A Gamer Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Category: Grill Master Biggs

13lb Pork Boston Butt

This past weekend I took on my biggest challenge yet (figuratively and literally). We bought a 13lb pork Boston butt from Sam’s Club. Most grilling websites and pitmasters will tell you that you should allow 1 – 1 1/2 hours per pound to properly smoke pork. So 13lbs pounds means anywhere from 18-19 hours. Friday night I prepared a marinade and injected some of it into the pork butt, then I put the meat in a 2.5 gallon ziploc bag with the rest of the marinade and left it in the refrigerator until it was time to prepare it for the grill. It marinaded for about 24 hours.grilling-penguin

The best way we decided to do this was start late Saturday night, so I started the coals at 9:30pm, prepped the meat and started everything at 10:00pm. I have a temperature probe that will transmit via bluetooth to a receiver and, thankfully, it reached the bedroom. I set an alarm for every three hours to check the temperature. As long as the temperature was higher then it was at the last alarm, I just let it be.

We didn’t reach our first stall until about 6am; but after throwing some more coals on and refilling the water pan, the temperature was going back up. There wasn’t much that needed to be done throughout the day other than stoke the coals or add more to keep the temperature above 165 degrees. Around 4:30ish I took it off the grill, wrapped it in some heavy duty foil with some more brown sugar, butter and agave and let it rest for another hour (this helps the meat finish cooking).

I have to admit, with as much humility as possible, this has to have been my greatest success of smoking pork. It pulled clean off the bone (as you can see from the pictures below), and it just melts in your mouth. I couldn’t stop eating it as I was pulling it apart. Then you add some home made BBQ sauce to it and you start to have funny feelings in your special places. I don’t think I could ever top it, I just hope that I can always replicate it. Granted it is getting pretty late in the season now to have consistent weather for smoking (another month at best); so if this is the last thing I smoke for the year, then I went out on top!

Lessons Learned:

  • Take Your Time – Don’t rush it. Ever. Cook it for the full length and some if you think it needs it (based on temperature of the meat).
  • Know Your Grills Limits – I learned no matter how many coals I added, I couldn’t get the grill hotter so factor that into your cooking time.
  • Plan In Advance – Know what day you want to cook and watch the weather closely. The nicer and calmer it is, the better the cooking environment.

4th of July Pork Shoulder

Photo Jun 16, 10 06 56 AMIf Memorial Day is the biggest grilling day of the year, then 4th of July has to be the second biggest grilling day of the year. I’d like to say that I did grill out, but technically I did not. I smoked a 7 lb pork shoulder instead. This was the first time I smoked a pork shoulder. I also made my rub again (with a minor tweak) and created a pork injection and BBQ sauce from scratch. The minor tweak to my rub was simply making my own brown sugar, which is insanely easy (its just sugar and molasses) but it made a huge difference in the flavor profile of the rub.

We tried to make two sauces actually. We followed the recipe in Myron Mixon‘s “Everyday Barbeque” book and it turned out to be more like a pizza sauce then a BBQ sauce. I looked up the reviews of the book online and discovered that everyone that tried the recipe thought the same thing. We were completely unable to salvage the sauce and ended up giving it to a friend who would use it as a pasta sauce/marinade for non-BBQ dishes. Despite the terrible BBQ sauce recipe, the book has been quite useful and definitely contributed to the success of this smoked pork shoulder. The other sauce we made turned out to be really good. We looked for a recipe that was suppose to be close to Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce but we decided to alter the recipe, of course, because I wanted to make it my own instead of somebody else’s recipe.

I smoked the pork for about 10 hours; although in hindsight I probably should have gone another hour or two as the meat didn’t pull apart as easily as I would have liked. After I took it off the grill I wrapped it in some foil with more fresh brown sugar, butter and agave. I then wrapped it again in a heavy wool blanket in a cooler and let it rest there for 45 minutes to an hour.

I took a few pictures to document the progress and end result …

My First Attempt At Smoking

Smoking a brisket. I’m sure some of you knew that, others might have thought I lost my damn mind. No, I don’t smoke and I never will. Anyway, this past weekend was my first attempt at smoking my first brisket. I didn’t do anything too fancy. The meat I bought was a 3.81 lb beef brisket from Costco. I didn’t want to buy anything too expensive in case I screwed it up. I used charcoal and water with some hickory wood chips for flavor.

R2-B2 Smoker Droid

I call him R2-B2 (he’s a Smoker Droid)

The rub I used was a custom rub that a friend created using various spices from some research on the Internet (and whatever I had in the house). It was an excellent debut rub!! I didn’t use any BBQ, this time (but it will probably be part of the attempt for the next time). I started the smoker about 9:30 and placed the brisket on the grill about 10:00 to cook for about 6-8 hours. Using a suggestion by Iron Chef Bobby Flay, about every hour I would go out and spritz the brisket with some Apple Cider Vinegar from a spray bottle. The real trick was keeping the temperature at an ideal level. About half way through I had to add more charcoal and more water.

It was a far more tiresome process then I expected (especially since I was in the basement playing on the computer between spritzings). The rewards were worth the effort though. It turned out pretty damn good and I’ve already come up with some ideas for the next time. Perhaps a different rub with some different spices, maybe a marinade. Either way, I’d say it was a pretty successful first try! It’s just a matter of honing my skills and making a few minor adjustments and then I’ll be ready for Bobby Flay’s Throwdown 🙂

/cheers

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