Heritage Tamworth Pork

We like to buy local products when possible so with great pleasure we picked up 1/2 a hog last weekend from BackFortyAcres in Chelsea, Michigan. Believe it or not, if you shop around, buying premium heritage pork from local producers is very affordable.

The Tamworth pork was priced at $3.25 per pound - hanging weight - for our 110 lbs. The processing charge for butchering was roughly $80 and we selected a premium sausage option and smoking for some of the cuts, which added another $40 to the total bill with a couple of other miscellaneous charges bringing the final price to $450.

This is only two-thirds of the 110 lbs.
The rest wouldn't fit and is in the spare freezer downstairs.

Some may say that our pork was too expensive. Compared to pork at the local Meijer or Wal-Mart SuperCenter grocery stores, it does cost more but premium pork is worth a little extra.

The Tamworth we bought was raised in the pasture, on dirt, and not in some confinement building. The hog has been fed no hormones, antibiotics, or growth steroids. Since the taste of pork is derived from the environment the pigs live in, healthy living conditions and feed stock produces a very tasty meat. Raising the animals without the aids of hormones, antibiotics, or steroids does take a little longer to reach market weight and does add to the cost of production, so the prices reflect that.

It's a matter of choice. If the quality of food matters to you, like it does to me, the extra price is worth every penny.

Pork Loin Kabobs

Pork loin, bell peppers and onions on a stick

Linda made these delicious kabobs for supper a few nights ago.

The kabobs were brushed with a liberal coating of sauce that included a 1/2 cup of hoisin sauce and a 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar.

BBQ Site of the Day: The Hog Blog

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to prepare contest quality bbq at home, navigate over to The Hog Blog. Reading through the posts on chicken, ribs, brisket, and pork prep will save you quite a bit of trial and error. The site has a lot of nice pictures and the "how to" posts are quite nicely done.

I especially like the post on chicken preparation.  I used to have very good results in the chicken category, but some of my ideas have changed a little after reading Bob's post on chicken thighs.

The post on pork ribs is also noteworthy.  I've noticed a developing trend in rib cooking. Many are now cooking their ribs in a pan versus wrapping in foil.

For anyone wondering how to trim a brisket for the first time, his post on brisket trimming will put you the right track.

The site also features many different views of his very nice looking bbq cooking trailer painted my favorite color -- Barbecue Red.

Beef Packing Discussion

I have purposely delayed making a blog post on the so called "pink slime" issue because I just didn't feel like I knew enough about it. Like it does for many of my friends, the words "pink" and "slime" do evoke certain images and negative thoughts, but I am not necessarily against using the product in consumer products. Initially I thought I was, but based on some further research my personal views have changed a little.

I think the words "Lean Finely Textured Beef" should appear on the label. I also think "treated with ammonium hydroxide" should appear on the label.  If labeled properly, consumers can decide if they want to eat it, or if they want to spend a little more money on something else from another supplier that does not use those ingredients or processing methods.

I was at the local farmer's market yesterday and overheard a customer ask an apple farmer selling apple butter, "what's in your apple butter?". He replied, "apples and a little apple cider". The customer pressed the farmer for more information. The customer was convinced that there must be something else in the apple butter (i.e. corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, etc.). Like the customer I witnessed yesterday, many people are conditioned to assume that there are additives in our food that we don't necessarily know about and that don't seem to belong there. And that's why I believe labeling practices in beef processing and in all food production should be improved. I am in favor of labeling everything and letting the chips fall where they may.

During the past several years, our personal household purchasing practices have changed. We like to buy from local producers when possible. Sometimes buying local does cost more, but to us knowing where our food comes from and who produced it is worth paying a little extra money.

There is a movement to buy local in this country from people that you know. With a little research, you can find local producers who can provide what you might otherwise buy at the grocery store or retailer.  You can visit the farm where it was grown and see for yourself how the animals are raised or how the vegetables are grown. I think this trend is going to continue picking up speed. And public relations issues like "Lean Finely Textured Beef" provide an additional catalyst for buying local (in my opinion).

