's, I mean it would be if you put it on the same like linear spectrum of, of a, of a, of a deer that had been farm raised. And then you know that's going to be. Tastes like kind of a, a sweet corn fed deer versus like a real, like a sagebrush eaten deer. And then the same thing with the, with the, with the cattle. You know, they're, they're eating just corn and they're getting the kind of bland and sweet and fat and just easy versus like the Real nature of what, what beef tastes like. And beef has a lot more character than what we collectively remember it to taste like.

[Steven Rinella]

So those longhorns are eating like mesquite beans and whatever kind of August, September.

[Jesse Griffiths]

They'Re eating mesquite beans. They're eating just all those native grasses down there. And then there's, there's invasive blue anything. They're just in there just grazing and they are. They never get pellets or corn or anything like that.

[Emily]

Tell us about those wraps around.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fellow Guest]

Tell us about this sauce.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, the red sauce and the color of a boiled beet.

[Fellow Guest]

And that's on the burger, right?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yes. So that's our beet ketchup. And that, that's kind of a ketchup. That came down to more of an economic decision is like we could potentially buy enough tomatoes and to make ketchup year round. But when we tried to, our ketchup was exorbitantly expensive. Like if somebody wanted a 2 ounce.

[Steven Rinella]

Ram, it's too hard to make ketchup.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Not too hard once you cook. I mean, because you're cooking tomatoes down to a tenth of their volume and you're buying tomatoes at $4 a pound. And so it's a real reflection of how these markets actually work. And so we had to find a solution. And that solution was beets. We could buy beets more cheaply and then turn them into a ketchup. But, you know, like, if you said, oh, I love this tomato ketchup, can I get a side of it? It'd be like, okay, it's $6. And then, and then people get really upset with you.

[Guest Clay]

It's interesting that tomato ketchup would be the thing that was too expensive.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Guest Clay]

For people's taste.

[Jesse Griffiths]

There's a lot.

[Guest Clay]

You would think it would be something else.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, it's. Well, you know, there's. In our culture, we have very decided ideas about what's cheap and what's expensive. You know, a taco, cheap pick, you know, chips and salsa. Free. Always.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's, they're not. It's never free. You know, you're paying for it. But. And things like ketchup or, you know, those. Yeah, they just, they're supposed to be. And it's like, well, you know, in a real system that, that, that, you know, everybody wins from the farmer on down. Tomatoes, they're not cheap.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, interesting thing, I didn't know about ketchup till I started getting into like the escofier, the old French cookbooks. Is you would go into the index, and there's the ketchups, mushroom ketchup, onion ketchup, and the tomato. Ketchup is just one of many ketchups. Yeah, but it won. Yeah, it, like, very much one. You know, it became ketchup.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's. I mean, that's. That's us kind of trying to play within the markets, you know, and just trying to figure out how to give people what they want. But still within the context and within parameters, economic parameters.

[Steven Rinella]

How do you get the vinegar that you use to make ketchup?

[Jesse Griffiths]

We buy dry goods. You know, vinegar and sugar and spices and things like that. It's kind of like a little House on the prairie mentality. You know, it's like we can go to the mercantile and get these dry goods, but fresh ingredients are. We're going to prioritize is coming from within this system and then whatever else we can within that, you know, like. Like flowers. We get Steen's cancer from Louisiana, you know, and it's like, instead of buying molasses from who knows where, we get this beautiful cane syrup from our neighbors over here. We buy pistachios from one farm in New Mexico. You know, it's just their neighbors. And I got tired. I mean, pecans were the only game in town, you know, Here, it's the only nut. We have maybe odd walnut here and there, but nothing cultivated and nothing easy to crack. So I was finally. I was like, let's. Let's just get pistachios, you know, but, like, let's do our research and get them from a great place. Same thing with our coffee. You know, obviously, we're not growing coffee here. We need to have it. But we. We do the research. We're like, who's making the best? You know, who's paying their people the best, best processes and all these things? And.

[Steven Rinella]

So what about the burger bun? We didn't talk about the burger bun. Then we got to talk about the fat. You frying your fries and beef tallow. So how you make that. But what's the burger bun all about?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Same deal, you know, like all of our breads, you know, we have pastry chef in house, and she makes everything. Anything that's.

[Steven Rinella]

So she makes your burger buns.

[Jesse Griffiths]

All of our breads we make in house, okay? On this table right over here, we butcher all the feral hogs on the. On one side and make the breads on the other side their sourdough starter. When we signed the lease for this building in 2013. We were parked over in that alley over there, Went over there, picked a big bunch of wild Mustang grapes, took them home, wrapped them in cheesecloth, mashed them up, and put them in a slurry of flour and water and captured that. That a hyper local yeast. And that's.

