I am now the proud new owner of............

[hotwine]

Drew, I made some mistakes in that recipe - memory failed (again). Dug it out for review (dated 1999) and found white sugar rather than brown, NO black pepper, and quantities of garlic powder and onion powder are both 1/4 teaspoon versus half a teaspoon each. And 1/8 teaspoon of Tabasco should be 1/4 teaspoon.

Am aware that many people say "no foil"; the decision probably has a lot to do with the kind of equipment being used. The foil helps the meat to retain moisture that would otherwise be drained away; I think that's especially true of an enclosed cooker like your egg and my offsets. OTOH an open pit doesn't get as hot and doesn't concentrate the heat on the meat, so cooking without foil makes a lot more sense in that case. Visiting some of the big joints in this area (Rudy's BBQ, the Salt Lick, Smitty's, Kreutz Market, etc.) you'll see huge open pits being used and nary a piece of foil in site; they don't need it because the meat doesn't dehydrate so quickly, and they tend to mop the meat frequently with "sop" to keep it moist. With enclosed cookers, the last thing we want to do is constantly open the pit for any reason - that lets the heat out and slows the cooking process to a crawl.

I could go on and on..... yammer yammer...