Cast Iron Dutch Oven Cooking

Whether over a campfire in the woods or in the backyard using modern conveniences, cast iron cooking with dutch ovens goes hand-in-hand with low and slow barbecue techniques.

I have two cast iron dutch ovens.  One is a Lodge #10 and the second is a #12 purchased at a local sporting goods retailer that imported it from a Chinese manufacturer (I don't recall the brand). I wish I'd held out for another Lodge, but I was in a hurry and needed a larger oven for a backyard event at the in-laws the next weekend. The price was attractive, so I purchased it.

Tonight I decided to cook supper on them.  I pulled out the dutch oven recipe book and prepared two cornish hens in the #12 and a delicious casserole made from potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, and sevreral strips of bacon.

I don't use Kingsford charcoal much anymore,
but it works well for dutch oven cooking.

After combining the casserole ingredients in the #10 dutch oven.

This was one of the best dutch oven dishes I've ever cooked.

I should have used a little more top heat to brown the chicken toward the end of cook.

I forgot how much I enjoy campfire cooking with the cowboy version of a microwave.  I hope to add dutch oven cooking segments to the bbq blog on a regular basis going forward. Now I need to find some more receipes.

For the casserole I started by browning 1 pound of bacon and saving the drippings. Then I sliced 12 small potatoes, cut two large onions into rings, added 1 pound of baby carrots, sliced two large bell peppers into rings, and added a packaged of sliced mushrooms. The mixture was combined and cooked for 1 hour with 10 briquettes for bottom heat and 12 briquettes for top heat.

The cornish hens were cooked for 1 hour in two cups of water and 2 tablespoons of chicken broth using a trivet. I cooked them with 12 briquettes of bottom heat for 1 hour. I added 12 briquettes for top heat during the last 30 minutes of the cook.  The hens were basted with a vinegar and butter mixture every 15 minutes. The end result was a moist chicken that paired very well with the potato casserole.

These two recipes and several others are available from the American West Dutch Oven Cooking cook book.

Chicken Drumsticks Wrapped in Bacon Recipe

Chicken Drumsticks Wrapped in Bacon

I was looking over Linda's shoulder a few days ago and she was looking at a picture of grilled chicken drumsticks wrapped in bacon on Pintrest. BBQ Geek made a post on his blog about a recipe from Adam Perry Lang's Serious Barbecue cook book.

I have seen a few recipes on the web incorporating bacon with various types and kinds of chicken.  Whether thighs, breasts, wings, or drumsticks, there is a bacon recipe for all of them. Rather than using one of those recipes I decided to create my own version from scratch. So here it is...

The BBQ Guy's Chicken Drumsticks Wrapped in Bacon

Begin by preparing the spice rub.

3 Tbsp Spanish Paprika

1 Tbsp Garlic Powder

1 Tbsp Granulated Onion

1 Tbsp Sea Salt
1/2 Tsp Black Pepper

1/2 Tsp White Pepper

1/2 Tsp Chipotle Chile Pepper

• Brush the chicken drumsticks with canola or vegetable oil.
• Apply the spice rub to the chicken drumsticks.
• Marinate the drumsticks in the refrigerator for 4 hours prior to grilling.
• Barbecue the drumsticks on a medium hot grill for 60 minutes using indirect heat (300-350 degrees).
• Brush the drumsticks with your favorite bbq sauce. I prefer Blues Hog.
• Continue grilling for an additional 10 minutes prior to serving.

Chicken drumsticks glazed with Blues Hog Barbecue Sauce

***
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One Contest, Four Meats, One WSM

My post from a couple days ago about Slap Yo Daddy's success in Las Vegas has got me thinking.

Wouldn't it be great if competing in bbq contests were affordable again (and fun)? Somewhere along the line, the cost of competing started getting in the way of my enjoyment. For awhile I thought I was the only one, but here and there on various bbq websites, blogs, and forums I've started noticing other competitors hinting at the same line of thought.