[Steven Rinella]

Where are you pointing to?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Right there in the alley over there. We had to park over there, and there was some wild grapes. And so our sourdough starter to this day is from a grape starter across the road from the yeast. From a wild yeast that we got from across the road.

[Steven Rinella]

You're kidding me. You kept it going that time?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. Every day it has to be fed.

[Steven Rinella]

What do you feed it with?

[Jesse Griffiths]

No, you regenerate it every day.

[Steven Rinella]

You like putting sugars, flour and water.

[Jesse Griffiths]

No sugar.

[Steven Rinella]

No, you don't put sugars in it. I've never done that. I don't know about it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you're talking about the fat, the beef fat.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So every Monday, which is today, is rendering day. And so we buy as much beef fat, mostly from Mariana, and there's another butcher shop that sources all local. And sometimes we take their excess beef fat and we grind it and render it all day long on Mondays to stock the fryer with beef fat for the. For the week.

[Steven Rinella]

So you guys grind. You guys grind. When you render, I think it's best.

[Jesse Griffiths]

You get the most surface area. Yeah. And you in it. And it. And also I think you'll see a lot of times people overcook their lard or. Or tallow and get it too, like browned and. Yeah, because you will have. When I'm. When I'm cleaning a feral hog, I pull by hand the leaf fat out. Because if you cut, you get bits of meat in there. I don't know why you have a whole thing based on animal fats.

[Guest Clay]

Oh, I've got a question for you. No, you know more about it?

[Emily]

I have lots of questions.

[Jesse Griffiths]

If I pull it by hand, then I only get the fat, like that big sheath of.

[Steven Rinella]

So you don't like. You're. You're skittish about having little hunks of meat in your ground. In your tallow fat.

[Jesse Griffiths]

100. Well, more so in lard. But yes, also in the tallow. But it. Well, and I'll tell you about lard.

[Steven Rinella]

I always thought it's just whatever.

[Guest Clay]

Well, I think it makes it taste different.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It. It. It gives it more of a pork or beef flavor.

[Steven Rinella]

And.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And in cooking fats like lard and tallow, I want some neutrality And I don't want it to taste so savory. If we're going to use that application for a dessert or if we're gonna fry donuts in it on Saturday and Sunday mornings, we don't want it super beefy. But then when you eat that donut, you're like, I don't know why this is so good, but there's something. There's something. Or like, fried fish.

[Steven Rinella]

I should have brought you jar. My new coon grease.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Hell yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I got.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Nobody's ever spoken those words.

[Steven Rinella]

I rendered out. I rendered out. You're not gonna believe me when I say this. You're not gonna believe me when I tell you this. I rendered out one raccoon, and this wasn't even picking it clean. I rendered out one raccoon, and it yielded three full quartz jars of lard. One raccoon.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, my.

[Steven Rinella]

I could prove it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I believe you.

[Steven Rinella]

Three full court jars off a single raccoon.

[Jesse Griffiths]

That mean that's. That'd be a good yield from a big pig.

[Steven Rinella]

I gave a. I gave a quart to him. Him. And maybe I'm gonna give my last court to you.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I would love that. Oh, raccoon lard.

[Guest Clay]

Hey, I've got a serious thank you for that.

[Steven Rinella]

Was it serious about what I'm saying?

[Guest Clay]

No, no. I just have a very serious question.

[Steven Rinella]

Kind of weird deal.

[Guest Clay]

What.

[Steven Rinella]

What? Never thank you for.

[Guest Clay]

I. I thank you in our social media relationship. Like, I addressed you on social media as if I wasn't going to see you the next day. I was like, hey, thanks, Steve. And you didn't watch it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, he doesn't follow you.

[Guest Clay]

What temperature don't you know? Are you rendering your. Your beef tallow out?

[Jesse Griffiths]

So they're going to be popping it in the oven. Oh, yeah.

[Emily]

Tell us about the whole process.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, it's. It's all all hands on deck. By that, I mean, any heat source is utilized, so the. The four burner range.

[Guest Clay]

But you've got to be having. You got to be watching the temperature.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yes. I. I don't know. I. I could ask him real quick. What? Before we ever do it in the.

[Guest Clay]

Oven, I really want to know.

[Jesse Griffiths]

But if you're doing a stove top, it's low and, you know, just as low.

