Sunday, August 27, 2006
finally...the butt
This is your basic smoker setup. You've got your propane tank, burner underneath with Amy's cookie tin for holding the chips. You've got an empty water pan lined with foil to catch any fat. On top is the headliner, your basic Rubbed Butt with meat thermometer inserted beneath the bone (but not touching) and to the center of mass. A hose for safety and also for dampening the wood chips in the bucket. Mom's garden trowel to shovel the chips into the tin is optional. We used a mix of maple and hickory woods, just for the record.
Dad and I lit the fire at 4pm or so and tried to adjust the smoker temp near 220° F. The breeze blew out the burner a few times and it was generally a pain in the ass to get the temp steady. A quickly constructed wind screen helped a bit. We soon accepted that any temp between 190 and 230 would have to be acceptable.
I left for dinner at this point and over the next 5 hours Dad became intimately familiar with how much attention the thing needs, even with the fancy propane and remote thermometer for meat and smoker temps. It's a good thing he just got two new knees for all the squatting and bending required to make sure the burner is still lit and to feed chips into the pan occasionally.
After returning from dinner, Dad and I decided to remove the butt from the smoker and place it in the oven to finish cooking overnight. We put the meat on a rack in a roasting pan and into a 205° oven. We awoke to a very porky household and the butt was within 10 degrees of the 190° internal temperature that we were shooting for.
It was finished just after breakfast was cleared up. I believe the total cooking time was in the neighborhood of 17 hours.
Erin and Dan and Duncan were leaving before lunch so I cut a hunk off the end to send home with them. Slicing the meat was like cutting through a well toasted marshmallow, but with no stickiness inside. Crispy outside with slight gelatinous resistance as you went through, truly a unique feeling. We wrapped the rest of the meat in foil and placed it in a cooler with newspaper around it to help insulate.
When lunch time rolled around, we grabbed some forks and started pulling.
Mom had made some great sides of coleslaw, fancy baked beans and broiled tomotoes. Dad and I had also made 2 sauces for the pork on Saturday which we reheated. One was the typical tomato based KC/Memphis style sauce and the other was mustard based. Both were good but the mustard based was the unanimous favorite.
The pork itself was amazingly tasty. Once you're past the bark, a large majority of the meat is not flavored at all, even from the brine it seemed. You just get 100% pure porky goodness. So if you have a smoker, by all means dive right in and make the real thing. But absent a smoker, a modern oven which can hold a low temp reliably (210-230° F say) and a meat thermometer would be all that's needed to come up with a really special meal. If you're not into bbq then use the butt for carnitas, perhaps making some home made mole sauce if you're up for it.
This is your basic smoker setup. You've got your propane tank, burner underneath with Amy's cookie tin for holding the chips. You've got an empty water pan lined with foil to catch any fat. On top is the headliner, your basic Rubbed Butt with meat thermometer inserted beneath the bone (but not touching) and to the center of mass. A hose for safety and also for dampening the wood chips in the bucket. Mom's garden trowel to shovel the chips into the tin is optional. We used a mix of maple and hickory woods, just for the record.
Dad and I lit the fire at 4pm or so and tried to adjust the smoker temp near 220° F. The breeze blew out the burner a few times and it was generally a pain in the ass to get the temp steady. A quickly constructed wind screen helped a bit. We soon accepted that any temp between 190 and 230 would have to be acceptable.
I left for dinner at this point and over the next 5 hours Dad became intimately familiar with how much attention the thing needs, even with the fancy propane and remote thermometer for meat and smoker temps. It's a good thing he just got two new knees for all the squatting and bending required to make sure the burner is still lit and to feed chips into the pan occasionally.
After returning from dinner, Dad and I decided to remove the butt from the smoker and place it in the oven to finish cooking overnight. We put the meat on a rack in a roasting pan and into a 205° oven. We awoke to a very porky household and the butt was within 10 degrees of the 190° internal temperature that we were shooting for.
It was finished just after breakfast was cleared up. I believe the total cooking time was in the neighborhood of 17 hours.
Erin and Dan and Duncan were leaving before lunch so I cut a hunk off the end to send home with them. Slicing the meat was like cutting through a well toasted marshmallow, but with no stickiness inside. Crispy outside with slight gelatinous resistance as you went through, truly a unique feeling. We wrapped the rest of the meat in foil and placed it in a cooler with newspaper around it to help insulate.
When lunch time rolled around, we grabbed some forks and started pulling.
Mom had made some great sides of coleslaw, fancy baked beans and broiled tomotoes. Dad and I had also made 2 sauces for the pork on Saturday which we reheated. One was the typical tomato based KC/Memphis style sauce and the other was mustard based. Both were good but the mustard based was the unanimous favorite.
The pork itself was amazingly tasty. Once you're past the bark, a large majority of the meat is not flavored at all, even from the brine it seemed. You just get 100% pure porky goodness. So if you have a smoker, by all means dive right in and make the real thing. But absent a smoker, a modern oven which can hold a low temp reliably (210-230° F say) and a meat thermometer would be all that's needed to come up with a really special meal. If you're not into bbq then use the butt for carnitas, perhaps making some home made mole sauce if you're up for it.