What if contest competitors left their RVs, customer trailers, etc. at home and competed on equivalent bbq equipment?  Identical WSMs, Backwoods Party's, or even Big Green Eggs would make good candidates.

I think it would be a great idea for a contest organizer, not to mention a great way to promote a bbq contest. The International Race of Champions (IROC) was stock racing's version, why shouldn't KCBS, FBA, or GLBBQA get behind it? Golf and bowling have handicapping; sprint cars, open-wheel, and even truck and tractor-pulling have cubic inch, bore and stroke limitations in certain classes. Why not bbq?

This would be a way to keep costs down for everyone in the sport.  Competitors could keep down costs for smokers, supplies, transportation, etc. and contest organizers wouldn't be under so much pressure to keep raising the prize money pools to attract and (in many cases) maintain contest entrants.

I need to give it some more thought before I commit to anything, but right now I'm toying with the idea of entering a few contests this season and cooking them on my WSM.  Wouldn't it be great to roll into a bbq contest in my Ford Fusion Hybrid and pull the bbq smoker out of the trunk? I bet that would turn some heads. What do you think? Anyone else want to try it?

50.3 mpg on my 18.2 mile commute to work, 70+ mpg running errands around town

Pulling my old cargo trailer with the Explorer, we averaged about 12 mpg and a lot of the expense of competing flew out the tailpipe.  My Fusion averages 42 mpg in normal interstate driving using cruise control. On a 400 mile round trip to an event, that's a $93 savings on the gas bill alone.

Less money for gasoline = more money for meat.

Now...if I can just figure out how to fit my Caravan portable tent in the car.

$10,000 From a WSM and 1 Bag of Charcoal

My Favorite BBQ Smoker

I have been cooking bbq on my Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) since 2001. I get extremely consistent results from the WSM and if I was competing this weekend, I would still prefer to use the WSM for brisket versus any other bbq smoker I own.

Many have said it before me and I've been saying for 11 years on the web - "It's not the cooker, it's the cook."  If you give 10 bbq cooks the same smoker and the same recipe, I'd be willing to bet you that there would be 10 different types, styles, and flavors of bbq results.

You don't need a $100,000 RV, a $25,000 catering trailer, or three or four different bbq smokers, etc. etc. to win a professional bbq contest. Don't believe me?

Slap Yo Daddy BBQ won a large bbq contest in Las Vegas earlier this year using 1 WSM and 1 bag of Kingsford charcoal for the event. From SlapYoDaddyBBQ.com:



Our continuing efforts to use only one WSM and one bag of Kingsford for each contest is working out as most of the choreographed ballet steps trying to cook four meats on one pit have been worked out.

So while some guys are out there ordering $15,000 custom bbq smokers mounted on trailer along with every new gadget, accessory, training class, book, DVD, etc. Slap Yo Daddy is keeping things pretty status quo (for them) and concentrating on executing bbq at a consistently high-level from contest to contest and collecting prize money. And if you've been following their results like I have, you know that they've been collecting a lot of grand championships these last few years.

Maybe it's time to return to basics and K.I.S.S.



I cooked this brisket on my WSM.



BBQ Sauce Tips

I get media requests periodically and don't always respond to them, but a few weeks ago I was asked to recommend some of my favorite bbq sauces for Woman's World magazine. It's definitely not a magazine that I read personally, but I know a lot of ladies like to read it.

I found out today that one of my suggestions will be included in the May 2012 issue. Pretty cool.

They accepted my least favorite sauce of the three that I suggested, but it's a sauce that many people who are getting into the bbq hobby start out with. Here's the list of sauces I suggested:

1. Blues Hog
2. Sweet Baby Rays
3. K.C. Masterpiece

There are many others that I like, but I think the editors at Woman's World were looking for some mainstream suggestions that can be purchased at most grocery stores throughout the country.

Blues Hog is the only sauce that I use straight from the bottle. Most other sauces I use are "doctored up" with some additional honey and if I'm cooking ribs, I also add some brown sugar.

