The National Braai Day founder teaches us how to spit braai and use a barrel smoker

Nobody knows a braai better than the founder of National Braai Day, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on Tuesday, 24 September 2024. His excellent new book, Atmosfire (with the subtitles Recipes, Techniques, and Advice), published by Penguin Books, boasts more than 200 braai recipes and is a mine of facts and fun insights into the braaier’s world. Its Afrikaans title is Atmosvuur.

As Heritage Day (its formal name) approaches, Jan Braai generously shares with TGIFood readers his insights into two of the most demanding things in the braaier’s world: the spit braai, and using a barrel smoker.

“For larger crowds and special occasions, it’s sometimes fun to open the barn and wheel out some of the bigger braai equipment,” writes Jan Braai in the book. Here is the full text from Atmosfire…

How to spit a whole lamb

Spit braai with Jan Braai. (Photos: Toby Murphy)

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• To spit a whole lamb you obviously need a whole lamb, one of around 18kg will feed about 35 people. You also need olive oil, quite a lot of coarse sea salt, quite a lot of crushed black pepper and quite a lot of dried oregano. You need wire to secure the lamb properly to the spit and you need a spray bottle, which we will get to later.


• For best results, make sure your lamb is at room temperature when it goes on to the spit. Remove it from the fridge or fetch it from the butcher a few hours in advance and cover it with a big cloth (a clean, old sheet works well).


• Wash all parts of the spit that will touch the lamb. You will be surprised how often spits are left dirty until the next spit braai.


• Tie the lamb to the spit using wire and a wire cutter (a great opportunity to use your multi tool!). You need to run the wire around the bone at each point where you tie it, as the meat will not hold when the lamb starts to cook and starts pole dancing in a bad way. Tie the lamb to the spit on its inside (belly side). First secure the spine to the spit pole lengthwise in at least four places. Then secure the four legs to the two rods running crosswise. These two cross-rods will usually be adjustable to the size of your lamb.


• Paint or smear olive oil all over the lamb and then rub it with the salt, pepper and oregano mix. You do not need to measure out the rub exactly – simply mix half salt, quarter pepper and quarter oregano. The main purpose of the olive oil is to make the spices stick to the meat.


• Place the lamb on the spit and rake coals to the areas under the shoulders and under the legs. You don’t need coals directly under the middle rib area as ribs cook quicker and will be done anyway by the time the legs and shoulders are done. For the next three to four hours, turn the lamb on a regular basis and top up the coals whenever it seems that there is not enough cooking action.


• Once the lamb is cooking, make your Salmuera by mixing about half a cup of the salt, pepper and oregano mix with a cup of boiling water. The boiling water is to dissolve the salt. Now add another cup of cold water to it and then pour this mixture into a plastic spray bottle. Whenever you’re bored or someone wants to assist with the lamb spit, spray the lamb all over with the Salmuera.


• A lamb on the spit is ready to eat after an average of three to four hours. The exact time depends on factors such as: heat of coals; height of meat; wind (a crosswind can blow away a lot of your heat and lengthen the braaing time); whether your meat came straight from a fridge or was at room temperature when you placed it on the spit; and whether your spit is completely exposed or has one or more sides that are closed to the level of the lamb, which obviously steers more heat towards the meat.


• To test whether the lamb is done, stick a knife in the thick area where the spine, shoulder and neck join. You are going to carve up the meat anyway so this does no real harm at this stage. If the juice runs clear, the lamb is ready. Alternatively, use a meat digital instant-read food thermometer and check that the internal temperature of the thickest parts is 63°C. Another tactic to employ if you are not sure whether the lamb is ready is to simply start carving all parts that are ready while the lamb is still on the spit. When you reach the parts closer to the bone that are still a bit raw, then simply leave that meat on the carcass and continue braaing it. This ploy also works well when you have a lamb that will feed 35 people with only 20 present, as it delivers a steady flow of freshly braaied meat for everyone’s second round.


• Now it’s time to carve the lamb. Don’t be intimidated by the size. As with all meat, it’s better to rest it a few minutes before carving. When you carve, try to cut across the grain. If at first you don’t succeed, don’t despair – you have a whole lamb to practise on. The end goal is simply to get all the meat off the bone and into pieces.

• So, for example, if you want to eat at 6pm you need to have your brisket in by 8am, the pork shoulder in by 11am, the ribs in by noon and the wings in by 4.30pm.


• Go another hour back in time to get your fire going and to prep the meat and find some or other thing that you cannot find. So eating time minus cooking time minus another hour, that’s when you start to light the fire.


