Scott Moore has always made use of barbecue pits at the Tejas Chocolate Craftory, but he wasn’t smoking meat in the beginning. Tejas Chocolate was founded in 2011 as one of Texas’s only bean-to-bark chocolate makers. And if you’re starting straight from the cocao bean, a complicated process that only one hundred other chocolate makers in the U.S. employ, the first step is roasting the beans. Most people use an oven. Moore uses a barbecue pit, because “that’s what a good Texan would do,” he told the New York Times in 2014.
Moore perfected a roasting method for beans that he told the Times was the closest thing to “roasting low and slow like you would when you barbecue.” His business’s expansion into Texas barbecue, then, was a perfect fit. Now, Moore and his brother Greg—who he tapped to help him man the pits—serve up juicy brisket and succulent beef ribs alongside gourmet truffles and chocolate bars.
Our barbecue editor dropped in to Tejas Chocolate Craftory to chat with Scott and Greg about learning the ropes in the barbecue business.
Video by John Carrithers
