Meat Texas Entrepreneur Jess Pryles, Owner of Hardcore Carnivore
- Whitney Alswede
- Mar 31
- 5 min read
Jess Pryles knows meat. The Hardcore Carnivore creator’s education in Texas barbecue started in 2008, when she first visited Artz Rib House in Austin. “It was the most incredible flavor experience, and I became obsessed,” she says. “It’s crazy not eating something like that your whole life, and all of a sudden, getting a chance to taste a whole-new flavor.”
She had fallen in love, and she’d fallen hard. Determined to replicate the taste at her home in Australia, Jess says she was surprised when she ordered brisket from her local butcher, only to have it look completely different. “I was like, ‘Hang on, this is about a quarter of the size of what you’re using in Texas,’ and it was really frustrating. I didn’t understand how I could ask for the same thing and get something so different. And so that just led me to start asking a lot of questions.”
Jess shared her pursuit for answers on social media, creating what she calls a “love letter to Texas,” and connected with like-minded barbecuers and meat lovers while traveling between Austin and Australia. Eventually, her questions would lead her to standing alongside legendary pitmaster John Mueller and even earning a graduate certificate in meat science from Iowa State University.
“I grew up in an environment where I didn’t really know much about purchasing meat,” she says. “I knew I liked steak, but I never ate it at home. I only saved it for when I was out at restaurants because it seemed expensive."
I wasn’t sure what cuts to buy, I wasn’t sure how to cook it exactly…. I started to learn and realize that cooking meat and buying meat is not as difficult as people think—they just need it demystified for them.”
Today, Jess Pryles is synonymous with her Hardcore Carnivore brand, which includes rubs, sauces, smoked sausage, a cookbook (as well as a new one in the works), kitchen and grilling tools and even a TV show. She says she hopes to empower the home chef and take the mystery out of meat. “The Hardcore Carnivore lifestyle is kind of leaning into empowering yourself with little pieces of info…. I think there’s a lot of power in community.”
Jess Pryles’ 7 Tips for Cooking a ‘Steakhouse-Worthy’ Meal at Home
Keep an eye out for prime beef at choice prices.
“Beef is graded by a human being, and humans are fallible,” she says. “So they use a picture and they hold it up against the meat and they say, ‘Hmm… does it have this much marbling in it?’ (Marbling is the little veins of fat in the meat that actually determine quality.) The more of that there is, the more tender the meat will be and the more flavor it’ll have.
That’s the difference between select, prime and choice. And sometimes they can grade things as choice that might have been prime…. Always keep an eye out for choice, and if it looks really good to you—like it looks really marbled—that’s a great buy because you’re paying less than it could have technically been priced.”
Invest in a meat thermometer.
“The easiest thing [you] can do is to buy a really good-quality meat thermometer,” Jess says.
“It is the ultimate pro tool for getting good with cooking meat, because when it comes to things like beef and venison and red meats, it will tell you when your food is cooked to the exact doneness…. You can know exactly when you’re at that safe temp without having to cook it any longer than necessary…. The more you cook [meat], the more [you’re] cooking the water out of it.”
Jess recommends purchasing a ThermoWorks Thermapen: “You’ll make that investment once, and then it’ll last you years. It’s a one-second reading and highly calibrated—it’s what all of the pros use.”
When it comes to choosing between grass- and grain-fed beef, never feel bad about sticking with your budget.
“I think we’ve been programmed to think that grain-fed is bad somehow compared to grass-fed. It’s kind of like milk or milk with Vitamin D,” she says. “All beef has iron, zinc and B-12. Grass-fed is going to have a little bit more Omega-3 fatty acids and higher amounts of CLAs [conjugated linoleic acids], which is linked to decreases in blood pressure, and it’s also lower in mono-saturated fat. On the other hand, grain-fed beef actually has a lower carbon footprint. There’s a lot of fear marketing in meat, and oftentimes, it’s manufactured by small producers that don’t have any choice but to take that angle to sell against the big guys because they can’t compete on price. So they’ll make claims like ‘healthier’ or ‘safer,’ when there’s nothing ‘healthier’ or ‘safer’ about beef.”
Transform meat using a trimming knife.
“I think everyone should have [a trimming knife] in their kit,” Jess says. “It’s the same type of knife that butchers and meat processors will use, but it doesn’t have to be expensive…. If you’re buying a pork tenderloin, or even a whole pork loin, or briskets, for example, there’s a lot of membrane on the outside of whole muscles. And that membrane, sometimes we call that ‘silver skin,’ can be really tough. Not all butchers remove it because the more work the butcher needs to do the more the price is going to go up…. So if you can just remove it yourself... that’s the difference between having a great experience and having to reach into your mouth and pull out a little bit of something that just won’t chew right.”
Don’t be afraid to ask the meat counter if you don’t see what you want.
“There are some grocery stores that are a little bit more dynamic than others, in terms of customer service,” she says. “You shouldn’t ever be afraid to ask. Sometimes, they can get cuts in for you; they can special order for them as well. If you’ve been curious to try something you’ve never seen on the shelves, it’s always at least worth a question.”
Add a vacuum sealer to your kitchen tool kit.
“The best meat is meat that has a little aging on it—that’s why you hear people talk about ‘dry aging’ and ‘wet aging.’ Most grocery stores are already going to age their meat to some extent, and, honestly, just being vacuum-sealed, that’s wet aging. Usually, most of the meat you’re exposed to in the grocery store has at least one to two weeks of age on it, and that is a way to naturally tenderize the meat…. If you see something on sale at the grocery store, you can buy it, vacuum seal it, and you’ll automatically be able to put two more weeks at least of shelf life on it just sitting in your fridge, and even more in the freezer.”
Brine your meat for an explosion of juiciness.
“Just like we know about brining turkey, we can brine chicken, you can brine pork—any meat that you want to add extra juiciness to,” Jess says. “Meat is made up of water, and as you cook it, you’re going to lose some of that water. So brining actually adds more water to the meat before you start cooking it…. While it doesn't necessarily make it more tender, when the meat is juicier, we might perceive that sensation as also equating to tenderness. Either way, it's a win-win!"
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