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At Saddleback, Craft BBQ all starts with the type of smoker that we use. We use a completely wood fired reverse flow smoker to get the best results. In order to get the best smoke possible to give you the best tasting food we have to burn all wood (no gas fired smokers here). Sure, it would be easier and we would sleep more if we used a gas fired smoker, but we think an all wood smoker offers our customers the best possible BBQ flavor.

What is a Reverse Flow Smoker?

Smokers are pretty primitive designs. You have a fire box to provide heat to cook your food and the smoke stack helps by pulling the heat and smoke across your food to flavor it. Where the fire box and smoke stack are located in relation to each other defines what type of smoker it is. With an offset smoker the stack is on the opposite side of the fire box and is offset to the fire box. On a reverse flow the fire box and stack are on the same side. The smoke travels down the length of the cooking chamber and then reverses and leaves the stack on the same side as the fire box. Why do we like the reverse flow? Well since the air is going down and then back it makes the temp in the cooking chamber more even. Also, we are able to add on another cooking chamber to the back of the main chamber directly above the fire box to cook on. Since we are limited by space to cook all of our proteins the extra space is very important.

What is the importance of all wood fired smokers in providing the best BBQ?

Great question. The best, most powerful seasoning for BBQ is smoke. Rubs are important and we will explain those in another blog, but they pale in comparison to good quality smoke. Smoke is made up of quite a few different chemicals, but what mostly flavors your food are the kinds that you can’t see with the naked eye. So the smoke that you can barely see, with just a slight blue tint, is what we are after. In order to get that type of smoke you need to have fires that have enough oxygen and are burning pretty efficiently. Air flow for us is of the most importance. We have actually lengthened our smoke stacks on our smokers so that they pull more air. We never, ever, use dampers to limit the flow of oxygen to our fires. Since our fires burn efficiently, with enough oxygen, we get that blue smoke we are after. Blue smoke has all the complexity that we know and love without the acrid, bitter after taste that you get with fires that burn inefficiently and have a distinctive white look to them.

If this was easy everyone would do it. We spend lots of time staring at fires and trying to predict what fires are going to do. We have to be able to keep our temps extremely consistent (225°f) for hours and hours. It takes dedication and patience to pull this off, but we believe (very strongly) that this is the only way to get you the best BBQ available. Craft BBQ.

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Looking back on it, when we were searching for a location to open a BBQ restaurant more than a year ago it is now apparent that REO Town chose us, not the other way around. With its long proud history, we felt like REO Town provided a neighborhood with a soul and personality all her own. An area of town that offered more than just a storefront. REO Town is considered the birthplace of the commercial car market. More than one hundred years ago Ransom Eli Olds opened the REO Motor Car Company right in this very neighborhood. REO Town has experienced the ups and downs of the auto industry, as many of our Michigan communities have, but the neighborhood has persevered and become stronger because of these struggles. The long complicated history has made REO Town and its residents stronger, more diverse, more creative and more artistic. REO Town is a community with its own character that is shaped by its many challenges and many more opportunities.

When we opened Saddleback BBQ, we wanted to offer more than just a typical BBQ restaurant. We wanted to create premium Craft BBQ. Craft BBQ is rooted in our nation’s rich BBQ history, but with a twist that is all our own. Like REO Town, we respect our proud history and pay homage to it, but we also try to push our craft forward with new and creative updates that are happening all the time. Many of these updates are based on the feedback from people like you, our loyal customers.

A little BBQ History (The way we see it)

In the BBQ world there are 4 major regions that have contributed to making BBQ what it is today.

• Texas, with its German/Czech influence and abundance of cattle have contributed the classic salt and pepper brisket.

• Memphis, with it’s dry rubbed pork ribs have set a standard all her own.

• Kansas City brought a sweet, tomato, molasses bbq sauce to the party.

• The Carolina’s “Respect the Pig” mantra have contributed whole hog BBQ. Since they can’t agree on what sauce they like – they have also contributed a vinegary tomato spiced sauce and a classic mustard based sauce as well.

We at Saddleback have been greatly influenced by them all and now we have set off on our own path.

Saddleback’s Take on BBQ
We don’t do things the easy way. Like our forefathers, we only use all wood fires to cook all of our meats. That way we are only getting the best smoke to flavor our food. Why is that important? Because wood smoke is the best spice that you can use to flavor BBQ. With the sweet complex flavor you can only get from true wood fired smokers, we feel that’s the only way to BBQ. We could make it easier on ourselves, and sleep more, but we wanted to offer more for our BBQ.

Craft BBQ at Saddleback is about attention to detail. This includes: The choice of wood (a cherry hickory blend), the meat we use (Certified CAB briskets) and all of our side dishes are made from scratch. We believe this attention to detail provides our customers a truly special and unique experience. There are no short cuts. Our BBQ takes hours to make with constant attention to even the most mundane detail.

In our future blog posts we will go into more detail about our smokers and our whole “BBQ” process. We will also talk about our choice of smokers and why we have selected the wood that we use. We will also give an explanation of our sauces and the history of how they came about. Look for Craft BBQ 101 coming soon. If you have any questions that you would like us to cover, please let us know!

Thank you for your interest in Saddleback BBQ. We couldn’t do it without you.

• Matt Gillett, Brad Broughman and the Saddleback Team

*Disclaimer: This is how we see BBQ, but there are no right-or-wrong answers in BBQ. It all comes down to what you like and what tastes best to you. By no means are we saying that our way is the only way. This is just how we see BBQ and we look forward to hearing from you!

We’ve heard complaints from several people that they have missed our Facebook updates or that our emails are being delivered to the “promotions” section of Gmail. We put together this quick tutorial to teach you how to fix it so that you can keep updated on special events, news, menu changes and discounts!

Here’s how to make sure you see our updates on Facebook:

1. Go to the Saddleback BBQ Facebook Page

2. Click on the “Like” button at the top and select “Posts in News Feed”

4. Select “See First”

Bonus: If you’d like to receive notifications about our updates so you don’t miss anything, click on the Notifications Tab and choose which events you’d like to be notified of.

Not seeing our Emails?

If you are having trouble receiving our emails in Gmail, they could be going to the “Spam” or “Promotions” folder. Here is how to fix that. Go to your Spam folder select the email and click “Not Spam”. If our email is ending up in your “Promotions” folder, select the email and choose “Not Promotions”. If you’re having trouble finding the “Promotions” folder it could be located under “Categories” in the left hand menu.

That’s all there is to it! We hope this helps. If you have any questions feel free to email us using the About Us page.