The Big Burger Cook-Off Between Mr. J. & Johnny Mags

Hi, this is Austin Parsons Pitmaster with smokey mountain Q in Nashville, Tennessee. And you are listening to the barbecue central show. Happy to have you board here for the really big barbecue show. Boeing. We cook because we have to, and we grill because we want to. Hit me. Fine. I just won. . You have a great show of a big fan. Boeing. So what, what, what seems to be the problem here? This man looks like he's dead and he's in the, in the crackle. Sean bono. It's all about the char bono.

Dude, Sunland fish. What. We ate two feet before we. Laborious chick piece. I'm shaking like a dog shit peach seed. We have top men working on it right now. Welcome aboard to the second hour. This is the barbecue central show. We talk about barbecue and grilling related items that are only of the highest importance and order here in the industry hit me doing it live from nine to 11:00 PM. Easter. Do it.

Live. Recording in case you can't make it for podcast, uh, recording in case you can't make it live for podcast hour. Number one is released early in the morning tomorrow hour. Number two on Thursday. And I'll tell you about Friday here in just one moment. This show originating from where. Palm city USA Cleveland.

Still to come on this show this evening, as I had mentioned on the way out of the first hour, Mr. Jonathan, the co-host over at cigar authority podcast and Johnny bags from the pit life. Barbecue podcast will both be joining me for a group segment. And we're gonna be talking about the big burger battle that took place over at the cigar authority podcast. Confines slash two guys, smoke shop out there in New Hampshire is gonna be a fun recap.

And certainly looking forward to that, don't forget you can follow me socially at BBQ central show on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and the snapper snaps slash BBQ central show over on Facebook and Twitch for a live video feed. Also one over on YouTube slash R D REPI, and we are audibly available on clubhouse as well. Coming up on the best moments of the barbecue central show in 10 minutes or less, this Friday episode 244 taking you back to August 30th, 2011. And this week featuring me.

Let me ask you a question specifically, the male listeners in the audience. Have you ever been a member of the Y M C a and gone to work out there in the early morning hours? If you have, then you'll be able to relay to the best moment show that will hit the podcast, feed this coming Friday. If you have never been to the Y M C a in the early morning hours, and you have been considering membership my friends, this is mandatory listening before you pull the trigger.

If you're on the fence right now, if you live by a why, or you're only down the street from the why or your wife says we have to join the why you have to listen, say, honey lover, sweet lips, hold your horses. We can't do anything, no decision making until afternoon on Friday. So I can make sure I listen to the upcoming best moments of the barbecue central show, because there is life changing information that will be transpiring.

If you missed it, live back in 2011. And I think everybody missed it. Then you will be lucky to hear this one more time, especially if you're on the fence, because I would hate for you to not have the heads up on the shenanigans that are going on in the men's locker room at your local. Y especially since I have lived it no less than two separate times in my life and what you will hear this coming Friday, you will find both shocking and potentially hilarious.

If you remember this bit from 12 years ago, thank you for being a longtime fan, but for those looking to sign up for the Y M C a make sure you check this out before you sign on the line, which is dotted. Don't forget if you wanna hear a past guest or a segment that might be lost in the archives of the show, reach out to my pal and in Michigan embedded correspondent, John Solberg, and let him know what you would like to hear. His email is J O

n@thebbqcentralshow.com. Once again, that's J O N john@thebbqcentralshow.com. Let know what you'd like to hear and it'll do as best to meet your expectation. As far as best of shows are concerned. Upcoming shows in September include visits from Malcolm Reed, Sam, the cooking guy meet head from amazing ribs.com will once again be visited by Robert Moss. Daniel Vaughn from Texas monthly will be stopping in for his quarterly visit barbecue hall of Famer and icon.

Stephen Reichman will make his return to the show. Of course, bristly barbecue, journalist, Derek riches, slated to join us along with the embedded correspondence and much more. I have a number of lines out just trying to confirm dates with a lot of first time guests that'll be showing up in September as well. So we're looking forward to that last week. I showed you a video of a fireworks accident, gone horribly wrong, and I'm not gonna show that again.

I was going to show the companion piece to that, but instead, since I did announce it, I will be unveiling right now to you. The latest barbecue central show animation. It's a dandy. Remember this sound, anybody remember who that might be in case you can't place it? I'll do it again. One and only barbecue celebrity, big Mo Caseon last time he was on the show,

which was a year ago, February. By the way, when you look at February in back to back years, Mo Caseon the following year, Jeremy Andrews, two of the biggest names in the industry Mo Caseon was enjoying a Yeti Tumblr of libation, probably bourbon or some type of whiskey he's into the brown water. And it was, and a lot of ice in it. He was chewing a lot of ice during that segment, his microphone picked it up. I have it you're hearing it.

Well, then I found my buddy Damien from doodles and things found out he was a incredible animator and we've been animating all sorts of nonsense. Of course, the first one was the meathead. Pineapple is the best thing off the grill animation, which came to rave reviews handful of weeks ago was the Jeremy Andrews interview where he was really buffed working out. As we were talking about why Trager didn't have a podcast.

And this week we unveil the Mo case on ice animation without further ado for your viewing pleasure. Here it is. We raced some hotline and welcome back friend of the show Mo case on Hey, Mo what's up, man? Oh, do you really wanna get into the restaurant business? Is there a difference, you know, for you to take this trip down to Florida and cook your food?

