First Smoke of 2009 – Pork Butt / Pulled Pork

We finally got our entry cards for Restaurant Depot so just had to wander around a bit. Hit heaven when we walked into the cooler – that’s a lot of meat in there! Pork Butt was on sale, OK, force me – I’ll grab 14 pounds and see if the smoking gods let me make some smoke this weekend. As you see below, it all worked out.

Got the smoker and all out in the open and ready to go…

Did not get the butts rubbed and in the refrigerator overnight since I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. So they got about an hour or so rubbed and wrapped. I used Bad Byron’s Butt Rub over my secret base again. Need to try some other rubs next time. Or better yet, make my own.

I wanted to try smoking at a bit higher heat this time to see if I could get the cook time down a bit while still keeping the end product moist and tasty. Ended up with about 8 hours for the bigger piece (smoked closer to the fire box) and 8 1/2 hours for the smaller part.

Here’s a peek after about two hours. This is my first time with boneless (I meant to grab the on sale bone-in, but didn’t read the label carefully!). Things look like they are progressing well.

After four hours things are really coming along. The bark is starting to firm up well. Looking pretty tasty.

The Five hour mark is where the bark really sets in. Man it was dark. Still chugging along with the Best of the West lump (a ton of shake in this bag – is that common?). First time with Best of the West – not sure how I feel about it. I know a lot of folks use it, so I think I’ll try it again and see if I feel better about it next time. Got it on sale at Smart & Final – so that was a bonus! OK, back to the meat – here we are at five hours…

I pulled the larger piece at 190* (foiled at 170*) and let rest for 15-20 minutes.

Then got pulling. Moist. Bark was a bit strong for my wife’s taste, but she loved the meat. It was nice to catch her sneaking some meat when I was in the other room. She really did like it!

The smaller piece was further from the fire box and went to about 193* in 8 1/2 hours (I also foiled this one at about 170*). Let it rest for about 20-25 minutes and started pulling.

Good results here too. Very moist. Nice and dark.

Got it bagged up and in the refrigerator. I think I know what’s for lunch today!

Need to spend some time with the vacuum packer today. Like many out there, I like to freeze it in single or double serving sizes and then reheat by boiling for 20 minutes or so before dropping on some bread for lunch.

I added some oak and a little avocado wood along the way on this cook. Need to resupply the cooking wood pile.

I was thinking about doing an apple juice injection, but since I got a late start on things I was just scrambling to get it going. Even had to fun to Smart & Final to get the charcoal since I was out and my oak supply has dwindled.

This should keep me set for pulled pork sammies for a bit! If I’m not careful my wife will start eating them too – I guess that’s OK. Just means I’ll have do cook more!

Two Pork Loin – 8 and 6.5 Pounders

We stopped by a Vons on the way home from Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll tell you what – this is a good time to shop for meats, right after Thanksgiving. We picked up a 22 pound turkey for under $7 and about $100 worth of pork loin for about $30. Good prices!

The turkey is for a dog club holiday party in a few weeks. The pork loin for a Loin’s Club Christmas Party a week after Thanksgiving. The ‘best by’ dates were still far off, so the loin stayed in the refrigerator. There isn’t enough room for the bird, so it went into the freezer.

Jen asked to have one loin with a Chinese BBQ marinade that we have used before and really liked. Wasn’t sure how it would smoke up, but I said “sure!”. It was being smoked the day after her birthday after all… The other one I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. That is until I opened the cabinet to check out some rubs and saw the apple rub. For some reason that jumped out at me as a perfect flavor for the pork. It was D-Dog’s Apple rub.

Started off by marking the Chinese BBQ marinade. I multiplied the recipe by eight since the loin I was going to use was an 8 pound giant. After making it I knew it still wouldn’t cover it, but just couldn’t bring myself to make even more. So I figured I’d turn it as few times before bed and again in the AM.

Here is the finished marinade…

Here is the loin after sitting all night and being turned. It looked like it took on the marinade pretty well. There wasn’t enough room in the refrigerator for a pot or bowl big enough to fit the loin and marinade, so I coolered it on ice with a thermometer over night.

I’ll include the full recipe for the Chinese BBQ marinade at the end of this post. And yes – it does work well in the smoker.

The 6.5 pound loin got a mix of my secret sauce and a liberal rub down of the D-Dog’s Apple rub. It was plastic wrapped and put back in the refrigerator for the night. Sorry, I failed to get a photo here.

