February 26, 2024 • 26 mins
Nordo chats with Johan Magnusson, founder of Big Swede BBQ in the Phoenix area. Born in Sweden, he turned his passion for cooking into a career, and he's in town this weekend for the Up North Expo at the Minneapolis convention center! It's a conversation about flavor, fire and even some football!
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(00:05):
Welcome to Hops and Hoggs. It'sa podcast that takes the local beer community,
the local barbecue community and turns himinto one conversation. Normally I'd be
with Ken from Heavy Rotation brewing theguys from Northern Fire, and we're doing
another episode soon. But this isan interview I did with Johann Magnuson,
owner of Big Swede Barbecue down inthe Phoenix area. Born in Sweden,
(00:25):
he fell in love with backyard cookingand he's made a career out of it.
He's in town this weekend at theup North Expo Friday through Sunday at
the Minneapolis Convention Center. Also midMarch in Madison, Wisconsin. He's on
the cooking stage sharing his expertise sofrom Stockholm to the States, from playing
American football in Europe to mastering flavorson the grill in Arizona. I had
(00:46):
a blast talking to Johan, andyou can hear him he's pumped to be
up here for the expo. Well, thanks for having me on first of
all, and yeah, I'm verypumped to come up to Minneapolis. I
live in Arizona, so we havehot and warm way. Grew up in
Sweden, so it's always great tocome up to the colder temperatures as a
reminder why I left Sweden in thefirst place. I love it though,
(01:08):
I'm excited. I can't wait.It's going to be a fun show.
We have great recipes lined up andjust spending a couple of days talking food
and cooking and barbecue and grilling.There is nothing better than that. Yeah,
it's super excited. And it's aninteresting concept with the up North Expo
because there will be seminars. It'sreally connecting people that love kind of like
(01:29):
what you love doing from a cookingstandpoint, being outdoors, whether it's the
nature side of it, it's thecabin culture. Everyone, it feels like
in Minnesota has a cabin. Johanna, you know the weather up here maybe
closer to what you knew when yougrew up in Sweden. So you know,
stupid question out of the way.Then I suppose the link here you
and big Sweden barbecue. That tellsme that you were born in Sweden,
(01:52):
that you are of Swedish descent,and you may happen just to be a
larger person. Is that accurate?That is correct? My wife actually wants
me to be a little bit lessbig sweet barbecue. But now now that
we have a brand, I needto protect it. So she just have
to hashtag deal with it. Butyeah, originally from Sweden. Moved here
(02:15):
about twenty years ago. My wife'sAmerican, and so it was either for
me to you know, move tosunny Arizona where we have three hundred and
twenty six days of sun per year, or for her to come to Sweden
in Stockholm. And I thought,hey, why not Arizona sounds like a
great place and I love it here. The US is a wonderful place.
(02:37):
And being able to cook outdoors andbe able to share I find that a
lot of people, especially like inMinnesota where they have cabins, we have
the same thing. In Sweden,people a lot of times cook exactly the
same thing. They might do somehot dogs, they might do some steaks,
they might cook up some salmon,but a lot of times we cook
(03:00):
the same thing. And I thinkthat the curiosity and trying to cook different
things when you're either camping or cookingat the cabin, that's really what we
will be trying to sort of maybeshare some thoughts and ideas, and there
are other things than just steaks andthe howt dogs in the salmon. Well,
you bring up something interesting because Ipicture and I'm Norwegian, But that
(03:23):
doesn't necessarily mean I was born andraised here in Minnesota. We're in We're
in Scandinavian country up here, soyou'll fit right in Johan. Yeah,
but I'm not. I'm not makinglefts and eating lutafisk on a regular basis
those sorts of things. So you'velived in the United States for about two
decades, you say, how,how what's the stark contrast? Are there
(03:44):
any similarities in terms of if you'redoing barbecue and Stockholm, are you working
with different flavors on average? Whatare some some comparisons in contrasts I guess
between from a barbecue or a flavorstandpoint, both at home and Stockholm and
here in the US. Well,I think the biggest, biggest difference,
and I think it's changing. Ithink Europe, then Sweden too, is
(04:04):
getting more and more influenced by Americanbarbecue. You see, like when I
left, barbecue basically was grilling fora couple of weeks during the summer when
the weather was nice, and normallyit will be steaks or hot dogs,
often very underseasoned compared to what wedo here in the US. Like in
(04:28):
Sweden, there's this thing that youshould only use salt and pepper because you
want to taste the meat. AndI think that that's slowly changing that if
you can infuse it with garlic andonions and paprika and just brings out so
much more depth to it, whynot do that? So it's changing.
Like I said, when I leftSweden, it was very marinated pork steaks
(04:54):
on disposable grills, and nowadays theyactually have barbecue competition. You have quite
a few barbecue restaurants too throughout Sweden. So it's it's changing slowly as we
I think, as as this worldbecomes more and more global. Absolutely,
Now, when you're up the whenyou're at the up North Expo this weekend
(05:14):
at the Minneapolis Convention Center, areyou sharing recipes? Are you demoing a
certain product like I see you're connectedwith Wppo and that this Infinity hybrid oven
that you'll actually be using as partof the festivities. And you know kind
of the innovation in barbecue you mentionedfrom the disposable grill, the old school
charcoal weber, it's never failed mebefore to some of the ways that you're
(05:36):
able to create food and and andinfuse it with whatever outdoor indoor space you
have. It's it's really impressive.So so what are you doing at the
up North Expo this weekend from adisplay, teaching and maybe a tasting standpoint.