• You make the fire in the fire box. Start the fire and heat up the unit with the cheap braai wood available in your area. It absolutely does not matter which wood, but in most parts of South Africa this means wattle. You can use firelighters as normal to start this fire. We’re not smoking yet, we are simply getting a bed of coals in the heating unit. To be clear, the main part where the meat goes does not get a fire or coals.


• Smoke at 135°C. Wood is natural and I am not perfect and it’s impossible to keep it at exactly 135°C, so this means you aim to keep it between 130 and 140°C: as it starts to dip and approaches 130°C, add another piece of wood; if you added too much wood and it peaks above 140°C, quickly open the big door where the food goes in to let the whole unit lose a bit of heat.


• Always keep all the valves as open as possible, that means the valve at the chimney and the valve or door at the fire box. Theoretically you’re supposed to regulate temperature with these valves, but that’s not my way. Just leave the valves open so that the fire can burn cleanly. Obviously you close the big door where the meat goes in. By leaving all the valves as well as the door of the fire box open, we ensure the wood gets enough oxygen to burn properly.


• I like fires, making them and looking at them. I regulate temperature by adding another piece of wood when the temperature goes too low. This will use a bit more wood but the wood will burn clean and make normal grey and white smoke. If you close all the valves too much, the wood smoulders and makes that acrid dark grey and black smoke that stinks and burns your eyes, and your meat will also taste like that.


• Put a little bowl of water somewhere in the smoker part where the meat goes. It keeps the meat more moist.


• You rub the meat with salt and pepper. Nothing else. Sugar will burn and you are slowly smoking the meat to naturally get sweet. A smoky rub makes no sense as you are adding natural smoke. Everything else is just stupid in this case. Salt and pepper, that’s it. The smoke is the flavour profile. People have written encyclopaedias about trimming the different cuts of meat; I don’t agree with that at all. Bits of fat and weird corners on the meat make for interesting textures and flavours at the end. We’re not entering competitions, we’re trying to make great food.


• Once there is a bed of coals in the fire box and the unit is around 135°C, add the meat.


• Now put one log or piece of hardwood on the coals in the fire box. One piece at a time. The harder the wood the better, then you don’t have to add a new piece as often. As you’re keeping the valves open and the wood burns a clean smoke while smothering that unpleasant black smoke, I feel that the choice of wood makes little noticeable difference. So something like sekelbos works very well for me, as it’s harder, burns slower and you consequently don’t need a new piece so often. But rooikrans will work fine as well. You just need a new piece more often. With a proper bed of coals you never need more than one piece at a time. After a while you will get the hang of it and figure out at what stage of the previous piece of wood’s life cycle you should add a new one.


• Sometimes you will open the lid to look at the meat for no particular reason. That’s how the human brain works. When you do this, also spray the meat with salted water or a mix of water and apple juice or a mix of water and vinegar. This, and your bowl of water, will keep the meat a bit more moist on the outside. I absolutely don’t think you should attempt to have a completely smooth and even-looking piece of meat. I like the fact that some bits are dried and more caramelised than others. As opening the door makes the whole system lose heat, a good time to satisfy your curiosity is every time the heat spikes above 140°C.


• Wrap the meat after two-thirds of the cooking time. So wrap the brisket after six of the nine hours. Wrap the pork shoulder after four of the six hours, and wrap the ribs after three of the five hours. The brisket and pork shoulder you wrap in baking paper. The ribs have bones so you wrap them in tinfoil. Before wrapping the former two, spray them again with your water and whatever mix. Before wrapping the ribs, baste them with the chicken wings sauce on page 183 of this book. Chicken wings are not wrapped in the barrel smoker. Just smoke them for 90 minutes until done.


• After wrapping each piece of meat at its respective time, back into the smoker for the remainder of the cooking time, keeping the smoker at about 135°C.


• Thirty minutes before serving, remove the meat and let it rest in shade at “room temperature” but somewhere safe. Safe means where dogs, hyenas, baboons and similar African animals will not steal it. Don’t rest the chicken wings – serve them immediately as a snack.


• Unwrap and serve. If you follow the steps above, all the meat will at this stage taste wonderful, so you can completely relax. Slice the brisket and if you slightly overshot and it falls apart, don’t panic, tell everyone you intended to pull the brisket and simply pull the meat apart. Pull the pork and if it doesn’t pull don’t panic, act normal and slice it. The rib bones will most likely pull clean out of the racks. Test one privately, and if it works do the rest in front of people so they can admire your skills. Otherwise, just cut the ribs into individual portions.


• After extensive research, the above simple steps are how I settled on smoking meat in a barrel smoker, and this works absolutely fine and is perfect for me. Don’t overthink it, enjoy! DM