[Guest Clay]

Do you have any sense of the temperature? Like 180 or 225?

[Jesse Griffiths]

I don't know. Oh, it'd be over. Well, no, I don't, honestly, just because I don't know what the temp would be.

[Guest Clay]

I have a tendency to burn my Grease a little bit, but.

[Steven Rinella]

But.

[Guest Clay]

But 225 is what I.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Right over the boiling point.

[Guest Clay]

You think 200? 200.

[Steven Rinella]

I believe that.

[Fellow Guest]

That's perfect.

[Guest Clay]

Perfect.

[Steven Rinella]

Because if you look at, like, confi. And, like, French cooking. Confit. And in, like, rendering duck oil and stuff.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I've always read the 200.

[Guest Clay]

200.

[Steven Rinella]

That's what I shoot for, is 200.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And I'll do it in my oven, but I like kind of doing it on a burner so I can watch.

[Guest Clay]

They have really embarrassed us with Ted Koppel. I've rendered bear fat with Ted Koppel. What'd you tell the other day? Well, we didn't have a. We didn't have a thermometer. And I just burned it because it was going slow. And he started going, wow, Clay, this is really slow. And I was like, oh.

[Steven Rinella]

And I show them the current grease I sent you.

[Guest Clay]

I didn't. It was.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It was.

[Guest Clay]

I didn't have it, but I.

[Emily]

Would you grind it up?

[Brent]

He ain't telling nobody.

[Emily]

Get rid of as much meat as possible or just all of it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. And they're trimming out anything red, and then it goes through the grinder, and then it goes into. We have induction burners that we put on the butcher tables. We have the range, and we also are popping everything in the oven at the same time. Just any way we can do it, because we need so much of it.

[Emily]

Okay.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And then we put it in these big pans, and then, you know, it solidifies, and then we're able to.

[Emily]

But tell me how long it usually takes from start to. When you pull it out of the oven and you're like, that looks good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's going to depend on the volume. I mean, a couple hours.

[Emily]

You know, what would be the max if I told you.

[Fellow Guest]

You know what?

[Emily]

I spent a whole day, Jesse. I was rendering my bare fat for eight hours. Would you be like, man, you overdid it big time. And there's no wonder.

[Steven Rinella]

It's probably a little gr.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. What I always tell people is, so when you. When you start to. To cook it, you have these large bubbles coming out, and that's the. You know, the water coming out of it. What you want to shoot for is. And you'll know this what a coors light looks like.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, he knows. See, for a minute, I was gonna get pissed. I thought you were gonna hit him with. You'll know this as a rendering man. Hold a minute.

[Fellow Guest]

Are you gossiping?

[Jesse Griffiths]

He was gossiping, so I was telling.

[Emily]

Him about our you know, about our life on the bus tour and about how there's. You can very easily fall into like the life of a rock star. And the only person really carrying the flag of a rock star has been Randall.

[Steven Rinella]

I appreciate that, Jesse. Later if you need to have talk hot dogs. You could also point to him.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Say.

[Steven Rinella]

You'll know this.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I look, I just made a big batch of venison hot dogs and they are really.

[Steven Rinella]

I'd like. We've got a dude.

[Emily]

We're like off topic. I really need to know.

[Steven Rinella]

I know I got to make a business. Make a business deal. We've been fixing to make a video about how to make venison hot dogs.

[Emily]

Oh really?

[Steven Rinella]

Gas station here. If you can think about this, we'd like to have you come up on the rollers. We want to make not fancy dogs. Not like a thinking man's hot dog. We want to make. Take your venison and turn it into a gas station hot dog.

[Fellow Guest]

Joe Blow hot dogs.

[Steven Rinella]

Every man. Joe Blow. No bend in it that you can put on a gas station roller and have it be like a little kid would eat it and he'd go, that's a hell of a hot dog.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. Collagen casings to keep them flat and straight.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Classic.

[Steven Rinella]

No fancy nothing.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, roller dogs, coriander, garlic, paprika and nutmeg. And that's your. That's your question.

[Emily]

Is the consistency of the inside.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's an emotional.

[Steven Rinella]

Here's the thing when guys go so made hot dogs and we use sheep case. Like anybody can do that and they can make a thing that they be like, well, this is my version of a hot dog. I want to make hot dogs emul. Get at a baseball game.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fellow Guest]

And making venison hot dogs, they end up with something that's what I would call rot shape.

[Steven Rinella]

Yes.

[Fellow Guest]

And it has a different spice mix than what they call their brats.

[Jesse Griffiths]

It's a hot dog flavored sausage.

