Hot and Fast Pork Butt on a Performer (pron)

Going to bring some bbq over to my buddy that has the hip thing going on. I figure a little bbq for some comfort food every once in a while can't hurt.

First thing, got my herbs and spices all measured out. I felt the need to take a picture of all the cool textures and colors. I tried to get all fancy with one of the angles also.



9lb pork butts from Food Lion. I actually picked it up along with many others with a raincheck for 99cents/lb.


Pretrimmed pork butt.


Going hot and fast so I aggressively trimmed the fat away.



Rubbed up on my meat with a mustard slather and the rub. Once again I went fancy angle on one of the pictures.


Setup the performer with the snake/ring of fire method. I used Kingsford Competition Charcoal Briquettes with peach wood. Going to throw the 10 coals in the middle into a charcoal chimney and light them off till they are greyed over. Foil in the middle to help direct the air into the coals as well as catch the drippings.


My doge making sure no squirrels come to try to take the pork butt away from the kettle.


260ish dome temp. It is go time. I like to put the meat on while the temperature is a little lower than target temperature. The kettle was already putting out thin blue at this time.


300ish dome temp after 30mins. Should creep up to maybe 325 dome temp sometime during the cook.


More to come as the cook goes along.

About 3.5 hours in. Still holding steady at about 300ish dome temp.



The pork butt is coming along nicely.


I rotated my lid so that the lid vent was on the opposite side of the fire.

Smokeat said:

Great photography! Set up to be a good cook. Well bought butt. Where does your Performer like to run? I just tried the "snake" in mine, went about 275 fairly steady. Looking forward to more pics.

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Mine runs about 300ish with a 2x2x1 snake with 10 coals lit. If I want to go higher than that, I'll normally start with 12-15 coals. If I want to go lower I'll do a 2x1 snake. I always keep bottom and top vents wide open.

ajstrider said:

I haven't had much luck controlling temperatures while kettle smoking, but I have yet to try the snake method. The minion method just doesn't do well with the One Touch vent system.

Cook looks good, thanks for the setup pictures. I hope your buddy gets better.

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If you want to control your temperatures on a kettle, the snake method is the way to go. It can be tough to move the vents around etc, but if you control how much fuel is being lit off at a time it is pretty easy to set it and let it ride for a while.

I'll probably get 6-7 hours worth of burn from the snake I did today.

Bludawg said:

Hey aawa I got a hitch in my git along I think I need so PP too can ya hep a bro out here :razz: Looking good I do kettle butts the same way I'm sure this will be better than chicken soup for your amigo.

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Come on over to the BBQ mecca that is known at Virginia Beach. :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

I actually made him some filipino soup called Sinigang last week when the temperature dropped. I'm trying to make him comfort food because he has been in a ton of pain. Nothing says comfort to a Filipino guy than BBQ and homemade Filipino food.

Mo-Dave said:

Your butt looks good from here. Got as 99 cent butt along with a 99 cent shoulder or fresh picnic if you will, thinking this would be a good inexpensive butt to try out a hot and fast cook very soon.

Can you expound a bit on the Sinigang soup? inquiring minds want to know.
Dave

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Sinigang is a tamarind soup with different veggies, meats/seafood, and whatever else you want in it. Served with rice on the side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinigang

Different versions of it pulled from google image.

Sinigang baboy (pork)


Sinigang na Baka (beef)


Sinigang hipon (shrimp)


Sinigang isda (fish)


You start the soup/stew off by sweating out minced garlic and sliced onions.

If beef or pork add that in and brown it.

Add water till the meat is completely covered and bring to a boil.

Add in chopped or quartered tomatos and some chiles depending on how spicy you want it (filipinos normally use Siling, finger peppers. If you can't find them 1-2 jalapenos work great), and tamarind.

Bring to a boil and reduce heat down to low-medium low cover and simmer. The tomatos will distingerate during this and that is ok.