Yeah, so the whole idea behindI think whenever you cook and you
demo something, you have to haverecipes that you can cook them. Basically
(05:59):
a grilled smoker, pizzaven whatever youwant to use, because it's you shouldn't
be limited by the tools that youuse for grilling. So we picked a
couple of recipes that whether you havea weber or you have a tragger,
or you have a pizza, thenlike the wppo that we will use,
you should be able to or justan open fire and then maybe some cast
(06:20):
iron pants, you should be ableto cook these. So we're going to
do a couple of different things.We're going to do a salmon with being
Norwegian, of you would like this, it's actually a Norwegian masters a sauce
called sun the Fiord sauce, whichis really delicious. So we're going to
do that. We're going to doa buffalo chicken dip, because why not.
(06:44):
It's great. It's it's perfect whenyou're it's a little bit cold outside
and you get that hot buffalo chicken. It's it's awesome. We're going to
do a wild Mushroom Coast because alot of times when people are up in
the cabins, you can forage ormushrooms, and I think that one of
the things that I grew up witha lot most was actually mushrooms, and
(07:06):
I think it's delicious, but mostpeople don't know how to cook it and
they're a little bit afraid of tryingthem. So we're going to do that,
and then we have a couple ofsurprises that we're going to throw in
as well. But we're going todo a flatbread smoked salmon flatbread super simple
to make but packed with flavors.Well, that sounds so fantastic. Big
(07:27):
Swede Barbecue dot com is about tolearn more about. Johann Upnorthexpo dot com
to learn more about So it's inMinneapolis this weekend. In mid March,
Madison, Wisconsin, there'll be anotherevent that Johann's going to be president at
as well. Now, Johann atsome point and you know this. You
were just a big Swede. Itwasn't Big Swede barbecue. You were just
(07:47):
a guy that loved cooking. Whendid you decide, like, Wow,
my love, my passion, myfascination with flavors and with cooking in general
is such that I'm going to makea career out of it. I've always
enjoyed cooking. I think that that'sprobably common for anybody who does this.
And when I moved out here andtried brisket for the first time, I
(08:09):
was just blown away because back thenwe didn't really have brisket. The brisket
that we ate back in Sweden wassort of cooked, boiled, no flavor.
What's very horrible, horrible, horrible. And you tried barbecue brisket for
the first time and I was justhooked, and I said, I want
to learn how to do this.And that was when they had all these
barbecue pitmaster shows on TVs. Ithought, maybe that's a cool thing.
(08:33):
So we started up Big Sweet Barbecueas a barbecue competition team in the beginning,
and it was fun, but ittook me maybe ten fifteen competitions to
realize I don't necessarily enjoy the competitionpart of it, because I don't think
barbecue is about my barbecue is betterthan yours. I have so many friends
(08:54):
that is in that space, andI admire the hard work and the grind
of doing that every week and thencompete and getting to that barbecue perfection.
But you were kind of limited inwhat you could do. Like a steak
needs to be cooked to medium,and for me personally, that's an overcooked
(09:16):
steak. I like mine medium rare. So there were a couple of things
like that that I felt it's notfun. So then I thought, what
else can we do? So that'show we have barbecue rubs. We did
a cookbook and now we do moreof these classes and demos and basically changed
the idea of Big Sweet Barbecue toteach people how to cook better food outside.
(09:39):
And I love it. There's nothingbetter than And there's just a few
things that people can change from howthey do things today that will make a
huge difference in the way that thefood comes out, and being able to
share some of those sort of practicesand tips and tricks. It's a ton
of fun. I love it now. Amazing story, and I love what
(10:01):
you said about the competition. Angleof it too, and I know where
friends with people in the competition circuit, they absolutely love it, which is
great. Yeah, the one questionas an outsider, Johann, that would
kind of frustrate me, And youmentioned it a little bit, you know,
trying to trying to make the processis so uniform to limit the deviation.
You know in the end that thesubjective nature of taste, right,
(10:22):
whether it's how you want your steakdone, the flavor of a particular rub.
It feels like more and more peopleare gravitating towards a little bit of
heat with the sweet on their barbecue, and so, you know, the
subjective nature of taste alone. It'slike I could go to a barbecue contest,
Johann, every single one of themshould get first prize. And I'm
(10:43):
also a master barbecue judge, soI got certified because I wanted to,
you know, learn about different flavorprofiles. And it gets to that point
where you go, this is allgreat, and sometimes you have to score
it based upon how it's cooked,to the specific rule of whatever body it
(11:05):
is that you're competing in. SoKCBS Kansas City Barbecue Society, they have
certain rules on how the barbecue needsto be cooked, and you have some
other bodies in Texas and they havetheir different rules. So I think at
the end of the day, it'shard to judge, and I feel sometimes
(11:26):
that's also the flip side of competitivebarbecue judging, that you could actually cook
really really good barbecue, but thenyou're unlucky to get at a table where
the judges will not give high scoresbecause you know how it is. Some
people will never give the highest scorebecause that is perfection and that is something
(11:48):
that you should always strive for.But you never get there, and then
you have some people who, hey, if it's edible, I'll give it
a top score because hey, it'sbetter than my barbecue. So sometimes it's
the luck of the all ending ata good table of judges too. That
takes away a little bit of thefun from it. But again, all
the respect to people who do it, because man, they spend so much
(12:11):
money and so much hard work toperfect the craft. And if you haven't
tried, and then actually, competitivebarbecue I think ruined commercial barbecue. If
you go to a restaurant a lotof times when you know when we will
be up in Minneapolis, somebody say, hey, you need to go to
this restaurant, this barbecue place.It's great, but if you've tried competitive
(12:35):
barbecue, where these guys spend twelvehours perfection, perfecting one little rack of
ribs, you can't do that ata restaurant. It's so much more flavors.