In the morning Mojo (one of “the” Big Dog’s) helped by testing out some of the oak I was going to use…

After the wood was declared ready for use I got a full chimney of lump charcoal going and got ready to go.

This is only my second time using this smoker. I know that it leaks air like crazy – need to work on that. I was also working with a new thermometer today. The temps were all over the place and finally settled down after nearly an hour.

One of these days I need to spend some time working on sealing up the doors on this smoker. Don’t really need to open the chimney much with all the leaks this guy has!

I figured what I would do is put on the larger loin for 60-90 minutes before putting on the smaller one. Hoping that they would finish about the same time. So I got some fresh oak on the fire to get the smoke going, and dropped in the Apple rubbed loin. If you caught my error here you were faster than I was. It wasn’t until I went to get the Chinese BBQ loin about an hour later that I realized I did them backwards! I dropped the 6.5 pound loin first! Oh well – that’s how it goes…

So the Apple rub went on first…

Temps were a little high for the first hour too – on top of my mistake! So it was crusin’ to temp a lot faster than I had expected. Maybe because for the first hour the temp was 25* higher on the grill than I thought it was! That could have just a little to do with it.

I pulled and foiled the Apple rub loin at about 145* F. Then I added the Chinese BBQ loin…

I worked to keep the temp in the middle of the smoker at grate level around 120* – 130*. My target of 125* was fairly steady. After the Chinese BBQ loin went in I added another little piece of oak to get some fresh smoke going. Also added a little fresh lump first to keep the temps going.

I used a lot less charcoal than on my last smoke (Pork Butt). I think there was less wind, and the lump burns a bit hotter, and I was using some whole oak wood too. I think it was a lot to do with the wind. Looking back at the photos for that last smoke I recall how windy it was – we had to wrap the smoker to keep the heat up!

The smaller loin came off the pit when it hit 160*. It would have to sit for a bit since it went on too early and cooked faster than I had expected. I decided then to not cut these till just before leaving – in the hope of keeping them as moist as possible.

I foiled the 8 pounder when it hit 150*. It came off at about 160*. It would have to sit a little over 90 minutes before I would be ready to cut.

Here’s the Chinese BBQ loin sliced and ready for the pan. This one was really nice when served. I foiled it and pulled it earlier than the smaller one. So it was REALLY juicy. Which was nice because it held up better to sitting in the oven for a bit – it was still nice and juicy when served.

And here’s the Apple rub loin all sliced up. This one turned out to be just a little dry, but not too bad. I cooked it a little too far, especially since it ended up sitting in the oven for awhile before being served.

Something must have gone right – I got lots of compliments on the pork throughout the night.

I would certainly do pork loin again. I think the key is to foil early, and cook to medium doneness (150*) and pull. It will continue to cook more, so if you go any further than that it will start to dry out.

OK – I promised to include the Chinese BBQ pork marinade at the end, and here we are…

Chinese BBQ Pork – from the “Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook” put out by the Editors of Consumer Guide back in 1980. This cookbook is dirty because we use it a lot, there are some good recipes in there.

[ Note: this recipe is really for an appetizer dish (for 2 pork tenderloins at 12 oz each) – so it doesn’t make a ton – but do the math and make what you need, it is an easy one. I made 8 times what it calls for and wasn’t able to submerge my 8 pound pork loin, but it was OK since I turned it and had it marinating for 10 hours. ]

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons dry red wine (I used a Cabernet Sauvignon we opened for cooking a few weeks ago]
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons red food coloring, if desired (I did not do this)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 clove garlic, crushed (I cut it up a little too)
1 green onion, cut in half (I cut it into about 4-inch pieces)

 

What is your favorite method or trick for pork loin in the smoker?

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Hard to go wrong with a Ribeye on the grill

We usually get the nice, big, think ribeyes at Costco - and have always really enjoyed them. But, we weren't going to Costco and we wanted beef, and these ribeye's at the grocery looked pretty good. So...

Some kosher salt, a little pepper...

Put some oak chips on the grill and...

Time for dinner!

As you would expect from ribeye's - nice and juicy and flavorful!

This is our favorite cut of meat to grill. But I have to say, we did a porterhouse recently (really recently - just the day before these!) that was fantastic!

It has been a good week, with a lot of beef on the grill. Need to get the smoker fired up though!

My First Pulled Pork

And the first time using the "new" smoker. Actually lugged it up to my friend Mike's place. Turn's out they had a family wedding the day before we planned to smoke, so we were going to be feeding about 17 family members.

