the barbeque exchange

thebbqexchange is wonderful! i highly recommend the fried pickles, the cornbread, mac & cheese, hushpuppies, and pulled chicken bbq! the qx sweet sauce is also delicious. good food all around!

bestbbqaround. i have eaten here many times over the past year, food is excellent, wait staff is super friendly and i have never had a bad meal here.
only downside is the gravel driveway, i'm a biker and the gravel is loose, not compacted at all and it's small so you tend to fight with cars and on a motorcycle it's difficult in that driveway. if they added a load of crushed run to the big gravel that would help tremediously!
all and all a fantastic place to eat and a great value!

greatbbqspot to stop for lunch. very well-kept little restaurant in a quaint small-town setting. the menu has lots of options all good. pulled pork, brisket sliced or chopped, and chicken. were what we tried. you can get sandwiches or plates. the sandwich buns are small or large but not too big so easy to add sides. we enjoyed the cole slaw, french fries collard greens, and broccoli salad along with our sandwiches. the meat was so flavorful but we had to try a few of the barbecue sauces -they had 6 different kinds! i definitely recommend a stop here for a delicious meal. they even have a front porch if you want to eat outside!!

once great, now below par.. i have had good meals here before, but something has changed. upon arriving, the first thing i noticed that was different is that the smokers weren't being used. i thought perhaps they had smoked the meats for the day. no problem. but when we entered the restaurant, there was also zero smokybbqaroma. even if the meats had already been smoked for the day, the aroma should come back out of them when reheated. we ordered a pulled pork sandwich with fries and slaw, and a platter with 3 ribs, brisket, beans, slaw, and cornbread. we had sweet tea to drink.

the server attempted to give me the last of the drippings and bits in the bottom of the tray, but i asked for new slices if possible. they were brought to my table after we received everything else and sat down. the portion was small, just 3 small slices, but as the platter is only 11.99, i was ok with it. one third of each slice was fat. right away, this told me that the brisket had not been smoked for any amount of time, because if properly cooked, this fat should render away to a nice crispy layer. there was no smoky flavor at all. the meat was tender and tasted ok, it just didn't have thatbbqflavor.

when i picked the ribs up out of the serving tray, i noticed that there was at least a teaspoon of oil left in the tray and the ribs had an oily coating. they tasted ok, and although very tender and falling off the bone, were the only meat we had that had a smoky flavor at all.

the pulled pork was dry and bland with no smoke.

the beans most likely came from a can labeled van camps, as they were the same unnatural orange color. they had added something to them, perhaps mustard and vinegar, but they didn't contain any chipped, smoked meat like i've had at every otherbbqhouse i've ever been to.

the slaw and fries were standard. nothing special.

the meats and beans were all lukewarm. definitely not up to health department regulated temperatures.

on a positive note, the tea was excellent, the service was great, and the atmosphere is very pleasant.

i like to support local restaurants instead of chains any time i can, but it will be difficult for me to try it again. hopefully someone will read this and take constructive criticism and fix the problems. we'll give it a month and try again. i will update my review at that point and hope to post more positive results.

this post was deleted from google reviews within 48 hours of being posted, and i'm sure it will be deleted again.

bbq!. worth the hour drive from charlottesville to have lunch here. thebbqis solid and has great flavors. nice choice of sauces at the tables. you can see the smokers behind the restaurant working away. the inside is cool and they have a pack man machine there. very friendly staff. cool place worth a visit for sure.

best barbeque in virginia and north carolina. barbeque is an art, and chef hartman's establishment exhibits the greatness of his craft. i frequently travel along eastern north carolina, and try abbqjoint whenever i see one in a town. the one thing those establishments lack, is hardwood cooking (most use gas.) i was amazed to finally find the barbeque exchange which produces pulled pork the way it should be done, slow on hardwood coals. when you first walk in, the subtle sweet smell of hickory wood is evident. the pulled pork sandwich is served on a fresh bakery roll. at the tables, six unique sauces, ranging from vinegar carolina (eastern), to molasses base sauce are available. the complexity of flavors on the pork were so good i didn't feel the need to put any sauce on the sandwich. the next day, my wife and i went back to pick some for a later date. service was great, chef hartman even took the time to explain to us the process to freeze the pork during the busy lunch hour.