[Fellow Guest]

Exactly.

[Jesse Griffiths]

But it doesn't have. It's an emulsification. Know how to do five parts lean, four parts fat.

[Steven Rinella]

And so you'll walk us through it right now.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Get.

[Steven Rinella]

No, I mean, no. When we make our video, when we come back, we're going to make gas station hot dogs. Then we're going to buy the roller. We've already been shopping for a roller. We're going to put them on a roller.

[Guest Clay]

He's getting excited.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I mean.

[Steven Rinella]

And then we're going to put mustard and ketchup on them. And then we're going to be like, that's deer meat. Gas station hot dogs.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I ate seven venison hot dogs over the weekend.

[Guest Clay]

Oh, you've got them right now.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I made, I made a batch of 72 of them.

[Steven Rinella]

Randall head and blue.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Did you see?

[Fellow Guest]

Eight, seven.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Huh?

[Fellow Guest]

I love it.

[Jesse Griffiths]

They're so good. They're, they're very, very good. It's a red color.

[Guest Clay]

Are they, are they hot dog colored?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, they're a little grayish. They don't have. I didn't smoke them either. So you could do a cold smoke on them. We're getting way off.

[Steven Rinella]

They don't smoke gas station hot dogs.

[Jesse Griffiths]

They might be a little cold smoked, but they're also going to have nitrite in them. So, you know, real pinked out from that. I did put some insecure number one in there, but they, they didn't take on a ton of that pink color there. A little on the gray would be.

[Emily]

That you would have to add so much other filler that it'd be hard to still call it a venison hot dog.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, it's going to need five parts venison, lean, four parts of some kind of fat. That's going to be, that's fine. Beef or pork and then, and then three parts ice. And so it's going to be 33% by weight, other fat. But then it's going to be whatever that five parts is of pure venison.

[Steven Rinella]

If we can, if we can publish a recipe and have an instructional video of how to make a gas station hot dog that your kid would be excited to eat and have it be 50 venison, that is success.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Okay, we move on. We can move. We need to move on because there's some. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's some nuance.

[Fellow Guest]

I was starting.

[Emily]

Sure. You have some IP that he needs and it's very valuable. Know that.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, I was starting to get a.

[Fellow Guest]

Little sluggish from the meal, but I've perked right up with the talk of hot dogs.

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[Jenna Kim Jones]

Breaking news, everybody. Not everything is terrible. I repeat, not everything is terrible. The ripple effect with Jenna Kim Jones is proof that the Internet, it hasn't ruined humanity entirely.

[Jesse Griffiths]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Jesse Griffiths]

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[Jesse Griffiths]

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[Brent]

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[Jesse Griffiths]

He's brought too long. Probably so, but my whole point was as soon as it looks like a really light beer and this is what I teach in my classes, it's like as, as you get a straw color in tiny bubbles, you're done. And that at that point you need to strain.

[Guest Clay]

So how much solids will you get? Will you scrape off? You know, the cracklings?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Depends just a little bit. A lot. A lot. And that's one of the things that gets me is like we still haven't found a consistent home for those. I hate throwing anything away.

[Steven Rinella]

I got one.

[Jesse Griffiths]

But we have like, I mean Weekly we're probably 50 gallons.

[Steven Rinella]

I throw them on my roof, off the birds, magpies, magpies, they go nuts.

[Jesse Griffiths]

We have this.

[Steven Rinella]

I need, I need to mellow. I need to think about what you're telling me because I have looked at, I've done it wrong. I. I'm not paying attention to the bubbles. I'm looking for like when I feel the crackling is as spent as it's gonna get sure. And that the energy I'm putting into the production has hit, like, any sort of. Of reasonable efficiency, meaning I could go and go and go and go and go and maybe get a little more. But the crackling is spent.

[Fellow Guest]

Diminishing returns.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I never look at the bubble.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

That's possible.

[Brent]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, I'm gonna say I don't. I don't. I don't do it right. You do it right.

[Guest Clay]

I feel like it. There's. There's a lot of signals in the grease that tells you it's done. You know, I mean, and bubbles could be one of them, which I've learned. I. I wouldn't have thought of that either. I would. I would be watching the crackling because it. It's just like a lot of movement early when it's rendering down, and then finally it just starts to slow. And you're like, we're not gaining anything.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. And I don't want it to get too dark.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

You know, I want it to be blonde.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Because then you start develop that toasty flavor in there. And so that's going to affect your pie crust or your donut.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Or. Or the other things you're going to do with it.