 

I pulled two pork butts out of the freezer. They were just over 13 pounds together. Didn't get them out quite as soon as I had hoped, so turned to the CBBQA Forum to get some tips on faster defrost. In the end they were thawed late Saturday evening for a Sunday cook, so I rubbed them up with Bad Byron's Butt Rub and tossed them back in the refrigerator for morning.

We got a late start. Neither of us had done butt before. Mike had the coals going in the firebox before I got there, and we put the butts on just about 11:15 AM.

We added a small Tri-Tip and a sausage too. Also put a chicken on the rotisserie later too (used Butt Rub on it too, and it was tasty). The Tri-Tip and sausage went on about 2:15 PM. Pork butt was 131* internal temps at this time.

We added more soaked oak chips as we went along. We had the smoke box running with about a 10 degree difference from side to side. She was running about 210 at the hot side and 200 on the other.

We added a towel pretty quick - lots of air leaks. Going to have to work on that.  In the afternoon the winds picked up a little so we added the fancy brick mod to keep the towel on. It seemed to do pretty well keeping the drafts down. We took it off once to see what would happen - the temps shot up really fast. Was also glad to see it drop back down fast when the towel went back on. 

By 6 PM the natives were getting restless. So we decided to pop up the heat and get things moving along. We had already lost one family that didn't want to wait any longer and had a long drive home. So we tossed on a oak branch piece. That caught and the temps went right up - so turned down the air flow - kept her at about 250/260. At this point the pork was at 166 internal - as you can see in the photo to the left.

We wrapped in foil a little after 6. We pulled the meat before we really wanted to, but we were going to loose everyone, and the other meats were all done. We ended up pulling it at about 7 PM and the internal temp was at 174*.

Below you can see what I chopped for Mike's family to gobble up - yes chopped, I wanted to get it done fast at this point. On the cutting board are also the Tri-Tip and the sausage. That Tri-Tip was tasty. But so was the pork! Next to that is what I pulled after getting home that evening.

 

I pulled 1 1/2 butts and vacuum packed them up in 2 serving sizes. There was probably about 16 servings at least left there.

I'll be enjoying this meat for some time, and I learned a lot on the cook too. Not bad for my first run at pulled pork! I think we are going to try brisket. None of us have done a brisket before either. This is my kind of learnin'!

Review: BJ's Barbecue (Sparks, Nevada)

I happened to be in Reno at the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) annual conference a few weeks ago. Myself and two coworkers piled into a rental car with the Neverlost GPS system and took off for old Reno in search for food. We cruised the main drag a few times looking at the odd sights. I tossed out the idea of BBQ and Brent thought that was a great idea.

We tried a few variations on "BBQ" in the Neverlost and in the end it served us well by taking us to BJ's Barbeque in Sparks.

Sitting in the booth with a Newcastle on tap was a good start. I happened to mention that I am a member of the California BBQ Association and Brent was very interested to learn more - turns out he is a BBQ fan too. Kevin was quite interested to sit back and ask questions about this form of cooking that we seemed to be so excited about.

Looking over the menu Brent and I both settled on the 1/2 pound of pulled pork and we talked Kevin into the 7 ribs. I went with the coleslaw and dirty rice for sides. I had never actually had dirty rice before, so thought this would be a good time to go for it.

I wasn't thrilled by the coleslaw. It was OK, but not great. I didn't eat it all. The rice was dirty - a little spicy. I'm not that great with spicy, so that wasn't a plus for me. But it was pretty good. Better than the slaw.

Brent thought the corn bread was too sweet. I really liked it.

Brent and I both enjoyed the pulled pork. It wasn't fantastic, but it was quite good. I would get it again for sure. My plate didn't have any pork left on it, that's for sure.

The service was quick and friendly. Our waitress sat down in the booth and joked with us a bit and made suggestions when we asked. Friendly but not pushy.

We were there on a week night - I think it was a Monday evening. Two other booths had folks in them when we got there, so it was quiet.

Did I mention Newcastle on tap?  =)    
Sorry I didn't get any photos.

Enter the Team Pork Fiesta Bowl Sweepstakes!