So sometimes it becomes a little bitdisappointing when you go out and eat
at restaurants barbecue. Hey, letme jo hansense I have you I want
(12:56):
to ask you some more amateur novice. I'm coming from a student's perspective here,
and I feel like you love toteach you you had to over the
course of time. Then try outwhether it's you know you mentioned cooking over
fire, you got your your offset, your stick burner, smoker to now
pellet grills and kind of the easeof Wi Fi and app related controls have
(13:18):
really jumped onto the scene. Gasgrills, charcoal, all of that.
Do you just have like a likea third stall in your garage at home
that's just full of all these likea toy store or a patio that's full.
That said, it's a disease,right, Like you have too many
grills of smokers in the backyard saidno one ever. But it gets to
(13:39):
the point where my wife now isthinking that it's getting a little bit too
much. I think at the lastcount, I had twenty seven grill smokers
or pizza ovens. Wo, soit's a lot. And then she thinks
that, well, you have toget rid of some. But they're all
your little babies. They all servea different purpose. I think it depends
(14:01):
a little bit on which tool touse, depends a little bit on how
much time. I like the pelletgrill because it's simple, it's easy,
you set the time. It doesn'tgive as much smoke flavor as an offset
or a stick burner, but atleast you can start dabbling with that gas
grill. People say, do youever cook Congress? Of course, I
(14:22):
have a great gas grill, andI use it when I just want to
cook up something fast, So Iknow there's a little bit of that.
Some people say that barbecue is onlyif you use this, or barbecue is
only if you use that. Ithink it depends on how much time do
you want to spend, how muchyou know, do you want to go
into fire management and things like that, and how much do you just want
(14:46):
to cook great food, so toeach his own, but I like to
have a variety of tools to playaround with. You mentioned it yourself a
few minutes ago that you have thecookbook ass Backyard Cooking and you can learn
more about it for those listening BigSweet bbq dot com. That's the website.
(15:07):
How long did it take to compilethat? It's almost one hundred and
fifty recipes, different flavors, differentmeats. I mean that in itself is
a journey. Johann, That was, Yeah, it was fun. It
was during COVID. It was mylittle COVID project because you realized, Okay,
now i'm home, I'm not allowedto really go out. I'm not
allowed to do any events. Sowhat do you do when people start?
(15:31):
And COVID it was horrible for manyreasons, but it was really, really,
really good for the barbecue industry.It was because what people suddenly realized
that I can't go to my favoriterestaurants and more, I need to cook
at home. I work from home, so maybe I should get a pelicquill
or so just cooking outside had anincredible boost. And that's when I was
(15:54):
Okay, I'm home, I'm goingto cook at home. I might as
well capturing, and I had quitea few of these recipes. But I
wrote every recipe, I took everypicture. I laid out the book all
by myself. I did have aneditor to correct some of my swinglish,
but yeah, we made the bookfrom scratch and we were I think at
(16:18):
the end it turned out really good. We won the National Barbecue Association Cookbook
of the Year twenty twenty two,and then we won best third best independently
published Cookbook in the US last year. That's kind of cool. I got
beat by Sammy Hagar, but Ican deal with that. That's fantastic.
(16:41):
And I see it's available on Amazon, I believe, so people can can
definitely check out that book. Andyou know, with all of that,
as we kind of gear this conversationtowards ultimately what you'll be doing. Some
really cool things happening at the upNorth Expo this weekend Minneapolis Convention Center.
Looking forward to it Friday through Sunday. You're going to be on the stage
(17:02):
Johann Cooking teaching the tasting aspect ofit, the flavors. It's going to
be a blast. But you know, when you've made this your life,
sometimes keeping the passion involved always tryingnew things, etc. You know,
sometimes it can be a job asmuch as it is a passion. I
mean, you know, if it'sSaturday, you know, sometimes you're like,
(17:22):
I don't really want to turn thegrill on. You mentioned, Yeah,
it sounds like you have eighteen pizzaovens, so maybe that helps.
But in the end, like,what are some of your favorite things to
cook when no one's watching and youjust want to eat good food. It's
so funny because it goes in waves, right, Like you said, sometimes
you get tired of it. AndI had a time where I've cooked a
(17:45):
lot of barbecue, and to behonest, I don't cook a lot of
brisket or ribs anymore because I've doneit so much and you get kind of
tired of it right now. Ido play around with pizza quite a lot,
because I think that's a completely differentskill set, working with the pizza
does and getting the temperature right andalso realizing that you can cook a lot
(18:08):
of different things in the pizza oven. I do like to play around with
fire, so any kind of sortof open fire cooking with woods, over
rotisseary cooking. Love that. Andthen also it's trying new cuts that there's
as we grow more and more experienced, I think that there's a lot of
(18:32):
different cuts of meat that's not available, that wasn't available in the US a
couple of years ago that's available now. So right now there's a Iberico pig.
