Check out 360-degree panoramas of the best BBQ joints in Texas

Snow's BBQ, Lexington. Click on each photo to see a 360-degree panorama.

When planning started for our Best of Texas BBQ Tour, we wanted to come up with a unique way to let readers experience the best BBQ joints in Texas. Welcome to the BBQ panorama project, a way to take a virtual tour of each joint without leaving your easy chair.

Dallas Morning News staff photographer Tom Fox shot the panoramas using a specially-designed rig consisting of a tripod bracket that helped him to align and shoot six separate photos of each place, which were then stitched together using software that forms the full 360-degree panorama.

You can click on each photo on this blog post to go to the related panorama hosted on dallasnews.com. Once you're there, you can use your mouse or touchpad to navigate your way around each BBQ joint. This technology works even better on the iPad, where you can simply hold up the panorama in front of you and slowly turn in a circle as the image on the screen moves with you.

Also, thanks to Dallas Morning News multimedia producer David Guzman for his hard work putting these together. Enjoy!

Louie Mueller Barbecue, Taylor

Franklin Barbecue, Austin

Pecan Lodge, Dallas

Kreuz Market, Lockhart

Fargo's Pt BBQ, Bryan

Stanley's Famous Pit Bar-B-Q, Tyler

The Posse's best of the best BBQ joints in Texas: Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Pecan Lodge in Dallas and Snow's BBQ in Lexington

The faces behind our top six BBQ joints, clockwise from top left: Aaron Franklin of Franklin BBQ, Justin Fourton of Pecan Lodge, Tootsie Tomanetz of Snow's BBQ, Roy Perez of Kreuz Market, Wayne Mueller of Louie Mueller Barbecue, Belender Wells & Alan Caldwell of Fargo's Pit BBQ. (Photos by Tom Fox/DMN)  

The Dallas Morning News posted the results of the Posse's Best of Texas BBQ Tour today on its Web site. The results will appear on the paper's iPad's application this weekend and in the newspaper's travel section on Sunday.

It was an exceedingly close finish. With 30 being the best possible score, less than a point separated the top three joints -- Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Pecan Lodge in Dallas and Snow's BBQ in Lexington.

Over 48 hours we ate at 10 top places. Six judges from the Posse rated the brisket, pork ribs and sausage at each on a scale of 1 to 10. We averaged the scores for each meat and then added them to determine the overall winner.

A short, philosophical meditation on our Best of Texas BBQ Tour

Posse BBQ judges (L-R) Jim Rossman, Bruce Tomaso and Gary Jacobson sample the meats at Fargo's Pit BBQ in Bryan. (Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

In some respects, our recent Best of Texas barbecue tour was like a cookoff. Only the food didn't come to the judges, we went to the food.

Eating at 10 places over 48 hours and scoring each joint's brisket, pork ribs and sausage -- the three foundation meats of Texas BBQ -- gave us a good framework for comparison.

It also focused our attention entirely on the basics.

Pecan Lodge of Dallas wins best ribs in the Posse's Best of Texas BBQ Tour

Order of award-winning ribs at Pecan Lodge in the Dallas Farmer's Market. (Tom Fox/DMN)

While we wait for the full results of the Posse's recent Best of Texas barbecue tour to be published in The Dallas Morning News this weekend, we can reveal one more detail:

Pecan Lodge in Dallas won the pork rib category. Five of our six judges rated pitmaster Justin Fourton's ribs a perfect 10. The sixth judge scored a 9.

The secret to avoiding those long lines at Franklin Barbecue in Austin

The line was over 100 deep at Franklin BBQ on a recent Saturday. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

Even now, four weeks later, we're still complimenting ourselves for our nifty navigation of the long lines at Franklin Barbecue in Austin during the Posse's Best of Texas Tour. People can begin queuing up two hours before the joint opens and the number can quickly grow to a hundred or more.

We took advantage of Franklin's advance-order service and had Posse members and Austin residents Libby Jacobson and Mike Gagne pick up our food before the place opened for regular business.

"It was a glorious feeling," Libby said of walking past the line and directly inside the restaurant to the pick-up counter. "You feel like you're someone special."

A readers' guide to The Barbecue Chronicles, the journeys of the Texas BBQ Posse

Since November 2009, members of the Texas BBQ Posse have traveled nearly 5,000 miles searching for the best barbecue in the state. True sojourners of smoked meat, BBQ Snob and prolific blogger Daniel Vaughn once called us. Back at you, Daniel.

As we await publication in The Dallas Morning News of our recent Best of Texas Tour, here's an annotated readers' guide, with links, to the first 11 chapters of our barbecue chronicles.