My BBQ kitchen in Port Orford
I can throw hamburgers, hot dogs, chops, steaks and other such delights over a fire anytime for a quick grilling, but real BBQ my friends is where it's at.
Hours and hours of pungent smoke permeating beef, pork or yardbird put all my senses on alert that a fantastic meal will follow. My workstation for these delightful treats consist of a Traeger Lil'Tex Elite BBQ/smoker and the newer Green Mountain Grill Davy Crocket (mostly) portable BBQ. Both use hardwood pellets to provide the requisite smoke and heat for the cooking process. No propane gas or chemical starters are used to ignite or maintain the small flame pot in each cooker.
A current favorite pellet for recent BBQ
A blend of black oak, hickory and mesquite supplied in a 28# bag @ $15 each is my current favorite for long smoking cooks. This Texas Blend is available at Sportsman's Warehouse stores and many other locations shown on the Green Mountain website.
I especially like the dense light blue smoke and excellent aroma and taste provided by this blend...a lot of ash by product being the only downside. I can go for a week of BBQs before needing to clean the ash from the fire pot with other blends. Using the Texas Blend, I need to clean out the resulting ash after two burns.
Applying a good dose of Cow Camp to a Boston butt pork roast
A 9# Boston butt pork roast was the latest animal flesh to find its way into the GMG Davy Crocket. I applied a good layer of a commercial rub (Cow Camp), covered the roast with plastic wrap and let it rest overnight in the refrigerator. Rising at 5 AM the next morning, I fired up the DC and began the almost 9 hours of aromatic smoke initially at 150F.
After three hours at 150F, I put the roast in an aluminum pan and raised the smoke temperature to 225F, spraying a mixture of apple juice and Worcestershire Sauce on the meat every hour until done. At 190F, I removed the roast from the smoker, wrapped it tightly in aluminum foil and covered it with a beach towel or two to rest for a couple of hours. Hey, we all need a rest after a hard cook!
Before...
During...
And after
Pulling the pork...
Finally ready for pulled pork sandwiches with friends
The last stage of the process...pulling the meat...is my least favorite. The roast is still extremely hot and can burn unprotected hands faster than you can say pulled pork. The results, however, are well worth the effort and possible bodily damage.
I added just a skosh (a highly technical term for a little bit) of Blues Hog BBQ sauce and the centerpiece of a fantastic meal with good friends was ready to go.
REAL BBQ RULES!!!
looks yummy! what time is dinner?
ReplyDeleteHey Sue...you missed it, but we did keep it in the family. :-)
ReplyDeletewell as long as someone from my family got to enjoy it!!
DeleteLove the pit setup; you could almost go commercial, I think! Worcestershire sauce and apple juice...never thought of that, but I like the sound of it. I will steal that one for sure. Great post, Gordon; I can almost smell the aroma way down here.
ReplyDeleteBoy oh boy, am I ever getting senile, or what! I forgot the
ReplyDelete"...shire" on the sauce. I sometimes shoot up the innards of the meat with the same mixture if I feel a need for more internal moisture. BTW, Juanita baked a cranberry cake on the Lil'Tex this evening. Can't wait to have a little with friends at a riverside campsite tomorrow evening.
Two posts in a row about butts.
ReplyDeleteHey Bill, I never looked at it that way. LOL!
Delete