I don't know if you tried itfrom Spain you can normally people have
normally tried their, like their curedhind legs that you sliced, almost like
(18:53):
a prostudo. But they now theysell in really good but stores. You
can get some of the cuts,the raw meat, and you can grill
it and it's amazing. It's sopacked with intramuscular fat that it's pork,
but it tastes like steak. Itis absolutely phenomenal. So yeah, I've
(19:17):
been I've been playing around with thatquite a lot. Right now. It's
great and there are so many differentthings you can go. Living in Arizona,
we have a lot of Mexican influences, of course, so I try
to play around with text, mixedflavors and things like that too. So
(19:37):
you can cook in so many differentdirections. So when you get bored one
thing, you can always go inanother direction, which I think is pretty
cool. And then my wife isvegan for medical reasons. So learning how
to cook veggies really well. It'salso a fun challenge because I feel sorry
(20:00):
for at least people who are veganhere in Arizona. If you go out
to a restaurant, a lot ofthem have horrible options. It's either a
chopped salad or a baked potato,and that's basically it. When you know
how to cook veggies, there aresome amazing flavors that you can get out
of it. So playing around withthat too. Absolutely. Yeah. Last
(20:21):
coup before you here. In theprocess of learning about you and the expo,
I stumbled upon this. You playedAmerican football in Sweden? Yes,
I did. The Birth of theBig Swede was what was American football in
Sweden? Like for you? Oh, I can still wake up certain mornings
and then you feel the knees andyou feel the shoulders, and you feel
(20:44):
everything is hurting, and you gothose wonderful days of hitting people. I
loved it. I loved American footballfrom the beginning. There's actually a great
book, a short novel, JohnGrisham, who writes all these sort of
action He wrote a book called Playingfor Pizza about a quarterback who played for
(21:06):
Cleveland, and of course it hadto be Cleveland wasn't very good, so
he was forced. The only teamthat will accept him was an amateur team
in Italy. So he went toItaly and basically played for Pizza. They
gave him a house, a car, a room, and then he rediscovered
(21:29):
the love for American football. It'sa great, great fiction sports book,
but that was a little bit whatit was, right. So when I
started, my first helmet was ahockey helmet, my first shoulder pads for
hockey shoulder pads. And you watcheda lot of We actually had to buy
(21:52):
VHS videos and import them from theUS about for college games, because that
was the only way that you canwatch it. But you watched and you
looked at different plays, and youhit each other with hope. Of course,
it was painful and it was soamateurish and fun. And then as
(22:14):
it grew the sport group, westart bringing in Americans. So when I
stopped playing, every team had basicallyfour Americans playing sort of semi pro,
a quarterback normally, one on defense, one on special teams, and then
a coach. So yeah, itwas fun and that's also when I stopped
playing. That's when NFL Europe startedgrowing as well. So there's a big
(22:37):
interest for American football in Europe,especially in Germany and the UK and Spain.
Yeah, and that's I got thechance to go to London last year
when the Vikings played the game thereagainst the Saints, and it is amazing
to see them fill you know,a billion that new palace that Tottenham have
there in London. It's beautiful,it's massive, and it's filled to them
(23:00):
with international American football fans. ButI just picture like if I'm in Stockholm,
you know, I got I gotmy Nick Lidstrom jersey on. I'm
following, you know, Henrik Schwetterbergand King Henrik and all of this,
or is Latan Ibrahimovich if you know, the soccer dominating things over there.
It's just it's it's still hard forme to fathom. And I think,
and you've lived in the United Statesfor for long enough now you can feel
(23:23):
there is a bit of a bubblewhere our understanding or perception of sports as
it exists overseas is a little cloudyat times. And I'm always fascinated to
hear the great interest sought for myselfa year ago that American football has among
European European sports fans, Well whatwhat what really led to it? And
(23:44):
I think it's it's the thing thatwe have a lot of kids coming over
and going to high school in theUS for about a year, and when
they went to high school, alot of them, like you said,
played hockey, played soccer pretty goodat fleets. So of course when you
get to the US, you're welltrained, you're athletic. Of course you're
(24:07):
going to be asked do you wantto play football? So when they came
back, they brought back this wholeidea of hey, this is they have
a really cool sport over here.You get to hit people, it is
you get to look pretty cool inyour shoulder pads and your helmet and a
lot of times was it just gettingsome friends together and that's how it started.
(24:27):
So I think the quality of thegame is at such a different level.
I would say the best teams inSweden are probably at a college Division
three levels maybe, But the passion, the passion of you don't do it
because you have to do it orexpect it to do it. You play
(24:49):
because you love the game. AndI think that's I think what a lot
of our coaches that came over.They were probably shocked by the quality of
play, but they loved the passionthat everybody showed. You know, most
people, you work and then youwork a full day and then you have
(25:11):
practice between seven and ten thirty inthe evening. And people showed up every
single day and just worked hard andit was an extreme bonding experience and I
love it. That sounds amazing.Thank you so much for the time that
you've given me, not only totalk about barbecue, playing football in Sweden
(25:32):
and the up North Expo. Sonext this Friday through Sunday, you're going
to be on stage and to beworking with WPPO. You're going to be
putting some awesome food, awesome flavorsout on the table for people to see.
And what a perfect spot to doit. People who love being outdoors,
cooking outdoors get to meet and hangout with a guy that loves all
of those things and is really goodat it. Thank you. And we
(25:55):
will be in the booths when we'renot cooking on the stage WPPO booth,
just talking food. So if peoplehave any questions or if they just want
to share some recipes and discuss cookingor sports. Hey, I'm all for
it, flavor and fire. That'sJohann Magnuson, the Big Swede, founder
(26:15):
of Big Swede Barbecue. Go toBig swedebbq dot com to learn more about
him, or Upnorthexpo dot com tolearn more about everything happening this weekend at
the Minneapolis Convention Center. That's thisedition of Hops and Hoggs. I'm Eric
Nordquist of Kfan Radio. Make sureto subscribe to the podcast via the free
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get yourpodcasts, and follow us on x or
(26:37):
Twitter at Hops hogs BBQ. Thanksfor listening. I'll go cook something
Welcome to Hops and Hoggs. It'sa podcast that takes the local beer community,
the local barbecue community and turns himinto one conversation. Normally I'd be
with Ken from Heavy Rotation brewing theguys from Northern Fire, and we're doing
another episode soon. But this isan interview I did with Johann Magnuson,
owner of Big Swede Barbecue down inthe Phoenix area. Born in Sweden,
(00:25):
he fell in love with backyard cookingand he's made a career out of it.
