Pulled Pork Sliders and Sweet Potato Wedges

Here are some pictures from my cook today for supper prior to watching the big game tonight. I smoked two 10 lb pork shoulder picnics from Wal-Mart.



Pork shoulder picnic

We ended up with a whole bunch of pulled pork. I'll be eating left overs for lunch all week.


Pulled pork

 I baked sweet potatoes whole in the smoker for the last hour of the cooking session.



Sweet potato wedges

Then I sliced them into wedges and plopped them in a frying pan filled with about 3/4 of an inch in vegetable oil.



Frying the sweet potato wedges

 The wedges were fried for about 10 minutes until the skin started to turn crispy.



Sweet potato wedges wtih dipping sauce

Linda made the dipping sauce with Greek yogurt, chipotle, mayonaise, Adobo sauce, chili powder, garlic, and some smoked paprika.



Pulled pork sliders

 We served the pulled pork on dinner rolls.



Supper before the Big Game

This was my supper before the game and for my birthday.

BBQ Pulled Pork - Vacuum Sealed and Frozen

I pulled the pork butts from the cooker around 4:30 p.m. 

This pork is being served at my nephew's graduation party next weekend, so after pulling and seasoning I placed the ready-to-serve pulled pork in a vacuum sealer bag.

I've been vacuum sealing and then freezing my leftover bbq for almost 7 years. It's great for storing leftovers and extras and just happens to work perfectly for pre-cooking 'que for family events.  Caterers and restuarants do it too!

Tip:  Take special care to make sure the plastic is laying flat on the sealer bar so it's not krinkled.  A krinkled bag might come open unexpectedly and cause freezer burn.

20 Hours to Cook Pulled Pork?

Occasionally I like to watch bbq videos on YouTube.com.  Tonight while waiting for Linda to get home from a board meeting I stumbled across a bbq demonstration video that promised to explain in every detail the step-by-step process for making wonderful pulled pork sandwiches.  The video had more than 8,000 views and has been on YouTube.com since July 2009 so it must be pretty good, right?

I hit the "play" button and started watching the first video (actually part 1 of a two part series).

I didn't make it through the entire 9 minute and 31 second clip.  About 2 minutes in the video host explained that he was preparing to bbq his $27.09 bone in pork butt roast weighing 6.956 lbs for 12 - 14 hours on his ceramic bbq cooker.  I actually re-wound the video a little to make sure I hadn't misunderstood - Did he really just say 12 - 14 hours? Yep. Confirmed it.  

I didn't catch the price of the pork butt the first time through. - Did he really pay $27 for one pork butt? Yep. Confirmed it. And it's clearly visible on the packing label. I can buy two for that price in my neck of the woods, but it's obvious to me that the video host must live in an area where the economy is doing much better than my local economy here in Tampa.

I think I'd have to switch to barbecuing some other kind of meat before shelling out $27 for 5 lbs of meat (cooked weight). Did he mention he lives near Oakland, California? Yep. Confirmed it.  All those news stories about how the failing real estate market and massive numbers of forclosures have decimated the state and local economies throughout the state must have it wrong.

Well, I stopped the first video there and re-heated some leftover pork I had in the refrigerator for my supper. But I couldn't stop thinking about the video I had just watched. After finishing my supper, I just had to watch Part 2.

I watched the first minute or so and the video host explained he'd be using a ceramic cooker equipped with an expensive digital temperature controller and some kind of golf club that spews out propane to light the charcoal and fancy wood chips he was using.  It was 10 p.m. and he'd be back in a hour to get the thing cooking.

At that point, I skipped the next 9 minutes or so and fast forwarded to end of the video to get the bottom line up front.

He cooked the pork butt for 20 hours! - What happened to the 12 - 14 hours from Part 1?

Then he asked the audience to overlook the bark and promised that it would still taste good.  - What? No way I'm even thinking about eating that.

He pulled out some hamburger buns and slathered them with what looked like 1/2 the bottle of bbq sauce.  - Not really 1/2, but I'm in disbelief at this point. It honestly seemed like 1/2 as I felt like hyperventilating. (Maybe it was really just a 1/4 of the bottle.)

He then added some cole slaw and some orange colored hot sauce. Look out, he said, it's really hot.

I must be doing these bbq things wrong. Some of the best bbq pulled pork I've ever made was cooked on a cheap water smoker, with cheap charcoal, and cheap wood. I don't use a computer to control my cooker temperature. Oh, I see... I'm using aluminum foil after four or five hours.

I've got to start getting less sleep and spending a whole lot more money on bbq gadgets and gimmicks. I can't wait for Linda to get home and let her know (lol)!

Am I really getting this cynical as I grow older? Yep. Confirmed it.

December BBQ Pictures from Florida

Here are some pictures from yesterday's Christmas gift cook. For those from colder climates....it was in the mid-70's and sunshine.  It sure beats the 19 degrees when I was in Missouri last week.