Mm-hmm , as you were saying, everybody's like, is there a difference though, in opening it up to a restaurant, you don't have a restaurant open yet. You talk about getting into the restaurant and then you do give your opinion on the quality of the food. In both jet rows, you said was garbage monkey DS. You said didn't have any soul looking back at it.

Would you have rather have been in business for some amount of time, like in the restaurant business for some amount of time before you levy those charges, or it completely irrelevant doesn't matter, Mo Caseon breaking it all down right here and you can find him@mocaseonbbq.com, see where he's available for sale retail wise and your area Mo really appreciate the extended time. This evening continued success right on brother.

Thank you, mayor. You got it. There he is. Mo case on Dian is a bitch in the best way possible. So unlike all of the other animations that we've done currently, this one was a little contrived. Obviously the audio was 100% real. That interview actually took place. Go back to February, 2021 and go ahead and listen to it all. Obviously, when I ask Mo the questions he had subsequent answers,

however, because it's comedy and I know what I'm doing. I said, wouldn't it be great where we take the audio of me asking the questions, and then instead of answering the way he did, we just go ahead and toss in the ice chomps as his answers, increasingly bigger ice, ice shooting over. I gave the concept to Damien and he just took off with it.

And once again hits the marks, the minutia, like when you stop and hit, pause on that to go look in the background, like there was a whole big Mo case on bio. As I'm sitting in the park, reading the barbecue central newspaper or whatever he called them. And there's so much attention to detail in minutia in the best

ways possible for as young as he is, this guy is going to be a megastar. And again, I'm happy to get the time with him that I am now before he blows up like crazy. But that's the latest animation installment. The big Mo case on ice Cho, it's a winner, a kid's magic. He's gold in the biz. We call him radio gold. Here's the best news coming up next, Mr. Jonathan and Johnny max, we're gonna be talking about the burger battle before we do that.

We talked to you about the first hour's last segment to guest John Furman and bub and mother. What's the first thing you think of when you think of the great state of Maine, I can tell you for me, it's definitely not great barbecue until I gave bub and mothers a try. How could a rub that's so flavorful and versatile come from a state that's known for lobster and winter. Here's a little bit about them.

Bub and mothers is a veteran owned gourmet spice blending company that the only barbecue company using real main ingredients from real main companies, the rub are 100% natural, lower and salt than just about anything else on the market while it is handcrafted and blended to be used on anything that used to have fins and feathers. Fans of the rub are actually using it on everything from avocado toast to fried zucchini, there's even a restaurant using it to make cocktails.

You can see all the recipes at their website, B and mothers.com. Both flavors have won honors from the international flavor awards. Two years in a row, the rubs were used as a guest judge gift on beat Bobby FLA and the competition cook teams have gotten multiple calls using B and mother's flavors. The down east dinner dust and the honey and heat can be used interchangeably. Once you've TAed them, your imagination will come up with many other ways to use them as well.

And if you come up with a unique recipe, contact them through their website, bub and mothers.com. They post pictures and credit you with the recipe as well. You can smoke with it, grill with it, fry with it. And in the dead of the main winter, you can even get fantastic barbecue flavor in your oven or broiler. If you don't want to go outside, you can blend it with things to make their soon to be famous. Redneck AO, homemade sauce, and other side dish items.

Try honey and heat on an omelet. Change your life. Take it for me. Head on over to B and mothers.com. That's B U B the letter N M UT H a S B and mothers.com and order the gourmet dry rub with main attitude and know to the portion of every purchase. As we found out, John earlier goes to a veteran charity, tell 'em Greg and the barbecue central show sent you. We're back to recap the burger battle from New Hampshire, stick around, be right.

Back. You're listening to the number two most downloaded barbecue and grilling podcast, anywhere the barbecue central show Howard stern, Jim Rome, Dan Patrick, and Greg Ramey, the mountain Rushmore of talk show entertainment. Now let's get back to the barbecue central show.

Welcome back this portion of this show being brought to you by pit barrel cooker, the most unbelievable outdoor cooking device on the planet currently available in three sizes with a host of accessories to complete your pit barrel cooking experience. It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a professional, definitely cooker. You wanna add to the arsenal, visit pit barrel cooker.com and tell them the barbecue central show

sent you over the life of the show. We've talked a lot about competition, but rarely has it been outside the competition, barbecue realm. Tonight, we will change that as I welcome in two guests to talk about their most recent burger battle that took place earlier this month, the two guys smoke shop in New Hampshire. The first guy is well known to be the official cigar expert of the barbecue central show.

The other guy has appeared on this show as the contestant and is also the host of the pit life, barbecue podcast, making his debut here this evening. Let's go ahead and race to the hotline and welcome back in Mr. Jonathan and Johnny mags to the show. Gentlemen, appreciate you joining me here this evening. Mr. J of course is to the right of me if you're watching and then we all know Johnny mags directly below me. And that's my logo because I don't have four people here totaling.

So we'll fill the box up because that's what nice. All right. So Mr. J, if you don't mind starting us off here, give us a little background and subsequent setup for this particular burger bash event at two guys. So this was set up as a, an event where we were hiring or Camacho cigar was hiring this pit champion guy that makes burgers. He specializes in going around and making burgers for everybody.

And he backed out at the last minute I had COVID and I get an email from one of the bosses at two guys and says, all right, this is the event. Everybody start working and sell tickets. And I look on the flyer and there's my picture. I'm competing against Johnny mags. So it came, it came out of necessity.

