About Us – Old Hoss BBQ
Old Hoss BBQ is where a Lockhart backyard cook tells you what the glossy pitmaster videos won’t.
I’m Rhett Hollister. I live in Lockhart, Texas — the barbecue capital — with my wife Kate and our two kids, June (9) and Sam (7). During the week I work a regular job. On weekends the backyard becomes the main event: my grandfather’s old cast-iron offset smoker, still called Old Hoss, sitting next to a newer one I’ve slowly learned to trust. Inside the kitchen, my mother’s handwritten pie-crust and kolache cards live in a flour-dusted binder, now covered in my own notes, probe temperatures, and the occasional “never again” scrawl.
I’ve entered a handful of local and regional BBQ competitions. Won a People’s Choice here, a Best Sauce there — nothing that would get me on television, but enough to know what judges look for and, more importantly, what a regular family cook doesn’t need to bother with. Most of what I know came from the Saturdays that didn’t go as planned: the $90 brisket that dried out, the fire that died at hour four, the pecan pie that collapsed because I trusted the recipe more than the thermometer.
I write here because the internet is full of perfect smoke rings and “set it and forget it” promises. Someone needs to say what actually happened when the fire ran hot, the bark went soft, or the crust never flaked — and then show the fix that worked the next time. No chef titles. No brand deals. No “10 secrets the pros don’t want you to know.” Just one guy’s paper trail of burns, saves, and the meals that finally made it to the table.
The Rule
The smoke doesn’t lie.
Neither does the thermometer. Everything else follows from there.
What You’ll Find
Real backyard cooks: brisket, ribs, sausage, pulled pork, and the turkey that almost ruined Thanksgiving — written the way they actually happened.
Baking that survives a nine-year-old’s “help”: pecan pie, Texas sheet cake, kolaches, biscuits, and the desserts that disappear first on game day.
The failures first. Every post starts with what went wrong before it gets to what finally worked.
Competition tricks tested at home — the ones worth keeping and the ones that only make sense when you’re chasing a ribbon.
The slow, ordinary life around the food: fishing trips that end on the smoker, Longhorns Saturdays, kids measuring brown sugar, and the quiet stretch between temperature alarms.
I’m not here to build a personal brand. I’m here because too much barbecue advice assumes you have a $3,000 offset, a commercial kitchen, and no one under four feet tall running through the yard. I cook for the opposite.
Outside the Backyard
Married to Kate, a middle-school science teacher, for more years than I’ll admit in public. June and Sam are old enough to notice when the bark is right and young enough to still think lighting charcoal is the best part of the day. Most mornings that aren’t a cook day, I’m on Lake Travis or Buchanan with a rod, chasing catfish and bass that sometimes end up in the smoker by evening. Fall through bowl season, the Longhorns game is on while the firebox stays lit. Same principle whether it’s a football score or a brisket: you can’t rush what’s already in motion.
Why This Exists
YouTube makes a twelve-hour brisket look effortless. Forums reward the loudest voice. I write the opposite: exact temperatures when they matter, the wrong guess before the right fix, and the kind of advice you’d get from the neighbor who walks over with a beer, looks at your fire, and says, “You’re running a little hot, bud — here, let me show you.”
Pull up a chair. The coffee’s on. The smoke doesn’t lie.
— Rhett Hollister
Old Hoss BBQ
Lockhart, Texas