Note: Edited on 4/9/12. It's come to my attention that I posted the incorrect magazine title when I made the original post. I have made the correction above.

Annual BBQ and Blues Festival - Barnesville, GA

The Barnesville Lamar County Chamber of Commerce hosts the Annual BBQ and Blues Festival in downtown Barnesville, GA on the fourth weekend in April. The event is sanctioned by the Florida BBQ Association and hosts some of the nation’s best blues acts. BBQ & Blues spices up the atmosphere downtown each year. Whether you are dancing with the neighbors down the street or winning best in show at the classic car cruise-in, you are going to have a great time.

On Friday night you will enjoy the sound of good music, classic cars on display, delicious food, and a kid’s park! On Saturday taste 24 cook team’s brisket and relax under the shade trees to good music while the kids play. Saturday evening is where the weekend ends with great bands, a GA Music Legend is honored and a musically inclined high school student is given a college scholarship. You never know what special music guest may show up!

BBQ & Blues is loaded with good family fun, southern hospitality, and all in the downtown of a charming city.

Here's a video of E G Knight who is one of the headliners for the blues festival.

Bikes and BBQ

Today we took a road trip to Mount Clemens, Michigan for the motorcycle show at the Gibraltar Trade Center.  Click here to see a video of the pictures I took today.

After a few hours checking out the bikes, we headed out in search of a restaurant for lunch. When we are away from home, we like to sample the local restaurants.  We drove 3 miles without seeing a place we just had to eat at, but when we were just about ready to head home we drove by a bbq restaurant located on Gratiot Avenue in Clinton Township.

A view of the signage from the parking lot

Sliced brisket sandwich and barbecue beans

A sampling of the sauce offerings

Nice logo

When I eat at a new bbq restaurant I almost always choose to eat brisket. As a bbq enthusiast and former contest competitor, I know that brisket is the most difficult bbq offering to produce in high quantity with high quality. So any bbq restaurant worth it's logo and catchy name needs to have a killer brisket to earn a return visit from me. I am happy to say that Smokin' BarBQ serves very good restaurant quality brisket. When I ordered, I didn't realize it would be served on a bun, but I enjoyed it a lot.

While we were there, we witnessed several people coming and going and they all seemed to enjoy their food. One guy who was dining alone made a special point to walk up to the serving counter and comment about how much he enjoyed the bbq sauce choices.  Just before leaving he returned to the counter and explained that he was scouting the place before deciding to bring his family back for a larger meal. He promised to bring them back at a later date.

The Boss Hog with slaw, macaroni and cheese

Linda ordered The Boss Hog - mostly because of the uniqueness of the name. The sandwich was served with bbq pulled pork and Monterrey Jack cheese with slaw. She liked everything about it, except the sweet pickle garnish on top of the bun. (She's a dill pickle girl.)

For anyone looking for a bbq business opportunity, Smokin' BarBQ is expanding their restaurant concept throughout Southeastern Michigan. With all of the empty restaurants I've seen around metro Detroit, this opportunity could be very lucrative for the right person.

Here's a link to a review by the restaurant critic from Detroit Free Press.

St. Louis Style BBQ Pork Spare Ribs

I purchased some ribs from Gordon Food Service (GFS) last weekend to make some B.R.I.T.U. recipe St. Louis cut bbq pork spare ribs. It takes some extra time to thaw them, since they come frozen from the store, but overall I was very pleased with the quality and convenience of these ribs.

March Madness BBQ Spare Ribs

My favorite basketball teams haven't done well in the tournament this year, but it was a nice excuse to cook some pork spare ribs on Saturday. I used rib racks to easily cook 5 racks of ribs (roughly 10 lbs) in my WSM. Using the rib racks, cooking 10 racks of St. Louis cut spares is possible in the WSM (roughly 20 lbs of ribs).

