Hello loyal blog readers, I am sorry for not keeping you up to date. Things have been very busy gearing up for the 2009 season that the Blog has been neglected, I admit it. In addition to all the events planned for this Summer, I've been asked to perform in another theater production, running for 20+ shows in Westport at The Depot Theater, and also in Glens Falls at the playhouse. The production is "Forever Patsy Cline" and my role would be the guitar player in the band onstage. Craig Johnson (drummer) will be a friendly, familiar face onstage alongside me as he was in "Beehive", my first theater production gig.
Now as far as the food....
Andymac was over yesterday to help with the canopy frame - thanks Andy! - and I had started a couple pork butts early in the morning with Ernesto. Cooked them for 10 hours. Andy had a sammy and declared it safe to eat.
Pork Butt (aka Boston Butt, Picnic shoulder) about 10 lbs
-prepare meat by washing and pat-dry with PT
-cut out any blood stained areas, deal with details as usual
-wipe a light coat of oil, canola or veg, on exterior
-use favorite dry rub, or mix own with paprika, S+P, chili powder cumin, garlic, turbinado sugar, cayenne, etc
-rub the magic dust into the meat, coat entire roast
-store in fridge overnite or for a few hours, but you can start cooking immediately if you must
-remove butt from fridge, start your fire
-I use 1 lit chimney, plus 1 unlit chimney as minions
-when lit chimney is ready (flame) pour into firebox pour unlit minions next to lit pile in basket on the INTAKE side
-monitor your cooker temp until you reach 200 and climbing
-place a drip pan to catch juices, mop, etc
-put your probes in and place your meat on the grate
-after 2 or 3 hours of wood fired smoking, rotate butts mop and cover in foil for 2 hours
-after those 2 hours, remove the foil, mop again
-monitor temps; cooker should stay around 225 degrees, meat is done when it reaches 170 internal (dont worry about medium or well descriptions, WAIT until 170 for the most tender pulled pork BBQ
-when 170 is reached, give the meat a good coating of sauce, open up the intake on your fire and let 'er rip, 250-300 OK for a blast of heat to glaze the sauce. DONT STIR OR SHAKE THE FIRE!!! or you'll get ash all over the wet sauce!
-after 15-20 minutes, remove the meat, cover in foil, wrap in a towel, and let it rest for a half hour. Then its ready to pull
-rip the grains of meat with a fork, or pull with CLEAN hands or use latex and powder free surgical or food handling gloves. "Pull" the strands of meat and put in pan, remove any large fat or undesirable pieces
-pour some BBQ sauce over the finished pork and re-heat in steam pan. serve on sandwich buns with cole slaw or on plate with cole slaw, baked beans and biscuit