I can cook, I can hang in the kitchen and Johnny's a good friend of mine. So, uh, in fact to Johnny's credit, uh, a wealth of knowledge when it comes to barbecuing and he once helped me set up a smoker that I had to kind of resurrect from the ashes, if you will. And I was trying to make, uh, smoke burn ends. And I'm like, Johnny, I've never used a smoker before and he just patiently walked me through it. So he is a wealth of knowledge. It was, it was great to compete against him.

So this is an event where you are told you are going to be doing this no choice. It's just you're down no matter what. Yeah. That's, I'm always down. Yeah. I'm always down Johnny. Mags. Were you given an opportunity to not do this or much like Jonathan, you were just told you're gonna be doing it. Well, first if Jonathan did his, any homework whatsoever. Oh. We're gonna start like this already. Wow. The.

Person who backed out at the last minute was known as the burger beast, who is very well known on Instagram and social media is, and he's in Camacho has been bringing him around the country to, um, I'm a little jealous right now. Mr. J I'm not gonna lie to you, uh,

to compete. Um, I don't, I don't actually, I don't know if it's an actual competition at their other stores or if he just comes for the event and makes burgers our, our friend in who owns a sharp Dave Garo, he likes to make everything a, um, competition. So. Why does this guy. Out out a little. Some he have a, you have a runny nose or something like, why doesn't he. Feel that? Yeah, I think so. I think something, just, something just happened in his schedule and honestly, it's probably not him.

The company that was putting the event on is kind of notorious for doing shit at the last minute. Hmm. All right, John. So you're down with doing this burger contest as well. It sounds like. So what's your, what's your competition? I don't mean barbecue competition, but just in general, do you have a storied background in competitions? Um, I've done a few, um, few backyards in the area.

Mm-hmm over the years, but, um, not nothing of, you know, great significance, um, KCS wise or otherwise EA anything, just the regular backyard stuff. Is this something that's nervewracking for you? No. Um, being a mailman full time, I work six days a week, so I'm, I'm there on a Saturday. So it's tough to get the time off in order to go do a competition. Uh, now Mr. Jonathan, you. He certainly has, he, he's no stranger to eating the barbecue though,

as you can clearly see he's he's not a small man. . Mr. Jay, you've taken part, a number of competitions put on by the cigar authority and or two guys. What contests were those and how have you fared in those events? Uh, meatball competitions, probably the most popular one. And that started as an event because my birthday falls in January and I was having a soft January about halfway through. I just said to Dave, we need to put together an event. I need sales.

So we put together this meatball competition and to just to generate some sales at the end, we had 50 people there. We got five people to make meatballs, including myself. And I came in dead last. And then the next year I came in dead last. And then the next year I tied for fourth out of, and then this year I tied for third out of five. Okay. And in Johnny's case with the, the burger competition, by the way, I came in second place, I mean, it's not bad. Well, it was you and, and Johnny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There were two people competing. All right. So Johnny, let's start with you now that we have a little bit of the lay of the land here, it's gonna be a burger contest. Are you also having to make a number of burgers? So let me back out a little bit, how I'm seeing this in my head, uh, I'm gonna be competing. I gotta make a burger. So I gotta a figure that out.

And then are you also subsequently responsible for making an additional 40 or 50 burgers for whoever might be showing up to? Yeah, I was, I was asked, um, when, when Dave had asked me to do the competition, um, I needed to make 50 burgers because there was 50 tickets being sold. Wow. And then obviously the, the people from Camacho, um, the, the folks that are still working at the smoke shop, so going into it, it was right around 60, 65 burgers,

at least in my mind at the time. So everybody would get a burger. And you're, and you're the one that has to cook all those burgers. Yes, sir. Holy moly. That's quite a task. Oh, he was a beast on it too. But I mean, same thing for you, right? Jonathan, you're gonna have to make 65 PORs potentially. Yeah. So Greg, here's the thing to me, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who wins the competition. It matters that people came in and they bought the tickets and they had fun and

they buy cigars at the end. That's the real event is the cigar buying. So not that I didn't take it seriously. I took it very seriously, but I used the white castle method for cooking. I just laid some Julian onions and some celery and carrot and froze some meat trays and put that on top and popped it in the oven. So I had two full trays in there. I was able to do 30 burgers, a tray. I had 60 burgers to present and got some slider rolls and just

dished them all out. Once the meat hit temp and I was ready to go. Cause because it was easy to do like that or because you're a fan of white castle burgers. No, I'm also, no, I'm also managing a cigar store at the exact same time. They don't give. You, they don't give you a day off to do the competition properly. He's making you work and also do a competition. Yes. Yeah. That seems patently unfair. No, what's unfair is when somebody uses steroids on their burger,

but we'll get to that in a little bit. There's, there's a little controversy on this particular look. I'm not trying to, uh, say I feel for you here, Jonathan. But if, if Johnny was at a barbecue competition, uh, I, I don't think he would also be delivering mail to people and then be expected to continue to be at a barbecue competition at the same time you're working your job. It should be Mr. Jonathan general manager of this store,

or it should be Mr. Jonathan competitor for the barbecue series. It, it can't be both. Well in this case, it had to be both. And, uh, in this case, the best man won. So you're a fan of, of white castle burgers. We'll stick with you here just for one more second here, Mr. J, are you, um, really trying to I'm.