[Guest Clay]

Would you have any possible way to legally use bear grease?

[Jesse Griffiths]

No.

[Guest Clay]

Gotcha.

[Steven Rinella]

When you get really good at something like. Like for you, making grease, making tallow lard, you get to a point where it talks to you. You know what I mean? Like, you are seeing a thing that you can't really explain the doneness.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Sure.

[Steven Rinella]

It becomes a little bit like a dark art.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I always say that ice talks to me. The walking on ice.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh.

[Steven Rinella]

I can look at.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I don't speak that language. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I look at a pond and it talks to me about. It tells me what condition it's in.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Huh.

[Steven Rinella]

But you probably get with the grease. I never get, like. I don't do it enough to. When I'm making lard or grease. I don't. I always leave it, like. I don't know, man. I suppose that's probably good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

The bubbles will tell you. That's what the bubbles are saying.

[Emily]

Real technical question. This is a batch of bear grease that I made. Okay.

[Jesse Griffiths]

That looks great. It's really clear and. And pale.

[Guest Clay]

Right.

[Emily]

But okay. That's the color of a lot of them.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Huh.

[Emily]

It never solidified.

[Steven Rinella]

Ah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, this is cool. When I took bear hog hunting.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Out there to that property, he killed two hogs. I had killed one a couple maybe a month or so previous to that. And I Killed one on that property two days ago. And it's. There's a. There's a big pecan orchard on one side, and there's a big pecan orchard on the other side. The whole river by the bottom is nothing but pecans. And the fat that we render off these hogs does not solidify in the refrigerator. It stays almost completely liquid. So I reached out to one of our customers here who's a doctor, and I was like, what's happening with this? It's like canola oil viscosity in the refrigerator as polyunsaturated fats from eating a diet of probably only pecans, which are really high in polyunsaturated fats.

[Emily]

That's what you told me too, right?

[Guest Clay]

Yes, that's what I. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Clay probably tell you it's predicting the weather and there's bad weather coming. Yeah.

[Guest Clay]

I need to look at this earlier.

[Emily]

That's what you said. That means it's primarily unsaturated. Lots of 18 to 1 on carbon bonds. That's good bear diet.

[Fellow Guest]

Clay unknowingly came up with his second book title earlier when he said, signals in the grease.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I like it. That's the free signal.

[Emily]

All right. So that is. Do you feel like it's a good product? I like that. Like that?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, yes. No, I mean, first off, those hogs are very, very good to eat.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Very sweet, mild, but still have that nice bit of, like, barrel hog flavor to them. The fat was worthless for sausage. You couldn't use the back fat for sausage. Once you ran it through the grinder, it liquefied on the way out. Like, just frozen chunks of fat into the grinder liquid on the way out, just because it was soft. Wild hog, even the harder fat off the back, not just the leaf fat. And then for something like a confit where you need that solidified protective cover wouldn't work because it never solidified.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep, that's a good point.

[Jesse Griffiths]

But. But for general cooking, sauteing, things like that, it was great. But anything that you needed, like a. I try to make pie crust with it. Right. Total disaster. Because you couldn't get that solid fat incorporated.

[Steven Rinella]

You never cut it in.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Exactly.

[Steven Rinella]

Now, the other day, I noticed he had. He never mentioned it to me, but he had the jar of coon grease I made next to a jar of bear grease in the same area. And what I thought was interesting was indistinguishable. Well, and how they were predicting weather. Like, the amount of, like, solid delay where the line was liquefied.

[Guest Clay]

The coon grease was totally solid.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah, it was. Was it 100?

[Steven Rinella]

I remember thinking that.

[Brent]

You didn't see that?

[Steven Rinella]

He didn't mention it, but I saw it.

[Brent]

Oh, okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. He didn't say, like, hey, thanks for that. But I was looking at him, I thought, oh, wow. It's remarkable how similar in appearance they are.

[Guest Clay]

I think you misinterpreted that because the coon grease was completely solid and the bear grease was basically 60, 40, you know, olive oil, like, and then the. The saturated fat.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, never mind. Can you cut all that out?

[Guest Clay]

Yeah. No.

[Steven Rinella]

Makes me think like an unreliable reporter, dude.

[Guest Clay]

Well, I think maybe over time, it's possible that your coon grease, when it's not been shook up and everything, would kind of solidify. But basically, I had some barrel oil analyzed by one of the best lipid labs in America. And basically, the short version is, is that the clear olive oil colored liquid is. Is unsaturated fat. 18:1 carbons, like olive oil.