Brown Sugar versus Turbinado Sugar

This morning I mixed up some B.R.I.T.U. (Best Ribs In The Universe) bbq rub to cook some St. Louis pork spare ribs today on my Weber Smokey Mountain water smoker. This rub recipe was made famous by Mike Scrutchfield. He used this recipe to win the American Royal Invitational bbq contest in the mid-1990's.

I snapped a couple of pictures that demonstrate the downside to using the typical kind of brown sugar that is still fairly moist when it's straight out of the bag.


Unsifted and clumpy

 The white sugar and Kosher salt are highly visible in the above photo because the brown sugar did not mix well.



Sifted and thoroughly mixed



The second photo was take after running the rub mixture through a flour sifter.

You can virtually eliminate this issue and avoid using the flour sifter by using Turbinado sugar aka Sugar in the Raw instead of regular brown sugar. If you don't have any Turbinado sugar in the cupboard and don't want to make a trip to the grocery store, you can spread regular brown sugar onto a cookie sheet and let it sit out for a couple of hours. It will dry fairly quickly and mix more easily with other ingredients.

Weekend BBQ Plans

I know it's only Tuesday, but the weather this week has been in the mid-60's with lots and lots of sunshine. I've got spring fever and I can't wait for the weekend.

I haven't made pork ribs following the B.R.I.T.U. recipe in a several years. It's my first bbq session in 2012, so why not go back to basics?

For anyone that might be stopping by the blog for the first time looking for pork rib recipes, B.R.I.T.U. is a nice beginning. Virtual Weber Bullet has a nice write-up for first timers and others (like me) who haven't used that recipe in a while.

If you're going to try B.R.I.T.U. for the first time, be sure to watch the video below that features the originator of the recipe - Mike Scrutchfield. His interview starts at about 2:54 if you don't want to watch the rest.  His tip about wood bark is priceless.

Rising Beef Prices

I was asked to comment for a proposed ThompsonReuters article about rising beef prices related to bbq grilling season. I think I missed the deadline for the article, but it made me think about a few things....

I view grilling and bbq cooking as a hobby. I think most people who grill on a regular basis view it similarly. Most people do not grill on a daily basis. Most of my friends grill a steak, a pork chop, or a hamburger for special occasions and for weekend celebrations. Meat prices may have increased significantly, but grilling remains a relatively low volume activity and not a daily requirement.

If gasoline doubles in price, then lifestyles must change dramatically for most of us because we need gasoline to get to work to earn a living. We buy a more fuel efficient car, or change our vacation plans to stay closer to home. We can't realistically stop using gasoline. If you spend $100 a week for gasoline and the price doubles, you are then spending $200 a week for gasoline.

If a $10 steak doubles to $20 it's not quite the same thing because buying a nice steak is not a daily expense. It's a hobby or luxury. We can still justify the expense of steak for grilling because we owe ourselves a treat once in a while. But I'd agree that some folks who don't take grilling as seriously as I do might substitute steak with hamburger occasionally to help offset the increase in prices. Some folks might substitute beef or pork for chicken, but don't include me in that group. My father-in-law is a cattle rancher.  What kind of son-in-law would I be if I stopped buying beef? [:-)
 
And here's another side of the story....The frequency of grilling might actually increase as people choose to cook something at home rather than spending money eating out in a restaurant.

Slow's BarBQ Detroit

My co-workers took me to Slow's BarBQ on Michigan Avenue in Detroit for a birthday lunch earlier this week. I had the brisket entree with black beans and potato salad.  For a bbq restaurant, the brisket was very good. I really enjoyed my lunch.

It was my third trip to Slow's and the second time I actually got to eat bbq while I was there. That's the trouble with hip and happenin' restaurant's sometimes - they are so busy you have to wait 3 hours to eat at them. That experience is a long story that I won't go into here, but if you decide to make a trip to Slow's I encourage you get there early, or plan on the possibility that you may be waiting a while.

Cottage Food Law

I wanted to share some research I've been doing regarding the cottage food laws that provide some possibilities to prepare certains types of food products from a homebased kitchen. Not all states offer this possibility, but certain states do. Here's a list. Farmer's Market Coalition has a nice article that offers sources for further research as well.