I'm not a fan of white castle burgers. No, I think they're, but uh, that style of being able to layer in flavors that are cooking underneath and as that fat renders, it starts to pull some caramelization outta the onions and blend in with the other ingredients, in addition to seasoning the meat well, and having every bite be a little bit of an adventure. That is what I'm a fan of. And you can stack that in the oven.

So what I'm a fan of is when I have to cook for 30 people and it's just kinda, oh, we're, we're having a party and there's 30 people coming to the house. Yeah. I can bang out 30 burgers and not, I can have it prepped the day before and not have to think about it. So that part, I love mm-hmm but I also love putting the crust on the meat and being able to smash 'em like Johnny did. So if I had the extra time, I would've gone that direction. I just, I didn't have that kind of time that day.

Did you think of the potential judges as you were conceptualizing this burger? I did. And I honestly thought I was gonna fare better than I did because in the meatball competition, whoever makes the closest to a gas station, meatball wins every single year, except for, uh, last year, Oliver won by stuffing his meatball with proto and mozzarella. And I had done that in years past and came in last place. I don't know how he pulled that off, but everybody else that's won.

It's been the shittiest meatball up there. I'm eating it going all right, compared to everything else. It's dog food. And the guy comes in first place. So either I have a, a very good P or I have a terrible pallet when it comes to cooking. Up for debate, Johnny mags, we go over to you, your thought process, as you are conceptualizing steroid the burger that ends up winning. Steroids. Take steroids. I was just using product that like you had just said,

Mels in accentuates the flavors of the burger. All right. So call it steroids or not. You know, I'm not the one with the soft, um, soft month, you know, you might wanna get a, a prescription for that one, but anyway, so you might look into steroids. Um, I went with using the competition talk and knowledge and information from guests and friends and people on the circuit. You're always going for that one bite wow. Factor mm-hmm . So I needed to do something packed with flavor,

being a cigar event. Lot of cigar smokers, I used to a finer experience. Mm-hmm especially culinary wise, you know, a lot of steakhouse, things like that. So I'm not even gonna step forward in trying to make some white castle crap thing and in Southeast people.

So I'm going, I was gonna go a full GOME style burger, not fully gourmet, but the, I went with a smash burger mm-hmm cause also with the smash burger, I'm also playing into the, the older, the elder statesmen in the room for the said event to bring back that little nostalgia of their dates with the misses back in the old, old diners. But of course the Mashberg are raging and popularity right now have been for the

last couple years too. So even if you have a younger cigar smoker, that's attending the vent, you're getting the older person. You're also getting the, somebody that the millennial that thinks it's hot shit to do a smash bird. Yep. So I was, I was going straight foot emotion, hit, hit, hit him in the hot. So, uh, how did. You work? You also. Go ahead. John. You killed it with the presentation. The, the pretzel bun was so over the top. Good.

When I saw it, I'm like, ah, shit just phenomenal because. You eat with your eyes first, right? Jonathan? Yes. You do. Yes. All right. So Johnny does the, is the pretzel bun, like first on the list, are you building around the pretzel bun or was that a, uh, inspiration shot where you're in the bakery and it's like the lights come on. There's a golden halo over pretzel buns. And you're like, that's the one I got.

Well, I originally was going with the smash burger, but what is better than a smash burger? Double smash burger. Fat double smash burgers fat. Correct. Greg, thank you. It's fat by the way. And then. Fat, fat. Fat. Fat, fat. Fat, like Jonathan fat fat. So a double smash burger. And what am I gonna go? Just throw some American cheese on there. Some Swiss cheese, some CHED cheese. No, I'm going a smoked Caso cheese sauce. Oh. What would go great with the cheese sauce, but a soft pretzel.

Right there. Appetizer. A pretzel bun. Right? Yes. So I was in search of pretzel buns. So the pretzel bun was actually the last of the ingredients. And I found my pretzel buns. I went out, did my due diligence and went shopping early. Made sure I got all my, the meats I wanted to use my Kaso ingredients and my buns. Well before the day of. Uh, let, can, can we talk about the meat that you used? Cause I just used regular 80, 20 beef.

Which is certainly acceptable. I mean, that's what I would use if I was making burgers at home. Johnny. Oh, I used some really fancy ground beef. Oh yeah. Like what? Oh, um, I guess you could categorize it as a, a Wagu style ground beef style. A wa establishment. Was it Wagu or not? It's not Wagu style. Yes. It does. Wagu. Wagu. Holy moly. Yeah. Did Dave pay for the beef? Yes. Camacho did. Oh, okay. Good. Thank God. I was like, I can't believe you just bought wa you grounded. Yeah.

No, I, I, I had the prime. You were prime brisket. You were given a stipend by Kacha yes. You get X amount to spend on your burgers? Yes. All right. Good. So I grabbed the, the Wago ground beef and I also grabbed a prime brisket mm-hmm and had my local butcher's shop grind that twice. So I get a great mix of the fat. Yep. And, uh, and I combined the two. All right. I, I got a question and I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you my budget was a couple hundred bucks.

That's what Dave told me to spend. What was your budget? My budget was a couple hundred bucks. My, my, my entire cook. Yeah. All right. I never even thought to grind a brisket. That's brilliant. Double grind. A brisket. Brilliant. Double. You gotta, now. Let's talk about that steroid, because you had such amazing meat already. The flavors with just salt and pepper, that burger would've shined with the double crust, you had great thin smash burgers. The crust was so great.

