Smoke Signals: Get 'Naked' on Saturday

Used to be that barbecue wasn’t much more than a kettle grill or a barrel smoker that you stoked with charcoal and wood to slow-roast your meat, which you figured — or, because you were good, knew — was done when it attained a certain color and texture.

Nowadays, the guesswork is all but gone. You got your temperature regulators and your remote thermometers. Indeed, to tame the unpredictability of fire and smoke, there is all manner of technological wizardry.

Eric Forrester sells a lot of barbecue products at his Mason-Dixon BBQ Services store in Greencastle, Pa. The outlet, which he opened in 2010, is doing so well that he just completed a 450-square-foot expansion.

Mason-Dixon sells more than 500 sauces, rubs and spices, the vast majority of them boutique. “This is a specialty store,” he says. “We stock products used by competition teams. You can go to a supermarket and buy lots of sauces. These are different.”

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