It's important to understand that all states are different and what's allowed in Illinois might not be allowed in Florida, for example. While jams and jellies are allowed in many states, canning pickles from home is rarely allowed. As with any regulation, they are subject to change. If you decide to pursue this, it's important to stay current with changes to the rules that affect homebased operators. This might be a viable avenue for homebased production of bbq spice rubs and seasonings as long as labeling requirements are followed carefully.

From HomeBasedBaking.com:

As with any other business endeavor there are certain rules and regulations that govern the industry. These rules and regulations are set by the individuals states and cover the types of items that can be sold, where vendors can sell, how products must be packaged and labeled and much more. There are currently 31 states that allow citizens to bake from home for profit in some form.

Most of the states have a cap on how much revenue you can earn from a homebased food business. In my state, Michigan, it's $15,000. In other states it's $25,000, or somewhere in between.

Many local Michigan micropreneurs have used the cottage food law to launch their business with low costs and then once established transitioned to a larger commercial operation once the $15,000 cap is reached. Here's an article about a cupcake baker.

The farmer's market near my home is packed with small farmers and urban gardeners taking advantage of these new regulations to launch their own small businesses. Here's a link to the specific rules in Michigan.

I applaud the states who have crafted regulations to losen the reins on some of the food safety regulations. I've read many other accounts online where the unemployed and under-employed have launched small businesses to help them overcome their current financial struggles.

BBQ Safe and BBQ Vault by Pitmaker

I found these on YouTube tonight. The first is a BBQ Safe by Pitmaker



The second is a is a BBQ Vault also by Pitmaker.



The BBQ Vault is very similar to my McCullough.

Union Woodshop - Clarkston, Michigan

Traditional signage is rare on mainstreet in the 2000's

We took a short drive to Clarkston, Michigan yesterday to eat at Union Woodshop, at 18 South Main Street. This bbq restaurant was recently featured on Diner's, Drive-in's and Dives on Food Network in an episode featuring Kid Rock, a Michigan native.

We arrived at 1 p.m. hoping to avoid a large lunch crowd, but due to the popularity of Guy Fieri and Kid Rock a lot of people must have had the same idea. We ended up waiting 40 minutes for a seat and met some nice people while waiting (standing room only) including a friendly couple who drove up from Toledo, OH. They made a day trip to the Detroit area for a motorcycle show in Novi (she is employed by Harley-Davidson), to eat some bbq, and then drive to Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, which happens to be the brewer of Kid Rock's Badass Beer.  If you want to try the beer, here's a list of distributors:  AmericanBadassBeer

I'll admit right up front that I missed the original episode on Food Network, but I hope to check it out soon in re-runs. I'll keep looking for a clip of the show to add here, but until I locate one I've added some pictures of the restaurant and menu items below.

When I check out a barbecue restaurant for the first time, I almost always order beef brisket if it's on the menu. It's been my experience that the quickest way to judge the overall ability of the pitmaster is whether he or she can cook brisket well.  Linda usually gets pulled pork because she's a Tennessean and she loves traditional pork bbq.  Union Woodshop Menu

Linda had the Shop Burrito (black beans & spinach in a flour tortilla topped cheese, stuffed with a choice of pulled pork, smoked chicken, or smoked shrimp) and I had the Beef Brisket with sides of collard greens and barbecue baked beans. 

Union Woodshop beef brisket, baked beans, and collard greens

Union Woodshop Shop Burrito

Drinks are served on these unique beverage coasters

And if you're like me and are cautiously suspicious about bbq restaurants who profess to be the real deal, but who don't actually cook the bbq over wood flame the way it's meant to be cooked, here's a picture of the Southern Pride pit behind the restaurant.


Southern Pride smoker behind the restaurant

Even if you are not into barbecue, Clarkston's mainstreet is worth a look.  It's on the National Register of Historic Places. The area is known for several fine examples of Queen Anne-style homes and the mainstreet is very pedestrian friendly.