He's in town this weekend at theup North Expo Friday through Sunday at
the Minneapolis Convention Center. Also midMarch in Madison, Wisconsin. He's on
the cooking stage sharing his expertise sofrom Stockholm to the States, from playing
American football in Europe to mastering flavorson the grill in Arizona. I had
(00:46):
a blast talking to Johan, andyou can hear him he's pumped to be
up here for the expo. Well, thanks for having me on first of
all, and yeah, I'm verypumped to come up to Minneapolis. I
live in Arizona, so we havehot and warm way. Grew up in
Sweden, so it's always great tocome up to the colder temperatures as a
reminder why I left Sweden in thefirst place. I love it though,
(01:08):
I'm excited. I can't wait.It's going to be a fun show.
We have great recipes lined up andjust spending a couple of days talking food
and cooking and barbecue and grilling.There is nothing better than that. Yeah,
it's super excited. And it's aninteresting concept with the up North Expo
because there will be seminars. It'sreally connecting people that love kind of like
(01:29):
what you love doing from a cookingstandpoint, being outdoors, whether it's the
nature side of it, it's thecabin culture. Everyone, it feels like
in Minnesota has a cabin. Johanna, you know the weather up here maybe
closer to what you knew when yougrew up in Sweden. So you know,
stupid question out of the way.Then I suppose the link here you
and big Sweden barbecue. That tellsme that you were born in Sweden,
(01:52):
that you are of Swedish descent,and you may happen just to be a
larger person. Is that accurate?That is correct? My wife actually wants
me to be a little bit lessbig sweet barbecue. But now now that
we have a brand, I needto protect it. So she just have
to hashtag deal with it. Butyeah, originally from Sweden. Moved here
(02:15):
about twenty years ago. My wife'sAmerican, and so it was either for
me to you know, move tosunny Arizona where we have three hundred and
twenty six days of sun per year, or for her to come to Sweden
in Stockholm. And I thought,hey, why not Arizona sounds like a
great place and I love it here. The US is a wonderful place.
(02:37):
And being able to cook outdoors andbe able to share I find that a
lot of people, especially like inMinnesota where they have cabins, we have
the same thing. In Sweden,people a lot of times cook exactly the
same thing. They might do somehot dogs, they might do some steaks,
they might cook up some salmon,but a lot of times we cook
(03:00):
the same thing. And I thinkthat the curiosity and trying to cook different
things when you're either camping or cookingat the cabin, that's really what we
will be trying to sort of maybeshare some thoughts and ideas, and there
are other things than just steaks andthe howt dogs in the salmon. Well,
you bring up something interesting because Ipicture and I'm Norwegian, But that
(03:23):
doesn't necessarily mean I was born andraised here in Minnesota. We're in We're
in Scandinavian country up here, soyou'll fit right in Johan. Yeah,
but I'm not. I'm not makinglefts and eating lutafisk on a regular basis
those sorts of things. So you'velived in the United States for about two
decades, you say, how,how what's the stark contrast? Are there
(03:44):
any similarities in terms of if you'redoing barbecue and Stockholm, are you working
with different flavors on average? Whatare some some comparisons in contrasts I guess
between from a barbecue or a flavorstandpoint, both at home and Stockholm and
here in the US. Well,I think the biggest, biggest difference,
and I think it's changing. Ithink Europe, then Sweden too, is
(04:04):
getting more and more influenced by Americanbarbecue. You see, like when I
left, barbecue basically was grilling fora couple of weeks during the summer when
the weather was nice, and normallyit will be steaks or hot dogs,
often very underseasoned compared to what wedo here in the US. Like in
(04:28):
Sweden, there's this thing that youshould only use salt and pepper because you
want to taste the meat. AndI think that that's slowly changing that if
you can infuse it with garlic andonions and paprika and just brings out so
much more depth to it, whynot do that? So it's changing.
Like I said, when I leftSweden, it was very marinated pork steaks
(04:54):
on disposable grills, and nowadays theyactually have barbecue competition. You have quite
a few barbecue restaurants too throughout Sweden. So it's it's changing slowly as we
I think, as as this worldbecomes more and more global. Absolutely,
Now, when you're up the whenyou're at the up North Expo this weekend
(05:14):
at the Minneapolis Convention Center, areyou sharing recipes? Are you demoing a
certain product like I see you're connectedwith Wppo and that this Infinity hybrid oven
that you'll actually be using as partof the festivities. And you know kind
of the innovation in barbecue you mentionedfrom the disposable grill, the old school
charcoal weber, it's never failed mebefore to some of the ways that you're
(05:36):
able to create food and and andinfuse it with whatever outdoor indoor space you
have. It's it's really impressive.So so what are you doing at the
up North Expo this weekend from adisplay, teaching and maybe a tasting standpoint.