[ Here's a contest that folks will like to enter for a variety of reasons. ]

 

Fire up the grill and bring along the mega phones, foam fingers and team jerseys. The Other White Meat® and Ray Lampe (a.k.a. Dr. BBQ), tailgating expert and author of newly-released The NFL Gameday Cookbook (Chronicle Books) will be partying in the parking lot with lucky "Team Pork" fans as part of this year's "Team Pork Fiesta Bowl Sweepstakes!"

Be sure to enter yourself in this "draft!"  One national winner will win:

• All-expense paid trip for two to the 2009 Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.
• Two tickets to the Fiesta Bowl game
• VIP pass to a private tailgating party with Dr. BBQ himself, Ray Lampe

To enter the online sweepstakes, simply fill out the information below and click submit!  You can also check-out the official rules for details on the mail-in sweepstakes.

Contest begins on September 10th, 2008 and will run through December 1st, 2008.

One lucky winner and a guest will be selected on Dec. 8, 2008!

 

Follow link to enter: http://www.theotherwhitemeat.com/aspx/promos/tailgatesweeps.aspx

Porterhouse over Flame

Well, the smoker has been way too underused. Heck, I haven't even used the new (used) one I got. Once we are back from vacation that has to change.

But until then we are making good use of the gas grill. That lamb was different and very good. Also been doing a lot of burgers for lunch mostly. Mixing in some pork. Salt and pepper for the wife - I've been mixing in some D-Dog's in a few of mine. Twice we even mixed in some other goodies for gourmet burgers. Oh ya - and some ribeye's too.

But today was the day for the porterhouse! We splurged on a really nice cut from a local store called Major Market. It's a little higher end on the grocery store scale, and they have a nice meat counter.

Salted. A little pepper.

On the grill. A few oak chips as well.

Just pulled from the grill.

Juicy. Tasty. Very nice...

This is worth a little extra cost. OK, so not for every weekend. But definitely something to remember for those nice events or a special weekend.

Want a Free Grill & $10,000 Backyard Makeover??

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Enter daily for a chance to win at: http://criscogrilladay.amgpromo.com/ 

 

Good luck!!

Can a Hamburger be Gourmet?

Why not? You see enough of them in restaurants for $10 or more!

My wife read an article in a food magazine that had a fancy recipe for hamburger patties - we took parts of that and modified a little.

 

We minced sweet onions, mushrooms and yes, even carrot.

The original recipe calls for roasted garlic too - that sounds fantastic, but we didn't get that far. Although, the first time we made these I did add crushed garlic, and that was a nice touch.

 

Tossed these on the hot grill and cooked through to just passed FDA recommended internal temperature of 160 degrees.

 

Toasted up wheat buns on the grill.

Add some fresh cut cheddar to melt, add your favorite toppings...YUM

 

This is the way to have a burger. Just a little extra work, but worth it.

Grillin' Some Lamb

We got a lamb shoulder chop (0.6 lbs) to bring out to my dad's for Father's Day to grill up - give him something special while the rest of us ate burgers and hotdog's. Well, it was a good plan, but we left the darn thing in the fridge at home!

So I finally got around to it tonight. Wasn't sure what to do, so I popped onto the BBQ Brethren site and did a search on "lamb" - found a lead on the second post I checked. Olive Oil, Garlic, Salt, Pepper and Rosemary - I can do that...well, almost. I didn't have fresh rosemary and didn't want to dig out the spices box - so grabbed some spices we got recently from Penzeys Spices. I decided on the Turkish Oregano in place of the rosemary.

Rubbed it up and popped it back in the fridge for a bit. Fired up the grill to pre-heat. Got it up to 300 degrees (F) and dropped some dry oak chips on the grill above the two outside burners.

Dropped the lamb on while all three burners were at full to sear it up. 30 seconds, turn 90 degrees, 30 seconds, flip, 30 seconds turn again, 30 more seconds and turned the middle burner (where the meat is) off to cook the rest of the way by indirect heat.

 

On a side note - we are going on an Alaska cruise in a few weeks, so we splurged a bit more than normal and got me a new digital camera. This was my first time grilling/BBQing with the new camera, so I took a few shots. Tons of features and settings to figure out!

 

Also had some help from Baron Herzog (2004 Central Coast Cabernet Sauvignon). Not bad. First time trying this vineyard. I drank a lot of it, so it must be OK!

Gave Jen a small bite. She proclaimed that we would be getting some lamb on the cruise ship - so I'd say it was a success.  =)

Man, was this meat tender! This was my first time cooking lamb by any method. It was better after a little more salt at the table - but other than that - I would certainly grill lamb again.