great service and awesome bbq. i prefer their meat combo with porkbbqand brisket. they also serve pork belly if you are into that. there are about 6 types of sauces you can choose from, i usually stick with the eastern carolina style. great place to grab a great sandwich and beer. worth the drive from louisa.

creosotebbq:ash tray bbq. thanks for the feed back. well, you are right! i have not just cooked 6oo lbs of bbq. i probably cooked over 20,000 lbs. lol. also i have won 4 grand championship in kcbs ( look it up ) i finished 5th in pork in about 500 teams in the american royal! ( again look it up!) first place in sauce in nc twice. go figure!
,have you ever seen thin blue smoke - the highly desired color and amount of smoke coming out of the exhaust of a smoker.

i am very simple man, that is why i cook bbq
here is my explanation of what i am trying to convey:

wood does not burn directly. rather, when heat is applied it first undergoes a process of thermal degradation called pyrolysis in which the wood breaks down into a mixture of volatiles and solid carbonaceous char. the cellulose and hemicellulose form mainly volatiles while the lignin mainly forms the char. exactly what products are formed by each depends upon the temperature, heating rate, particle size, and any catalysts that might be present.

the solid char remains in place. what goes up with the volatiles are a gas fraction (carbon monoxide and dioxide, some hydrocarbons, and elemental hydrogen), a condensed fraction (water, aldehydes, acids, ketones, and alcohols), and -- here we go! -- a tar fraction (sugar residues from the breakdown of cellulose, furan derivatives, phenolic compounds, and -- pay attention here -- airborne particles of tar and charred material which form the smoke.

if oxygen is present and the temperature is sufficiently high, burning of the volatiles occurs. when temperatures are too low or when there is insufficient oxygen for complete combustion of the volatiles, smoldering occurs. this is characterized by smoking, the emission of unoxidized pyrolysis products. (this is the awful tasting stuff, creosote, that will give barbecue a bitter taste. (iebbqexchange! ) if the temperature is high enough and sufficient oxygen is present, then flaming combustion occurs with less smoking and more complete oxidation of the pyrolysis products. further pyrolysis of volatiles during flaming combustion may cause char particles (soot) to form.

the remaining lignin char burns in the presence of oxygen in glowing combustion. these are my beloved coals that yield the thin blue smoke that makes great barbecue! and, that's why it is so important to preburn the wood to coals."


conclusion:
thin blue smoke good , white smoke bad!
i believe in the truth.
craig, i challenge you to prove yourself and cook at a national kcbs sanctionbbqcontest with the way you cook at the exchange. if you place in the top five over all , i would be very happy to retract my statements.

i just like good bbq. if you need any help, i would love to help you!
sincerely thebbqsnob!

stop looking, bestbbqfound here. i have family stretched from va through the carolinas and been eat'n q since i was a tot. i regulary attend the annual blue ridge fest and helped a team at memphis a few years ago. this herebbqstacks up against any i've eaten, and that's alot. the warmth of a family run place only adds to the ambience. you can taste the tlc. for abbqnut like me, its worth traveling a few hours.

i am a vegetarian..... and i ate well at thisbbqjoint. it was awesome. mac'n'cheese, fried green tomatoes, and spicy slaw...maybe not the healthiest, but delicious none the less.

overrated.bbqexchange isnt awful but it's gotten a lot of hype for what's essentially an average place. pulled pork is far better at belmontbbqand the bread they serve it on isnt doing things any favors. ribs were fall-off-the-bone but the smoky taste & dry-rub spice were lacking. so the porkbbqwas disappointing, but their brisket was damn fine. matter of fact, if you went there and just had a brisket sandwich, you'd be fine. i've had far worsebbqin charlottesville (and that blue ridge pig joint is a joke). but this would be 2nd ratebbqfurther south.

un-obscurebbqin a completely obscure town. of all the road trips i've taken one of the bestbbqjoints i've found is found right at home. off the beaten path but worth the drive... a rugged but classy establishment this is what abbqjoint is supposed to be. if you're abbqconnoisseur or just a fan of getting fed, don't miss this one!

i eat here alot. never been let down. the food is amazing. it's 52 steps ahead of all otherbbqplaces.