Pork butts in McCullough insulated 2 x 2 vertical smoker


Brisket on WSM



Pulled pork butt steaming hot



Sliced brisket prior to sauce

Barbecue Pork

Here's an interesting graph that summarizes a pulled pork cooking session I did.

I did not record the cooker and meat temperature at strict intervals, which looks a little funny on the graph. I am sure that the meat temperature reached 140 degrees or more within the 4 hour health department guideline.

The temperature decline at the end of the session represents the "rest period" before pulling it apart for supper.

Cooking Pork Butts in the Weber Smokey Mountain

These pork butts were larger than the 6 lbs I prefer, but it's all Sam's had available. I injected, seasoned with spice rub and let them marinade in the refrigerator overinight.

I use lump charcoal when it's available. It's a better quality charcoal that burns cleaner, hotter and with less ash than briquettes. This bag of Royal Oak was purchased from Gordon Food Service and cost me $9.55 for 20 lbs. For comparison, 40 lbs of Kingsford briquettes costs about $11.35 at Sam's, but in this case....you get what you pay for.

I never use lighter fluid when starting charcoal. The lighter fluid can leave a bad taste on food. I prefer a charcoal chimney and a fire starter stick. You can use newspaper, but the starter sticks work better for me.





I line the water pan on the WSM with aluminum foil to make clean-up a little easier. You don't have to line the pan, but if you don't it gets pretty greasy from the pork fat melting as the pork butts cook.





I put the butts on at 10:30 a.m. and will rotate them top to bottom after about 4 1/2 - 5 hours. I also wrap them in aluminum foil at that point. It keeps the moisture in and seems to help prevent oversmoking the meat. It also speeds up the cooking process.

Learn to make pulled pork bbq

Who says you can't cook a pork butt on a kettle grill? You definitely can. However, it takes patience to learn good fire control techniques.

1. Start with a charcoal chimney full of burning briquettes (I prefer Royal Oak).

2. Place in kettle grill, banked to one side, and put the lid on.

3. Monitor temperatures in the kettle grill using a meat thermometer through the top vent.

4. Every thirty minutes, add an additional 10-12 briquettes to maintain a consistent temperature of 250 - 275 degrees (less if you can). Try to keep the lid closed as much as possible. Add more or less charcoal to maintain temperature.

5. Place a pork butt on the grate of the grill, fat side down, on the opposite side of the burning briquettes. I like to pre-season the butt with bbq rub the night before and let it sit in the refrigerator (in a plastic container).

6. Place an alumimum pan 1/2 filled with water over the fire side of the grate, if it's needed to keep the temperatures steady in the cooking chamber.

7. Cook the pork butt for 5 hours.

8. Check the internal temperature with a meat thermometer. It should be around 160 degrees.

9. Wrap the pork butt in a double thickness of aluminum foil and place back on the cooking grate.

10. Cook until the internal meat temperature reaches 198 degrees.

11. Remove it from the kettle grill. Wrap it in a towel, place it in an aluminum pan, and let it rest for 20- 30 minutes keeping it warm.

12. "Pull" apart for bbq sandwiches.

BBQ Pork Ribs and Boston Butts

For stock car racing fans there are very few NASCAR races that compare to the night race at Bristol and for southern bbq fanatics there isn't anything that comes close to good old fashioned bbq pulled pork and ribs. And when you combine the two....you had better watch out because things just might get out of hand! I'm in the middle of preparing some pulled pork and bbq ribs for tonight's festivities.

It's also a good time to test some new competition recipes and validate some of the old standbys. We'll be eating well this week. Ummm...leftovers!

Cooking Pulled Pork

I cooked two pork butts yesterday and documented the cooking times and cooking temperatures. From studying the graph I found it interesting how long it took the pork butts to start heating up.

Some contest cooks prefer to allow the meat to set out at room temperature for a period of time to allow the meat to warm up. The theory is that allowing the meat to reach room temperature before cooking allows the spice rub to penetrate deeper into the meat. Although it might be true, I do not subscribe to that process and caution you against using that technique. Allowing meat to "set out" like that opens up the possibility for contamination and spoilage. Remember: Meat should spend no more than 4 hours in the "danger zone" (above 40 degrees and under 140 degrees).

I removed the butts directly from the refrigerator at a temperature just above freezing and placed them on the cooker immediately . The cooker did not start to pull the cold out of the meat until the cooker temperature began to reach 200 degrees.

I've concluded that cold meat actually helps aid in the formation of a smoke ring. I believe that the slower you warm up the meat in the cooker once the "smoking process" starts, the better the resulting smoke ring. I think the smoke ring is more pronouced and more visible when using this technique versus the "room temperature" strategy.

Competition BBQ Secrets