And then you were like, you know, what would make this way better if I add MSG and citric acid to it. And that's the bullshit right there. No, that's not bullshit. That's what makes your flavor buds pop? That's why Chinese food tastes so good. That's why competition barbecue tastes so good because there's MSG. You did say earlier of layering flavors with your onions and your peppers and your, your, uh, those are flavors, steam, beef. Steam. Those are. Flavors. That's all. I was. .

I was layering flavors with my lucky shake and my smoke bomb. So I'm, I'm layering flavors. And I would like you everyone to notice that it, there is no ice in my brown water. So I'll be not showing up in a cartoon later. Uh, in the end. What's the final tally. 15 To six. A lot to, a little. In favor of, in favor of Johnny mags. I'm sorry, what was it again? 15, 6, 15, 6. All right. So, uh, we would call that a convincing win, but six votes,

you know, pretty good. Nonetheless, as you said, Mr. J taking a second. Place and the, the six people that voted for me, you all felt compelled like that. I think they voted out of just shame that they felt compelled to come up and tell me that they voted for mine because they could eat 30 of them. Hmm. And they didn't wanna vote for Johnny's because one was enough. And I'm like, you're, you're actually making the case for Johnny mags.

yeah. It's a burger competition at the end of one. It should be enough. And his was, his was a great burger. John, you win the burger battle and your competition experience. The limited as we found out, is this the top wins so far? Um, no, actually, um, my best wings on the, um, on the sea coast is my top best win from, um, uh, couple years a year before COVID so that would've been 19, I believe, uh, best win wings on the sea coast through, um, oh, what's the name of the brewery?

They through a little barbecue competition every year. A couple years supporting the local fire apartment. 6 0 3, 6 0 3. No, it was up in, up in north Hampton. Um, S smutty nose S smutty nose brewery. Of course. Yeah. Sty. Everybody knows smutty nose. All right. So, uh, uh, cash prize to the winter Johnny or no. Y yep. Yeah. How much cash? How much? Little nice little trophy that would've been, that would've been the best one. What's the hall. How, how much you win. A hundred bucks.

Hey, all right. And you didn't have to pay for any of that stuff either. So you don't have to worry about trying to break even like you have to do in competition barbecue. So. That's. Right. Johnny mags wins the burger battle. Maybe they'll be another one next year. So we can follow that one. Or, or maybe that Camacho guy should mean maybe who, who the hell knows. Um, I. Would say maybe shit, man up.

Thank God. This guy shined because what great content we were able to produce here on the barbecue central show on August 30th here in 2022 with the host of pit life, barbecue podcast, Johnny mags. And of course my personal cigar expert and the official cigar expert of the barbecue central show. Mr. J uh, Johnny, I'm going to let you go. Uh, Jonathan, can you hang over for a few minutes and talk? Yeah, some cigars. All right. Uh, guys, appreciate the time Johnny.

Congratulations and continue success with the podcast. Thank. You, Greg. Thank you. And if I can suggest one more thing. All right. Jonathan of, uh, and I have been great friends for the past 15 years. So the, the whole, the whole competition over to bergs was just was, it was just great. It was just a great time. Oh, hope he set the grill up. It was awesome. yeah, he did. He helped me set the Blackstone up in the back. Nice. Pulled it out the truck, but it, it was just a great time.

I can't wait to do it again just to, to see what we each can come up with. Well, that's what live, fire's all about helping each other great community. So congratulations to Johnny. Once again for winning the burger bash over there at two guys, the website, the number two guys, cigars.com. If you're down for buying smokes, why not? Before we jump back and talk some cigars with Mr. Jonathan, I'll talk to you quickly about David leans and the do wellness program.

The program that I'm actually doing as we're starting week nine, David leans.com/bbq to sign up right now. That's David leans.com/bbq to sign up right now, join me. I'm only nine weeks ahead of you. Maybe you've heard that having a dad bod was cool. Well, take it from a stud like me. It's not, there's nothing sexy about wearing your glut knee everywhere you go.

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have to face down the road. Forget that. Luckily, we all have a pal who I've been using to coach me, backyard barbecue enthusiast and men's health and wellness coach David McDowell. You can eat barbecue all year around and still lose the fat with David. You've got assistance around the clock. He's just a text message and iMessage or a WhatsApp message or an email away. He's also available to FaceTime zoom, WhatsApp, video chat, whenever you need help.

Even on short notice now where some coaches are charging up to 500 bucks a month for a canned diet plan. And one to two check-ins a month. Forget that partnering with David allows you to have access to a resource who's effectively available 24 7, and it's not 500 or 600 or $700 a month. No, no, no. 200 bucks a month. I'm investing in me. You invest in you. You don't have to be some kind of crazy maniac eating until your life ends.

Wanna make the change. David can help you make the change, do it with me. David leans.com/bbq. And we are back with Mr. J right after this stick around will be right back. Let's get back to a guy who has more experience giving you his opinion. Then he actually has cooking once again. Here's your host, Greg. Rampe. Welcome back to this portion of the show being brought to you by smithfield.com for recipes, as well as tips and tricks from well known.

Live-fire cooks like Darren worth, Jess Briles and Childs Cridlin mouthwatering flavor, no artificial ingredients. Smithfield fresh pork is quite simply some of the finest pork money can buy. It's the trusted choice to top coach for use of competitions and at home, once again, that's smithfield.com and we are joined once again by the barbecue central show's official cigar expert, Mr. Jonathan, from the cigar authority podcast and over at two guys smoke shop.

