Brisket Is Worth the Wait (Published 2014)

Nestor Laracuente, a pitmaster at Hometown Bar-B-Que in Red Hook, Brooklyn, monitors the combination of heat, meat and smoke needed to produce exceptional barbecued brisket.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times As smoke from the oak-burning barbecue pits swirled around his head, Nestor Laracuente lit a Marlboro Red, inhaled hard and puffed out his own cumulus cloud. A pitmaster at Hometown Bar