If you are doing shrimp or fish. Add them after the water has boiled and the flavors of the tamarind, garlic, onions, etc marry together. If you can't find tamarind you can cheat and use tamarind packets.

http://www.amazon.com/Knorr-Tamarind-Soup-Base-Pack/dp/B000A0OX7Q

When the meat is cooked but not tender yet, add in any veggies you want. Time your veggies so they finish when you are ready to serve so they don't over cook. Veggies that are typically added. Potatoes, daikon, eggplant, leafy green (spinach, mustard greens, or kale is typically what I use, but you can use cabbage as welll) green beans, okra. This is not limited to the veggies above, you can put whatever you like in it.

put rice in a bowl and ladle lots of soup and meat/ingredients over rice.

The flavor is tangy/sour. This is a dish that my parents would cook up each week and by far my favorite. I like mine super sour/spicy. Next time I make it I'll post a thread with pictures.

Also the meat that is used are typically neck bones, o-bones, or any cheap stew meats. You can also used cubed up chuck steak or cubed up pork butt. Chicken i will typically buy a whole chicken and break it down to its individual pieces (thighs, drumsticks, breast, wings) and stew those up.

Uncle JJ said:

Awwa, Two things, buddy:

1. Tell me more about that rub you made. Looks like a lot of different goodies in your mix.
2. Do you ever put a water pan in with the butt?
3. Will you foil the butt?


Looking good, as always! JJ

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The rub I made is the following by volume.

4 parts kosher salt
4 parts course ground pepper (butchers grind)
1 part granulated garlic
1 part oregano
2 parts chili powder
3 parts paprika
1 part Lowery's season salt
1 part ground mustard
1 part cumin
2 part brown sugar
1/2 part cayenne
1/2 part nutmeg

I did not put any water in the foil pan for the cook.

I also am not opposed to foiling during the cook. I let the color of the pork butt dictate whether I wrap or not. If the color doesn't get too dark, I'll let it go completely nekkid. If it starts getting to dark, I'll wrap it. I don't foil at X amount of time or internal temperature. I think that foil/butcher paper is a tool that should be used if needed. Sometimes it isn't needed.

Well 5.5hrs into the cook, I checked the pork butt. The color was exactly where I wanted it to be. So I wrapped it up.





I went to go put it back onto the kettle and noticed that the temperature wasn't coming back up to 300. It was only going up to 240-250ish degrees. I need to have the pork butt done and resting by 4:30PM EST at the latest.. I decided to finish it in the oven at 325 degrees wrapped up. It should only need 45mins-1hour to finish.

I also went into my pantry and pulled out my finishing sauce and gave it a good shaking. I reused a jar of bbq sauce my sister gave me and I can't get the stinkin label off!


The finishing sauce is the following.

2 cups apple cider vinegar
1/8-1/4 cup crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoon turbinado sugar

When I pull the meat, I add some of the finishing sauce so you get the hint of the vinegar. For the 9lb pork butt i'll use maybe 1/4-1/2 of this jar.

Some finished product from earlier. I couldn't post them right when I pulled it as I had to take it over to my buddies house. I'm trying to get all fancy with the angles but I don't think it is working too well. :wacko:



Bone pulled out nice and clean.


A shot of the pork before I put in the finishing sauce. You can see how nice and moist it is. Of course I had to taste test it for quality control before adding the finishing sauce.


And final shots with the finishing sauce on it. You can see the crushed red pepper flakes throughout the meat. I used 1/4 of the jar to finish it to have a nice balanced flavor.



Overall this pork butt turned out a B+ to an A-. The experimental rub I made was good but needed some tweaking. If you got just a piece of the bark, it was too salty. But when mixed in with the rest of the meat, it was nicely balanced. I have to probably just go a touch lighter with the salt. The overall flavor though was fantastic. My buddy and his girlfriend said that it was the best pulled pork that they have gotten from me.

My buddy is also doing so much better than when he initially got home. He can't put weight on his hip, but is mobile with a walker. He is able to sit up without a lot of pain. Things are looking up for him. The bad news is once he gets better from the infection in his hip, he will be at square 1 since he will have to have his hip replaced. The infection ate all of the cartlidge in his hip away, so it is bone on bone.