So great recap of the big burger event. And now that Johnny's off, Mr. J you let him win, right? I mean, there's no reason to rub it in his face to him directly. Nah, there was no, there was no letting him win. I was a little shocked when I took a bike cuz I'm I live 90% of my life in ke a ketogenic state. So I didn't want the pretzel bun or the cheese sauce or whatever the hell else

was going on. I just wanted the burger. I took a burger, I took one bite and I said, are you using MSG and Citrix acid in this? And he said, actually, I don't know. I never read the ingredients of the rubs. I used these two rubs and he put 'em down on the table and I read the ingredients. Yeah. And of course it has it. And listen, that's people love that flavor. It's just not something that I would normally consume. And you look great by the way. I,

I just heard the last commercial that you're nine weeks in. Yeah, what's the, what's the eating like on this eating plan? Well. The good and the bad news, I guess, is in my real life while I purport to be this Pitmaster and live fire artist and all this stuff, which I am, I can cook barbecue, like crazy. I can grill like crazy, but in the end I'm a simple man. So I can literally eat the same thing every day if I had to for the rest of my

life. So as I'm putting my plant together with David, he's like, you know, how intricate do you want to get with the meals, this and that. I was like, ah, the easier, the better. And I like chicken and I like Turkey. I like meat. So have at it. And it's uh, you know, every morning I'm doing, uh, half a cup of oatmeal, put some peanut butter in there. I have a protein shake.

If I'm doing a lift that day lunch, seven ounces of Turkey or chicken or steak, 120 grams of rice and then dinner, uh, roughly the same thing as lunch, except a little bit more rice, uh, any amount of salad that I want with just a little bit of light dressing and it's, so it doesn't sound great for the somebody who's always struggled to do a diet or be on an eating plan. It's probably not inspiring anybody to go. Well, that's what I wanna do. But David also will meet you where you are and work

with your diet and what you like, what you don't like. He asked me if I drink, if I smoked blah, blah, blah. You know? So he's very, um, intricate with his questions and really learns about you. But that's what I'm doing. And it's, uh, worked for me. I'm not looking to lose a tremendous amount of weight, wanted to rock up and shred out a little bit. And it's working pretty well. Nine weeks in. What? Uh, Dr. Grundy, who's a dietician out there on YouTube.

His famous line is when it comes to dieting. It's not what you eat. It's what you're not eating. That's important. So I noticed you didn't say potato chips. No, you weren't talking about no pop pork rhymes. No, nothing like that. Soda sugary drink. So being able to eliminate that stuff is gonna be such a key. And if you can find a group of foods that you can latch onto that you like enough to be able to get rid of the other shit. That's really the key.

Mr. Jonathan, joining us here on the show, the co-host of the cigar, uh, cigar authority podcast. Don't say that too fast. Or you sound like I just did there for a second. What's smoking well in the shop these days, Mr. J. Uh, I gotta tell you the there's the folks at Adino are, I don't know what they're doing to their tobacco, but there is. MSG. Zero ammonia present zero. You, you smoke that cigar well past the band and it is just phenomenal all the way

through. And it doesn't matter what blend you like a mild, you like 'em strong. They get a little something for everybody, but all the way through they're smoking great. Uh, the folks that selected tobacco with their band, Allero all 12 shapes and three different blends, all killing it. Promo's killing it.

Pedro patron is killing it. There's just, uh, there's a few brands that we can't even, we can't even talk about who makes 'em, but LA Giana made by a big name brand that rhymes with Davidoff, uh, you've got United CIGA, that's smoking great. Uh, all the Garo lines that are made by a brand that rhymes with Perdomo the, that the entire, that entire portfolio there is just it's crushing it.

And the thing about the thing about knowing what's smoking great, I may smoke something and say, all right, this is great for my palate. It all boils down to the two types of cigars that are exist in the world. The ones that sell and the ones that don't, and those are all turning and burning literally.

In the barbecue world for the last two years, it's been boom central short of owning a barbecue restaurant, which even if you could pivot a little bit into, if you were a sit down, if you could move into that fast casual or, uh, use an app or get stuff to the curb, you probably made it to some degree. A lot of them faded away if they didn't wanna embrace technology here. But otherwise, if you were selling in accessory, a rub, a grill,

you were selling out, it was hard to get the boom was crazy. Record sales. The likes we have never seen in the industry for two plus years. And then at the, at the end of last year, I started hearing inventories, building distributors and, uh, folks that are buying stuff from overseas saying, Hey, don't send that container over here because the big box stores that they're pulling through have inventory still, they haven't sold through.

They're not looking to restock. Well, guess what? Now we've had a bust. You've seen Trager stock go down. You've seen Weber stock, go down. You've seen them, uh, replace their CEO and the likes have been going on through the live fire industry over the last couple months. Same for the cigar industry or no. Uh, well, uh, this is all good news for you, by the way, because when there's a Glu of inventory, they're gonna be looking for places to throw their money out, to advertise.

So congratulations. You're about to have a boom in the cigar industry. The, uh, yeah, the honest truth is we went through the same kind of boom. Over the two years of the COVID shutdowns. There were so little to do, but smoke and drink that that's what people did. And they had the extra income to do it because they weren't going to the movies.

They weren't going out to eat. You know, they were just at home in their little man caves or whatever they built up at the beginning of COVID that's where they were in smoking and keeping in their small little group pods. So that portion of the cigar industry, that, that boom is over. So now, although the bigger manufacturers, they kept me supplied through the pandemic, they've now gone through their reserves.

