Pork, over a barrel

Pulled pork is one of my favorite, and most frustrating, experiences. I long ago abandoned the tepid cue that comes out of smoke shacks both makeshift and corporate. The quality of meat is usually bad, and it is usually disguised by saucy squirts of overpowered bbq sauce. These are jars of high fructose corn syrup with pepper flakes and liquid smoke, and they serve to disguise bad meat, not to supplement flavor.

But when I cook good pork shoulder at home, the result is usually frustrating as well. For starters, I have a hard time getting the internal temperature to 190 degrees. The best I've been able to achieve is just a few ticks upward of 160. But because at that point the pork has been in 14 plus hours, I usually give up and pull it, sweat it for a few hours, and then pull it anyway.

But I have now triple-threated my pork shoulder with good results.

brined, kneaded, and basted

 The first step is to brine the meat. While I had once done this with pork shoulder, I had never repeated it. Why not do it? I made up a basic brine from Charred & Scruffed and brined the meat. The brine is essentially water and apple juice with salt, lemons, sugar, garlic, red pepper, and whole peppercorns. You bring it to a boil, chill it overnight, and then pop the pork in the morning of grilling.

I pulled the pork out of the brine about two hours before starting the grill and let it warm up to room temperature. Then I rubbed it with a simple rub--salt, garlic salt, pepper, cayenne. Frankly, the rub could have been more imaginative. Maybe a dusting with smoked paprika, or even nutmeg. Depends on which way you want to go to balance the spice. And note to self--could have used more spice.

230, all day and all night

 Now the meat is ready to go on. So I put the plate setter in the egg, dropped in a foil pan to catch the drippings, filled the foil can with apple sauce, and commenced smoking the pork. I combined hickory chunks with the charcoal. It's the easiest go-to wood. I let it smoke for two hours first at low heat and then let it rise to 230. At the two hour mark, I started the basting. Using an herb brush (sage and rosemary and oregano and thyme), I piled on southern style baste at one hour intervals for the next six hours.

The temperature kept pretty normal, although it was down quite a bit when I picked it up in the morning. After adding more charcoal, I cooked it another two hours. Total cook time: 14 hours and thirty minutes for two boneless Boston butts, weight 15 pounds.

The pork under the lights

But this wasn't the end of the story. This is when it gets interesting. First off, I let the pork sit in the pan under foil cover for another eight hours. This was a long time, and frankly was determined more by my schedule than by any premediated plan on my part. But letting the meat rest is certainly important. Then I pulled the pork. This took a long time, as it turns out that fifteen pounds of pork is a lot of pork. when the pork was entirely pulled, I added the reserve baste. I know, I didn't mention that I reserved any of the baste, but I did. Half of it in fact. I tossed it with the meat.

The pork, at rest

And then, I salted the meat. I have to admit, at this point I wish I had a good finishing salt, like a lime coriander salt. But I didn't. Boo. Hoo.

I'm rambling.

Back to the pork. I put the pork in the oven, under foil, at 400 degrees for forty-five minutes to reheat. At this point, the baste melted, the fat rendered, the salt did its magic, and the pork turned out brilliantly. Beautiful bark. Wonderful smoke ring. Succulent pig.

Pulled!

I do have a few tweaks for next time. I will go ahead and wrap the butts in foil after the eight hour mark. I will also cook it fat side up. I usually avoid this because I don't want the actual barked pork touching the grill, but I need to get over that little problem, especially as I baste. I can always grab the butt, turn it, baste it, and then put it back in place. And I'm going to go ahead and make that lime coriander salt. I also need a vinegar based bbq sauce. I've never made one successfully. Too much tomato paste in my ghost pepper sauce. It's a good sauce, don't get me wrong. But with this kind of meat, there really is no need for sauce at all.

Peppers are in, ribs are smoked

So, yesterday I did a little yard work. After mulching the entire back, planting a few happy looking flowers in the herb garden and pruning the weeping bush and the Japanese Maple, I went ahead and planted a row of peppers in the front. I went with 2 yellow bells, 2 red bells, 1 banana (hot) and 1 mammoth jalapeno.

Hickory all Dickory Day

The peppers are in the tomato row of last year. The soil was sandy and black. I amended it with about three inches of homemade compost, but otherwise did not fertilize, or even lay down blood meal. Given that I've never had success with peppers, I have nothing to lose from this little experiment.

I also smoked some ribs for the occasion. I took a pair of baby backs, used the Four Seasonings blend to create a meat paste on them, and then smoked them at 220 for three hours over chunks of hickory. They came out black with a bark. I wrapped them and sweated them in the cooler for an hour. Then I put them on the grill and basted them (southern baste) for about fifteen minutes, medium heat (300 degrees).