[Steven Rinella]

The.

[Guest Clay]

The. The heavier stuff is saturated fats, and it's a variety of different carbon chains and stuff. But anyway, this barrel that I submitted was like 60% unsaturated fat, 40% saturated, but apparent. But I think it's different. Based upon the bear's diet, there's a.

[Steven Rinella]

Lot of hand lotion, natural hand lotion in that bear meat.

[Jesse Griffiths]

So.

[Guest Clay]

So they. They analyze the spare oil and their species of lipids. Like, if you have a. Any jar of oil that there is animal fat or like, olive oil, there. There are multiple, if not hundreds of species of lipids that make up that oil. And the. The. The. This lab person, she said the most surprising thing about the barrel was that it had. Oh, my gosh. It slipped my mind.

[Steven Rinella]

What?

[Guest Clay]

It's got ceramides. The barrel was 3% ceramides, which, if you go to a drugstore and look for skin lotion, it'll say ceramides, because ceramides are a species of lipid that is like 40% of your skin. And so anyway, but. But pork fat didn't have nothing else that she had ever seen had ceramides in it.

[Emily]

But a little off topic, but what do you mean?

[Guest Clay]

And it's for my book. Giannis. Giannis is wanting me. He constantly wants me to talk about my book that's coming out in a year and a half. Be ready.

[Steven Rinella]

Very good book.

[Emily]

What's it called?

[Steven Rinella]

I read the first half called American Bear. Very good book.

[Emily]

Wow.

[Fellow Guest]

First half is.

[Steven Rinella]

Could go to. After that.

[Guest Clay]

See how this works, Clay, get this Guy talking about it.

[Steven Rinella]

You're gonna put a big old chapter in there about that grease I gave you.

[Guest Clay]

Probably. It'll be. It'll be the epilogue. I'll put it in the front. I'll be like, my dear friends, how.

[Emily]

Much time you spend on bear fat in this book?

[Steven Rinella]

Book.

[Guest Clay]

I don't want to give it all away.

[Emily]

But you're not gonna. I'm telling you, you're not giving anything away. Give them a taste, man.

[Guest Clay]

It's the O. Let me just say the opening of the book will be unlike any book you've ever read.

[Steven Rinella]

Probably because it opens with the discussion wasn't written before.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah. And. And we. We do have right now in the structure of full chapter on me going to Atlanta. I went to Emory Labs in Atlanta and saw the machine, the most technical lipid analysis machine in the world. You stuck your be novel research on bear grease. Never before. They want me to publish and they want me to somehow be involved in a published article about it. Well, and I was like, that would be great. Let's do it.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm getting a little jealous.

[Emily]

There you go. 18 months out.

[Guest Clay]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Y', all, where are we on our walkthrough? Have we gotten to your lettuce wrap yet?

[Jesse Griffiths]

That.

[Emily]

No.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Nope.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's tackle the lettuce wrap. Yeah. And then we'll tackle the salad.

[Jesse Griffiths]

We're gonna. Let's just talk vegetables first. So the lettuce is a hydroponically or aquaponically grown butter leaf lettuce, actually company owned by another friend of mine. And then right outside of Austin. So we get these super fresh, really beautiful. You will notice a little bit of lime from on there. That is a South Texas organically grown line from GNS Orchards down near Carrizo Springs. We've got fresh herbs because we are in season for things like mint and cilantro. Some red cabbage and radish is also in season. But then the, you know, the real star of the show there is the ground. No guy. So. And these are coming from that band along the Texas coast south of Kingsville all the way to the border where the ataria is. And then kind of extends over to the west to valphorus and a little bit farther, but where the. Where the nilgai range. And so we get in a lot of nilgai. I like nilgai a lot. Doesn't hit corn feeders. Has a really nice, very natural diet. They're invasive. They're very, very sustainable. And these are harvest from helicopters. One shot. Sniper shot from a helicopter. Broke Broken Arrow Ranch out of Ingram, Texas. And then they have inspectors there. They'll do 80 in a day. And they have these trailers set up and they process them all, take them back there, age them, cut them, and distribute them.

[Steven Rinella]

Where do they hit that thing from the helicopter?

[Jesse Griffiths]

Headshots only.

[Steven Rinella]

They hit him in the head from the helicopter.

[Emily]

Wow. Buckshot.

[Jesse Griffiths]

No, these are rifles.

[Emily]

No kidding.

[Steven Rinella]

These guys got to be good.

[Emily]

And they're doing a lot of days. You're not the only one serving nil guy.

[Jesse Griffiths]

That is correct.