Yeah, so the whole idea behindI think whenever you cook and you
demo something, you have to haverecipes that you can cook them. Basically
(05:59):
a grilled smoker, pizzaven whatever youwant to use, because it's you shouldn't
be limited by the tools that youuse for grilling. So we picked a
couple of recipes that whether you havea weber or you have a tragger,
or you have a pizza, thenlike the wppo that we will use,
you should be able to or justan open fire and then maybe some cast
(06:20):
iron pants, you should be ableto cook these. So we're going to
do a couple of different things.We're going to do a salmon with being
Norwegian, of you would like this, it's actually a Norwegian masters a sauce
called sun the Fiord sauce, whichis really delicious. So we're going to
do that. We're going to doa buffalo chicken dip, because why not.
(06:44):
It's great. It's it's perfect whenyou're it's a little bit cold outside
and you get that hot buffalo chicken. It's it's awesome. We're going to
do a wild Mushroom Coast because alot of times when people are up in
the cabins, you can forage ormushrooms, and I think that one of
the things that I grew up witha lot most was actually mushrooms, and
(07:06):
I think it's delicious, but mostpeople don't know how to cook it and
they're a little bit afraid of tryingthem. So we're going to do that,
and then we have a couple ofsurprises that we're going to throw in
as well. But we're going todo a flatbread smoked salmon flatbread super simple
to make but packed with flavors.Well, that sounds so fantastic. Big
(07:27):
Swede Barbecue dot com is about tolearn more about. Johann Upnorthexpo dot com
to learn more about So it's inMinneapolis this weekend. In mid March,
Madison, Wisconsin, there'll be anotherevent that Johann's going to be president at
as well. Now, Johann atsome point and you know this. You
were just a big Swede. Itwasn't Big Swede barbecue. You were just
(07:47):
a guy that loved cooking. Whendid you decide, like, Wow,
my love, my passion, myfascination with flavors and with cooking in general
is such that I'm going to makea career out of it. I've always
enjoyed cooking. I think that that'sprobably common for anybody who does this.
And when I moved out here andtried brisket for the first time, I
(08:09):
was just blown away because back thenwe didn't really have brisket. The brisket
that we ate back in Sweden wassort of cooked, boiled, no flavor.
What's very horrible, horrible, horrible. And you tried barbecue brisket for
the first time and I was justhooked, and I said, I want
to learn how to do this.And that was when they had all these
barbecue pitmaster shows on TVs. Ithought, maybe that's a cool thing.
(08:33):
So we started up Big Sweet Barbecueas a barbecue competition team in the beginning,
and it was fun, but ittook me maybe ten fifteen competitions to
realize I don't necessarily enjoy the competitionpart of it, because I don't think
barbecue is about my barbecue is betterthan yours. I have so many friends
(08:54):
that is in that space, andI admire the hard work and the grind
of doing that every week and thencompete and getting to that barbecue perfection.
But you were kind of limited inwhat you could do. Like a steak
needs to be cooked to medium,and for me personally, that's an overcooked
(09:16):
steak. I like mine medium rare. So there were a couple of things
like that that I felt it's notfun. So then I thought, what
else can we do? So that'show we have barbecue rubs. We did
a cookbook and now we do moreof these classes and demos and basically changed
the idea of Big Sweet Barbecue toteach people how to cook better food outside.
(09:39):
And I love it. There's nothingbetter than And there's just a few
things that people can change from howthey do things today that will make a
huge difference in the way that thefood comes out, and being able to
share some of those sort of practicesand tips and tricks. It's a ton
of fun. I love it now. Amazing story, and I love what
(10:01):
you said about the competition. Angleof it too, and I know where
friends with people in the competition circuit, they absolutely love it, which is
great. Yeah, the one questionas an outsider, Johann, that would
kind of frustrate me, And youmentioned it a little bit, you know,
trying to trying to make the processis so uniform to limit the deviation.
You know in the end that thesubjective nature of taste, right,
(10:22):
whether it's how you want your steakdone, the flavor of a particular rub.
It feels like more and more peopleare gravitating towards a little bit of
heat with the sweet on their barbecue, and so, you know, the
subjective nature of taste alone. It'slike I could go to a barbecue contest,
Johann, every single one of themshould get first prize. And I'm
(10:43):
also a master barbecue judge, soI got certified because I wanted to,
you know, learn about different flavorprofiles. And it gets to that point
where you go, this is allgreat, and sometimes you have to score
it based upon how it's cooked,to the specific rule of whatever body it
(11:05):
is that you're competing in. SoKCBS Kansas City Barbecue Society, they have
certain rules on how the barbecue needsto be cooked, and you have some
other bodies in Texas and they havetheir different rules. So I think at
the end of the day, it'shard to judge, and I feel sometimes
(11:26):
that's also the flip side of competitivebarbecue judging, that you could actually cook
really really good barbecue, but thenyou're unlucky to get at a table where
the judges will not give high scoresbecause you know how it is. Some
people will never give the highest scorebecause that is perfection and that is something
(11:48):
that you should always strive for.But you never get there, and then
you have some people who, hey, if it's edible, I'll give it
a top score because hey, it'sbetter than my barbecue. So sometimes it's
the luck of the all ending ata good table of judges too. That
takes away a little bit of thefun from it. But again, all
the respect to people who do it, because man, they spend so much
(12:11):
money and so much hard work toperfect the craft. And if you haven't
tried, and then actually, competitivebarbecue I think ruined commercial barbecue. If
you go to a restaurant a lotof times when you know when we will
be up in Minneapolis, somebody say, hey, you need to go to
this restaurant, this barbecue place.It's great, but if you've tried competitive
(12:35):
barbecue, where these guys spend twelvehours perfection, perfecting one little rack of
ribs, you can't do that ata restaurant. It's so much more flavors.