NEXT TIME, will try foil wrapping them after 1 hour to keep the meat even more moist. I felt like the ribs were a little dry, although good. Grilling them afterwards will crust them enough, so no need to smoke em dead after one hour.

Carolina Style BBQ Sauce Proprietary Blend #142412

So I've made my own sauce. Given that it's the first one, this is not something I expect will work out horribly well. I started with 1 cup of white vinegar, added 2 tsp of coarsely ground black pepper, 2 tbsp of light brown sugar, 2 tsp of crushed red pepper, 1/2 tsp of ghost pepper sauce, 1 tsp of hot sauce and then let it all meld for a day in the fridge. Then, somewhat distressed because it resembled a mopping sauce and the pepper separated (red pepper floated, black pepper sat at the bottom), I put it on the stove and added 2 tbsp of tomato paste, a few dashes of worcestershire sauce, and a little more sugar.

So it cooked down, and now I have my sauce. It is supremely tangy, more so than any other sauce I have ever had. It is also HOT. It has front and back bite and a round depth to it, burning in shelves across the tongue. I would consider it a light drizzler on a fatty and sweet meat.

So, the numbers on my hot sauce are coded this way. The first digit is the number of the sauce. For a vinegar based eastern carolina sauce, I gave it a 1. I suppose that throwing in the tomato paste may have deviated from the eastern style somewhat, but oh well. Perhaps a "true" eastern carolina recipe will get a different number.

The second set of digits is the date of making it, with no zeros attached. So 42412 Is April 24, 2012. Hence, #142412 on this bottle of bbq sauce.

Given that my family will not appreciate Proprietary Blend #1, I will have to either develop one for them or just let them eat commercial. There are good bbq sauces out there for sale, so this can be my little hobby.

eastern Carolina bbq sauce

The only published North Carolina bbq sauce I have is a "mix" of eastern and western sensibilities (vinegar and ketchup based). Lacking good information on this bbq, I am comparing some recipes.

Some recipes call for more sugar than most, but generally a 1 1/2 cup yield contains a small amount of sugar--say 2 tbsp. Otherwise, it is a straightforward vinegar with some very basic crushed herbs and peppers, and hot sauce. I will likely put my ghost pepper hot sauce to work in a batch.

From amazing ribs

Recipe

Yield. Makes about 1 1/2 cups. Click here to calculate how much you need and for tips on saucing strategies.
Preparation time. About 30 minutes.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 tablespoons sugar (white, light brown, or dark brown)
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons finely ground black pepper

About the vinegar. Seems to me that the best sauces in the area were made with distilled white vinegar, not cider vinegar. So I tried my recipes with both and I liked the distilled better. If you want to use cider, feel free.

From Allrecipes:

• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (e.g. Tabasco™), or to taste
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

AND

• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon ground dry mustard
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

Meat on the Bone, Babyback style

For the arrival of the lil' gard'ner's gramma, I prepared babybacks in the following manner:

Remove ribs 30 minutes prior to cooking. Pull membrane.
Kosher salt ribs. Add rub of paprika, nutmeg (pinch) and brown sugar

Fire up to 400. Stir coals.
Add soaked hickory wood chips.
set for indirect, add pan of beer (miller)
two ribs in a rack.
temperature at 200.

Smoke for 2 hours 15 minutes.
(temperature crept up to 250, probably in the last forty five minutes of cooking)
remove ribs, wrap in foil, return to rack, close vents.

Cook for 1 hour 15 minutes. Closed down dampers after 1 hour.

Meat on the Bone

St. Louis Ribs (Maia's first) tonight. Here is the recipe for simple "Meat on the Bone"

Pull out ribs 30 minutes prior to cooking
Trim ribs and pull membrane.
Rub with paprika and sea salt
drizzle with oil
crack fresh ground pepper (red, white, black, and green is the current mixture).



Begin heating egg. Set for indirect heat, and add a pan of white wine (beer or apple juice works probably better). Put ribs directly into a rack while temperature is still low and mesquite is just beginning to smoke. Heat to 250 degrees, then close up and cook for 3-4 hours, preferably on the underside of that. (**next time, try wrapping in foil for the last hour of cooking; and then finishing on the grill.)

Today I began the cold smoke at 2:05 p.m. By 2:25 p.m. the temperature had reached 250 and I put on the damper. I have it open slightly more than I usually do, so will be checking quite frequently.

The temperature held quite steady, between 220-250 the whole time, stabilizing at 240. I pulled the ribs at 6:05 p.m. Nicely crusted, tender and juicy. Not fall off the bone, but tender and beautiful.

**Of interest. Second rack had to wait about an hour for serving. I wrapped it in foil and then put it back on the grill (200 degrees) for over half an hour. It came out softer than the first, having stewed in its own fat a bit. Impetus for trying out a foil wrapping after two and a half hours, followed by a finishing on the grill over direct heat after basting with bbq sauce.