[Steven Rinella]

They don't do 80 a day. They do a batch of 80.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Correct.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Not. Not 365. But when they go down there, they will do 80 ye. Yeah, they. No, they distribute. And they. For the longest time, Broken Arrow has been the preeminent source of, like, real wild game, like this feral hog and nil guy, you know, and then they have a lot of other stuff, like axis red stag, things like that. But they. They've really, like, led the industry in that field harvesting technique. They're very, very good at it. Their distribution is amazing. Their customer service. Great people.

[Steven Rinella]

That's got to be some high overhead for them, man. You get a helicopter involved in something.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Things start getting expensive.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. And then all the people on the ground, you know, trailers and, you know, inspectors that have to go with them, and they're. They're shipping over state lines, so they're usda. They have to have a USDA inspector with them. So it's. It is quite an operation. But they do it so well. I mean, and I think arguably this is some of the best meat that you could possibly purchase because it is harvested in this way and then been immediately treated in the field. You know, they have this shocking technique where they hook them up and they zap.

[Steven Rinella]

I know about that. Yeah.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And to kind of speed them through rigor mortis. Steve thinks about that, and. And then they're. They're getting them skin gutted and chilled and distributed, and I. I just. I think they do a wonderful job.

[Steven Rinella]

We had a meat scientist. It was delicious. Purdue. I'd like to get him back on. It's been long enough now.

[Emily]

Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

He had quite a lot to say about the shocking. There is a. I'll have to revisit the podcast. He had quite a lot to say about it. There is a very specific moment when that needs to occur.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

It is not a later in the day thing.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. I don't think they. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but I do know what it's called, and I love this, the Tinder Buck Electrostimulator.

[Steven Rinella]

We. Let's move to the next salad.

[Jesse Griffiths]

This is just a salad. I wanted to throw a salad out there. We've got some romaine and watermelon radishes and herbs and a vinaigrette. There's probably some egg in there.

[Guest Clay]

It's very good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

I don't know if it's as exciting as the other topics, but. Yeah, so I mean all of it. And that'll change. What goes into that salad will change, you know, the dressing and all these things will. Will. What is the dressing? This is a onion dressing. So it's like a charred onion. We grill them and then puree that up with some egg yolk and olive oil.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, we didn't talk about eggs. Who you get your eggs from?

[Jesse Griffiths]

We get eggs from two different sources right now. One of which we've been using since we were at the farmer's market together. Like, we, we both sold at the farmer's market. And this would be 2000. Name is Chris and he runs an amazing operation. He just has very, very good eggs. He. That's what the only thing he does is, is raise chickens for eggs. And then we also get, we sell a few eggs retail. And that's from another farm out in the hill country called Hatton Heart. And that is also another fantastic egg. That's the egg I eat at home because they, they send them in 12 pack cartons. And so that's the ones that I steal from the restaurant to take home.

[Steven Rinella]

How many jobs do you create here at Dai Do A?

[Jesse Griffiths]

We probably got around 40.

[Steven Rinella]

That's great, man.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah. Between front of house staff and, and everybody in the kitchen.

[Steven Rinella]

And so yeah, dude, it's gotta be the fun. If you were in a. If you were in the food business, gotta be. This has gotta be the most educational, funnest place to work.

[Jesse Griffiths]

If that. If it's your thing, you know, if you want, if you want more refinement and, and, and truffles and different ingredients and, you know, you might find a home somewhere else.

[Steven Rinella]

Dude, this way. That, that's just like how. That's just. It's a demonstration of buying power. It's not a, it's some of. That's a demonstration of buying power. It's not a demonstration of creativity and elbow grease.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Well, I, I appreciate that. I can only say that because there are people that sometimes that will come here and they're like, this is not what I'm looking for. I want I want to go to this place where we. We plate things and it's a little fancier. We use some tweezers and this.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, I get that.

[Jesse Griffiths]

That's fine. You know, I mean, everybody's got their. Their place. We have. We have a wonderful crew here. You know, it's. It's just. It's so much fun to come in here because everybody. They get into it. You know, we try to educate them as much as possible about what these things are and, you know, like, in, like, pull the curtains back and let them see and just. And understand how important it is to support, you know, loncito, or the, you know, the supposed eradication of all that, or why we use beets or why this olive oil is so valuable and all these things. So we try to really, you know, inculcate that in that them so they understand what they're doing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Emily]

When you come down for your aldad hunt, Randall, you might want to incorporate stopping by here and doing a little beat about eating aladdad.

