A Viral Photo Of ‘The Worst Brisket Ever’ Led To Everyone Sharing Their BBQ Porn

Texas Barbecue is often a treat for the senses. Smoky turkey breast, cracking spicy sausages, sides of beans, slaw, and potato salad, stacks of sliced white bread, and, of course, brisket. When all of these elements are dialed in, Texas bbq is damn-near perfection. When the cooking elements are less than ideal, things can go off the rails pretty fast.

Twitter-user Brian Hooven experienced a brisket-related travesty when he tried a new bbq joint in Texas this past week. He ordered brisket and posted it on his Twitter account with the caption: “Trying out a new barbecue place and this has to be the saddest looking brisket I’ve ever seen, wtf.”

Here’s a later response:

Yeah, that’s a pretty sad looking brisket. The texture looks deadly dry. The color is just a sad brown/grey (as if it was boiled, maybe?). There’s no sign of smoke, seasoning, or fat. Whoever is cooking that brisket has failed at barbecue and, dare we say, failed Texas.

Hooven’s tweet caught the attention of the Twitter-verse and folks chimed in in droves with their disbelief at the sight of that sad brisket. The tweet has 28.5 thousand likes so far and over 7,000 comments, most of which were of disgust, sadness, and perhaps a little too much anger.

https://twitter.com/AndyBCampbell/status/1165332634119168001?s=20

https://twitter.com/sqddxjQ48j/status/1164990050335166465?s=20

The fun part was when people started tweeting out what a good brisket should look like: Juicy, fatty, covered in a peppery spice bark, smoky. Let the mouth-watering commence.

See? That’s better! What’s amazing to us is that brisket is so simple to make — so a version that far off ideal is a bit baffling, especially coming out of Texas. Salt, pepper, curing salt, low and slow heat until it reaches 156f, rest in a paper wrap, done. This isn’t rocket science, people.