So sometimes it becomes a little bitdisappointing when you go out and eat
at restaurants barbecue. Hey, letme jo hansense I have you I want
(12:56):
to ask you some more amateur novice. I'm coming from a student's perspective here,
and I feel like you love toteach you you had to over the
course of time. Then try outwhether it's you know you mentioned cooking over
fire, you got your your offset, your stick burner, smoker to now
pellet grills and kind of the easeof Wi Fi and app related controls have
(13:18):
really jumped onto the scene. Gasgrills, charcoal, all of that.
Do you just have like a likea third stall in your garage at home
that's just full of all these likea toy store or a patio that's full.
That said, it's a disease,right, Like you have too many
grills of smokers in the backyard saidno one ever. But it gets to
(13:39):
the point where my wife now isthinking that it's getting a little bit too
much. I think at the lastcount, I had twenty seven grill smokers
or pizza ovens. Wo, soit's a lot. And then she thinks
that, well, you have toget rid of some. But they're all
your little babies. They all servea different purpose. I think it depends
(14:01):
a little bit on which tool touse, depends a little bit on how
much time. I like the pelletgrill because it's simple, it's easy,
you set the time. It doesn'tgive as much smoke flavor as an offset
or a stick burner, but atleast you can start dabbling with that gas
grill. People say, do youever cook Congress? Of course, I
(14:22):
have a great gas grill, andI use it when I just want to
cook up something fast, So Iknow there's a little bit of that.
Some people say that barbecue is onlyif you use this, or barbecue is
only if you use that. Ithink it depends on how much time do
you want to spend, how muchyou know, do you want to go
into fire management and things like that, and how much do you just want
(14:46):
to cook great food, so toeach his own, but I like to
have a variety of tools to playaround with. You mentioned it yourself a
few minutes ago that you have thecookbook ass Backyard Cooking and you can learn
more about it for those listening BigSweet bbq dot com. That's the website.
(15:07):
How long did it take to compilethat? It's almost one hundred and
fifty recipes, different flavors, differentmeats. I mean that in itself is
a journey. Johann, That was, Yeah, it was fun. It
was during COVID. It was mylittle COVID project because you realized, Okay,
now i'm home, I'm not allowedto really go out. I'm not
allowed to do any events. Sowhat do you do when people start?
(15:31):
And COVID it was horrible for manyreasons, but it was really, really,
really good for the barbecue industry.It was because what people suddenly realized
that I can't go to my favoriterestaurants and more, I need to cook
at home. I work from home, so maybe I should get a pelicquill
or so just cooking outside had anincredible boost. And that's when I was
(15:54):
Okay, I'm home, I'm goingto cook at home. I might as
well capturing, and I had quitea few of these recipes. But I
wrote every recipe, I took everypicture. I laid out the book all
by myself. I did have aneditor to correct some of my swinglish,
but yeah, we made the bookfrom scratch and we were I think at
(16:18):
the end it turned out really good. We won the National Barbecue Association Cookbook
of the Year twenty twenty two,and then we won best third best independently
published Cookbook in the US last year. That's kind of cool. I got
beat by Sammy Hagar, but Ican deal with that. That's fantastic.
(16:41):
And I see it's available on Amazon, I believe, so people can can
definitely check out that book. Andyou know, with all of that,
as we kind of gear this conversationtowards ultimately what you'll be doing. Some
really cool things happening at the upNorth Expo this weekend Minneapolis Convention Center.
Looking forward to it Friday through Sunday. You're going to be on the stage
(17:02):
Johann Cooking teaching the tasting aspect ofit, the flavors. It's going to
be a blast. But you know, when you've made this your life,
sometimes keeping the passion involved always tryingnew things, etc. You know,
sometimes it can be a job asmuch as it is a passion. I
mean, you know, if it'sSaturday, you know, sometimes you're like,
(17:22):
I don't really want to turn thegrill on. You mentioned, Yeah,
it sounds like you have eighteen pizzaovens, so maybe that helps.
But in the end, like,what are some of your favorite things to
cook when no one's watching and youjust want to eat good food. It's
so funny because it goes in waves, right, Like you said, sometimes
you get tired of it. AndI had a time where I've cooked a
(17:45):
lot of barbecue, and to behonest, I don't cook a lot of
brisket or ribs anymore because I've doneit so much and you get kind of
tired of it right now. Ido play around with pizza quite a lot,
because I think that's a completely differentskill set, working with the pizza
does and getting the temperature right andalso realizing that you can cook a lot
(18:08):
of different things in the pizza oven. I do like to play around with
fire, so any kind of sortof open fire cooking with woods, over
rotisseary cooking. Love that. Andthen also it's trying new cuts that there's
as we grow more and more experienced, I think that there's a lot of
(18:32):
different cuts of meat that's not available, that wasn't available in the US a
couple of years ago that's available now. So right now there's a Iberico pig.