So I'm starting to see a little bit of a slowdown with orders coming from Padron and Perdomo mm-hmm and the rest of the cigar industry is putting out products so fast that you get halfway through the cigar tastes like ammonia. Not to ask a dumb question here, but what does ammonia taste like? Is it sour? Is it hot? Is it spicy? Have you ever sprayed Windex on a window and had a little spray into your mouth? Cuz that's exactly what that shit taste like. All right, well that's not good.

So ammonia, ammonia and nitrates are both, uh, products of growing on, on the, in the tobacco plant. So ammonia is a byproduct of photosynthesis and nitrates come from the soil from the fertilization. And when you sweat tobacco, you put it in a compost pile and you ferment it.

And the heat comes up and at about 1 0 6, they flip the piles and they do that for a year to three years, depending on how thick the tobacco is and the longer they flip, the more times they flip it, the more times they get to that 1 0 6, the more ammonia and nitrates get released naturally. And they're also trying to believe it or not break down the nicotine so that you, the smoker can smoke more cigars without getting sick. Hmm. This is all part of it. The nicotine degrades over time.

So when you finally get to a cigar, if the tobacco's been aged properly and it's gone through closer to the three years than the one year, you have a very smooth, you have a very pallet friendly smoke. Mm-hmm , when it's closer to the one year it's smooth for the first half, and then it becomes less P friendly. You start to feel the smoke on the roof of your mouth. You start to get a sting on the back of your throat,

and that is the presence of ammonia and nitrates. And, and also you, you start to get a little buzz and that's the presence of nicotine because it hasn't degraded over time. So if you bought a box of cigars and the first one or two that's re that's a recurring situ fucking cat, um, that's a recurring situation. Is that a time where you would say, okay, if you have a humidor or, or somewhere you would put that away for six months or two years, or what's the thought there?

Uh, if you had a box and you smoked two cigars and halfway through you got ammonia, I would take that box and leave it outside of humidification for two full months. Let those cigars dry out completely, and then put 'em in your humidor with the box closed and they'll rehydrate very

slowly and then they'll be smokeable. And if you did that another time, maybe two, three more times and, and took that out for a year, you would've done this dry box cycle that happens with a bay Byron, and Balero, he does that with the actual cigars themselves and take cigars that are good and makes them exceptional. And I've done it. I've done experiments myself. In fact, this cigar is two years old. Aino carro reserve in the FTO mm-hmm and I dry box cycled that for

a full year. And I've been just slowly smoking outta this box for the last year. And it's awesome. Let me ask you some newbie, beginner, not a lot of knowledge.

Although listening to the show has really increased my learning curve and knowledge about, I feel like I'm a dangerous expert to a certain degree because of how much I've learned from the show, which I certainly appreciate, I'd say a small handful of times over the last number of months, I'll be smoking a cigar, not specific to any manufacturer, not specific to any ring gauge or, you know, length or anything like this, but cigar seems to be,

and I go through the whole lighting ritual and getting the wrappers seared in and make sure the foot, the inside everything's, you know, nice and glowy blow on it. The whole thing that I've watched on. So I've learned from you and then, and I'm my puff. Rate's pretty good every minute or so. Um, the, the standard puff rate, I'm a, a two puff guy. So a quick one, and then do the draw smokes out just like you're doing right there. Same. Inevitably the cigar seems to wanna go out on me.

Is that part and parcel or is there something that I'm doing wrong? Where do you live? Cleveland. Palm city, USA. Cleveland. So you and I are you and I are basically on the same, uh, latitude, right? Yeah. With the same. So that's, what's going on in the summertime when the humidity outside is 90% and you like that cigar the rapper behind where you lit is starting to absorb moisture that quick. And so, oh, the Rapper's the first thing. Wow.

And the rapper is very instrumental in combustion because typically it'll be fermented for a long time. So it'll, they, they intentionally will thin that rapper out. And then they'll. So if it was a Maduro cigar, the rapper might be a little thicker, but they're gonna put a thin binder underneath it to balance it out. So those two leaves together, their leaves and they're porous. They start socking moisture.

So what I will typically do in the summertime is I turn my humidifier completely off and I try to get my box on the drier days. At the end of spring, I try to get my humidor down into the mid to low even fifties and keep that shit closed so that when I go in there, it's in the cooler part of the day. I'm not looking to Jack the heat up and I'm not looking to Jack the humidity up so that I can get the cigars I'm gonna smoke today or tomorrow.

And I'll put them in a sealed bag so that I'm not exposing them to the elements as best I can. It's not an exact science, but typically if cigars are going out, it's the environment and not the smoker per se. Jonathan, one last question, before I let you go and appreciate the time is always the premium cigar association or whatever. The, the big trade show for, uh, cigars took place month or two ago, which means new cigars are gonna be hitting the market.

A lot of them we've been hearing about on your show as far as that are coming in and in stock available for sale of two guys, in your opinion, what are some of the best ones for those, uh, intermediate to experts, cigar smokers that might be looking for something new to try. Lala Ronna by Aventura is K it's killing it. It's such a good cigar, 16, $17 of the price tag kind of makes people pause a little bit, but yeah, you light one up. They're great. And then, uh,

west Tampa tobacco company has come out with some good stuff. The, uh, folks at Roja with their street taco Caritas, I'm not even a fan of Connecticut shade and that Connecticut shade is really good. Is he gonna be a star? That guy? I think so. I think so. I. I have yet to have, I've had blue bonnet and a couple different formats. I've had, uh, barbacoa, I've had Carita and I've had statement and everyone has been a knock down stole cold lead pipe lock winner for me.