[Fellow Guest]

I've been thinking about how to suggest that myself in a way that didn't seem like you're trying to take advantage of them. So I appreciate you saying that.

[Emily]

I'll go ahead and improve that right now. Can I have a concluder?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I was about ready to do one. Go ahead, let it rip.

[Emily]

I've got two. I'll make them very short and sweet. One. Every time I eat here, I'm very inspired. It's very inspirational. When I eat here, I'm like, I need to go home and do a better job and, like, put more effort into cooking at home. Because even though it is, like, there's a lot of stuff going on there. I don't need to get that. I don't even want to call it fancy. You're just trying to not call your food fancy. So now I don't want to use that. That word, but, like, I need to do a better job. Number two, I feel like what you do as a restaurant tour, you're making the world a better place.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, man, that's very kind.

[Emily]

You really are. Like, I'm almost emotional about it. Like, the whole thing that you just explained, it's only making everybody around you and you're involved with.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Yeah, it's feel good about it better.

[Emily]

Because of what you're doing here.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Thank you. So appreciate it. Very cool.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, man. I get a lot of pride out of being your friend. I love the stuff you do, the way you carry yourself, the way you treat people around you. I love this restaurant, I think people should come and check it out, man. It's like you've created something of a lot of beauty. And also, you just play by your own rules. You know what I mean? Like, you didn't. You just did things the way. You can just tell that you just did things the way that made sense to you. And when someone's like, oh, it doesn't work that way. You can't do it that way. You're just like, oh, figure it out. See what I can do.

[Jesse Griffiths]

True.

[Steven Rinella]

And land in a cool spot, man.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Oh, thank you.

[Steven Rinella]

Come to Austin. You guys can feel free to say whatever you want, but I always tell people, whenever I talk someone that's coming to Austin, I'm like, you gotta go to Dai Do A man.

[Brent]

That's what I've heard about forever and from everybody that's come down here says if you get the chance to go, you got to go. Or if you ever down there, just regardless if it's work or vacation, you gotta go. And it has inspired me to do some more stuff with the game at home to do some different things. You know, you get in a rut, and I don't guess it's a rut because I like the way the things that I cook the way that I do, but there's so much more potential to make it different. I like it. And this. Thank you, Jesse. This is great.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Thank you for being here.

[Fellow Guest]

Yeah. I mean, everything I tasted was exceptional.

[Steven Rinella]

But.

[Fellow Guest]

You know, often times feels like a vision is sort of tacked on to a. To a restaurant. And this. There's like a very honest kind of rendered. There's like. There's indeed there. This is like a very clear, honest concept that carries through everything with great clarity.

[Jesse Griffiths]

And.

[Fellow Guest]

It'S so good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Thank you. Awesome.

[Fellow Guest]

My other concluder after clay is.

[Steven Rinella]

How.

[Fellow Guest]

Do we decide who gets the watch?

[Steven Rinella]

I've been watching now. I'm going to get more serious about eating in a minute.

[Guest Clay]

I've been trying to steal what these guys said. I. I cannot add anything to it, but just. I just want to say the food is incredibly good.

[Steven Rinella]

Good.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Thank you.

[Guest Clay]

It's incredibly good.

[Steven Rinella]

And you're.

[Guest Clay]

You're such a generous person, so thank you, Jesse.

[Brent]

It's a community and it's really good.

[Steven Rinella]

Ladies and gentlemen, Jesse Griffiths.

[Emily]

Now tell me who made this pickle.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Foreign.

[Steven Rinella]

What a matchup we got, y'.

[Brent]

All.

[Steven Rinella]

This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action.

[Brent]

The band is rocking and the crowd lit.

[Steven Rinella]

Chance, echo drum beat, everybody showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp, amber fried. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note.

[Brent]

Just like the band at halftime.

[Steven Rinella]

And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere. And in ice cold Coca Cola, that's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBO See you pride going. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Flu season is here and the in store pharmacy has you covered with a free flu shot with most insurance plans. And as a thank you, get up.

[Guest Clay]

To $20 off your grocery purchase. Plus it's coughing cold season.

[Steven Rinella]

Stock up on all the season's essentials and get ready for relief with discounts on items like Hall's Menthol Cough Drops, Tylenol Cold and Flu, and Mucinex Fast Max products. Offer ends December 30th. Restrictions apply and offers may vary by location. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more detail.

[Jesse Griffiths]

Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all in one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, E Commerce, hr. Fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you try Odoo for free at odoo. Com. That's odoo. Com. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Steven Rinella]

Guaranteed Human.