I don't know if you tried itfrom Spain you can normally people have
normally tried their, like their curedhind legs that you sliced, almost like
(18:53):
a prostudo. But they now theysell in really good but stores. You
can get some of the cuts,the raw meat, and you can grill
it and it's amazing. It's sopacked with intramuscular fat that it's pork,
but it tastes like steak. Itis absolutely phenomenal. So yeah, I've
(19:17):
been I've been playing around with thatquite a lot. Right now. It's
great and there are so many differentthings you can go. Living in Arizona,
we have a lot of Mexican influences, of course, so I try
to play around with text, mixedflavors and things like that too. So
(19:37):
you can cook in so many differentdirections. So when you get bored one
thing, you can always go inanother direction, which I think is pretty
cool. And then my wife isvegan for medical reasons. So learning how
to cook veggies really well. It'salso a fun challenge because I feel sorry
(20:00):
for at least people who are veganhere in Arizona. If you go out
to a restaurant, a lot ofthem have horrible options. It's either a
chopped salad or a baked potato,and that's basically it. When you know
how to cook veggies, there aresome amazing flavors that you can get out
of it. So playing around withthat too. Absolutely. Yeah. Last
(20:21):
coup before you here. In theprocess of learning about you and the expo,
I stumbled upon this. You playedAmerican football in Sweden? Yes,
I did. The Birth of theBig Swede was what was American football in
Sweden? Like for you? Oh, I can still wake up certain mornings
and then you feel the knees andyou feel the shoulders, and you feel
(20:44):
everything is hurting, and you gothose wonderful days of hitting people. I
loved it. I loved American footballfrom the beginning. There's actually a great
book, a short novel, JohnGrisham, who writes all these sort of
action He wrote a book called Playingfor Pizza about a quarterback who played for
(21:06):
Cleveland, and of course it hadto be Cleveland wasn't very good, so
he was forced. The only teamthat will accept him was an amateur team
in Italy. So he went toItaly and basically played for Pizza. They
gave him a house, a car, a room, and then he rediscovered
(21:29):
the love for American football. It'sa great, great fiction sports book,
but that was a little bit whatit was, right. So when I
started, my first helmet was ahockey helmet, my first shoulder pads for
hockey shoulder pads. And you watcheda lot of We actually had to buy
(21:52):
VHS videos and import them from theUS about for college games, because that
was the only way that you canwatch it. But you watched and you
looked at different plays, and youhit each other with hope. Of course,
it was painful and it was soamateurish and fun. And then as
(22:14):
it grew the sport group, westart bringing in Americans. So when I
stopped playing, every team had basicallyfour Americans playing sort of semi pro,
a quarterback normally, one on defense, one on special teams, and then
a coach. So yeah, itwas fun and that's also when I stopped
playing. That's when NFL Europe startedgrowing as well. So there's a big
(22:37):
interest for American football in Europe,especially in Germany and the UK and Spain.
Yeah, and that's I got thechance to go to London last year
when the Vikings played the game thereagainst the Saints, and it is amazing
to see them fill you know,a billion that new palace that Tottenham have
there in London. It's beautiful,it's massive, and it's filled to them
(23:00):
with international American football fans. ButI just picture like if I'm in Stockholm,
you know, I got I gotmy Nick Lidstrom jersey on. I'm
following, you know, Henrik Schwetterbergand King Henrik and all of this,
or is Latan Ibrahimovich if you know, the soccer dominating things over there.
It's just it's it's still hard forme to fathom. And I think,
and you've lived in the United Statesfor for long enough now you can feel
(23:23):
there is a bit of a bubblewhere our understanding or perception of sports as
it exists overseas is a little cloudyat times. And I'm always fascinated to
hear the great interest sought for myselfa year ago that American football has among
European European sports fans, Well whatwhat what really led to it? And
(23:44):
I think it's it's the thing thatwe have a lot of kids coming over
and going to high school in theUS for about a year, and when
they went to high school, alot of them, like you said,
played hockey, played soccer pretty goodat fleets. So of course when you
get to the US, you're welltrained, you're athletic. Of course you're
(24:07):
going to be asked do you wantto play football? So when they came
back, they brought back this wholeidea of hey, this is they have
a really cool sport over here.You get to hit people, it is
you get to look pretty cool inyour shoulder pads and your helmet and a
lot of times was it just gettingsome friends together and that's how it started.
(24:27):
So I think the quality of thegame is at such a different level.
I would say the best teams inSweden are probably at a college Division
three levels maybe, But the passion, the passion of you don't do it
because you have to do it orexpect it to do it. You play
(24:49):
because you love the game. AndI think that's I think what a lot
of our coaches that came over.They were probably shocked by the quality of
play, but they loved the passionthat everybody showed. You know, most
people, you work and then youwork a full day and then you have
(25:11):
practice between seven and ten thirty inthe evening. And people showed up every
single day and just worked hard andit was an extreme bonding experience and I
love it. That sounds amazing.Thank you so much for the time that
you've given me, not only totalk about barbecue, playing football in Sweden
(25:32):
and the up North Expo. Sonext this Friday through Sunday, you're going
to be on stage and to beworking with WPPO. You're going to be
putting some awesome food, awesome flavorsout on the table for people to see.
And what a perfect spot to doit. People who love being outdoors,
cooking outdoors get to meet and hangout with a guy that loves all
of those things and is really goodat it. Thank you. And we
(25:55):
will be in the booths when we'renot cooking on the stage WPPO booth,
just talking food. So if peoplehave any questions or if they just want
to share some recipes and discuss cookingor sports. Hey, I'm all for
it, flavor and fire. That'sJohann Magnuson, the Big Swede, founder
(26:15):
of Big Swede Barbecue. Go toBig swedebbq dot com to learn more about
him, or Upnorthexpo dot com tolearn more about everything happening this weekend at
the Minneapolis Convention Center. That's thisedition of Hops and Hoggs. I'm Eric
Nordquist of Kfan Radio. Make sureto subscribe to the podcast via the free
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get yourpodcasts, and follow us on x or
(26:37):
Twitter at Hops hogs BBQ. Thanksfor listening. I'll go cook something
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