Yeah. That he, and doesn't make beds. Like those. Things are smoke machines. That's for sure. Hmm. The, uh, he had, uh, we found out about him. He had made Barry Stein's kilo years ago. That's when I met him the first time and he's just been plugging along and he loves those smaller ring gauges. So if you want something with flavor and something with body and something, and you don't mind something a little on the smaller side compared to where

cigars are going, uh, he doesn't make anything bigger than a 50 ring gauge. Uh, and a ring gauge is one 64th of an inch to put that into perspective. So a one inch cigar would be 64 ring gauge, uh, one inch across. He just doesn't make big cigars. So you've gotta be able to deal with the small cigars, which I like, because then I can have many different small cigars throughout the day. And I don't feel like I've been smoked out.

Mr. Jonathan, tell everybody where they can listen to you live and, or in podcast. Uh, we're on the cigar authority. That's the th E cigar authority.com. You can catch us on Podbean or any place where there's any podcast, catcher, iHeartRadio, you name it, uh, YouTube or on rumble, Facebook live, uh, because just cuz I get kicked off Facebook doesn't mean everybody else is. So you could, you can listen on Facebook if you want. But yeah,

any place you can catch a podcast, uh, get a podcast catcher. The show's on. Number two in the burger bash, but number one in our hearts and the official cigar expert of the barbecue central show. Mr. Jonathan always appreciate time and we'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you so much. There he is. Mr. J cigar authority podcast, which can be found on all the podcast platforms. Of course. So if you're just getting into, this is what I would say.

If you're just getting into cigars, you don't know anything about it. You're dummy. Like I was a year ago, literally to the day, listening to this show, going back even two years into the archives. And it's been going on almost as long as my show has been going on. I believe they're starting their 13th year of live shows and I'm into my technical 14th year of live show broadcasting. But I did it two years as a podcast before that it's not a contest, but I win.

This show has single handedly helped to ramp up my learning curve on how to pick out flavors and brands to try and deals to be had and interviews with the industry insiders and the manufacturers. It's like the barbecue central show except it has to do with cigars. So if you're a fan or a new fan or you want to be a fan, this is a show I'm telling you to subscribe to immediately, if not sooner. And you will thank me for it. Mr.

J is one of the many co-hosts slash host of that show. And that's a, also a live show on Saturdays from noon to two Eastern. So I highly recommend it if you are getting into the lifestyle and we thank Mr. Jonathan for joining us for an extra segment to talk a little ours Before we wrap it up here this evening, I will talk to you about Vortec watch company by the way, guess we just got his new custom Vick, watch me two years in the making and we finally got

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Check out Vortec watches.com for more information that's Vortec watches.com and we'll be back to wrap the show up right after this stick around will be right back. Whole Packers, full racks legs, and thighs injecting butts. You've never heard this before. You might think you found the best triple X show ever. Let's get back to the most homo erotic host out there today. Greg Py.

All right, welcome back. And we thank Mr. Jonathan for joining us the last segment, his websites again, cigar authority.com. And if you're looking to buy stuff online because you don't live next to a brick and mortar retailer, that carries the stuff that you like, and you're gonna go online to buy it. The number two guys, cigars.com is that website. I am a semi frequent customer there.

So it is trusted and tried by yours truly. All right, let's go ahead and make tracks outta here all the way back in the first hour. It was Ray Lampe, Dr. Barbecue. We talked about Turkey. We talked about his Turkey tour that he won on in Illinois, no less, which sounded fabulous. He's gonna be at the American Royal this year. So look him up 280 teams are gonna be taking place in a Turkey contest with the American Royal only most Sign up.

If there's still time, push it to 300, that would be spectacular for Turkey who doesn't love Turkey. Are we all committing that we're gonna eat Turkey boar in between now and Thanksgiving and then after Thanksgiving and the next Thanksgiving,

I'm really gonna try to do it this time. This time I really, after Ray Lampe, it was John Furman from bub and mothers.com, B mothers, spiced and barbecue rub learned about his story, giving back to veterans at the local charities there, but looking to do it on more of a national scale, this is where we're starting now. So try those rubs out right now, pub and mothers.com. And in the second hour, Johnny mag from pit life, barbecue made his day. You just stop.

Give me a second to finish what I'm doing. Johnny mags made his debut. Also, Mr. Jonathan from the Eastern authorities podcast was also in that mix and we recapped their big burger bash that they had at two guys earlier in the month.

Mr. Jonathan trained his hand at a kind of like white castle burger, Johnny mags, going all in on the double smash burger with Tato cheese dogs and pretzel bond, which ended up winning the day and a hundred bucks in cash in his pockets of boots, which he should have walked right into the humidor. Two guys to spent that a hundred bucks, why not give it back and that Mr. J hanging out for an additional segment, talking about the latest and greatest the cigar world right now,

big show plan for you next week. Of course saying the cooking guy is in Malcolm. Reid is in we'll catch up with him to see what's going on with that Memphis in may and the $7,800 non-refundable deposit situation. Other interviews are being lined up as well. So how do I always leave you September 11th, 2001. I will never forget until next Tuesday at 9:00 PM. Eastern. This is your program host and proud us American at Greg re good night now.

Hi, this Isover the barbecue. You're listening to the barbecue central show. Have a hum.