I cooked, in case ya'll forgot

from time to time, I cook something. It has been months, various issues from work to doing my best imitation of a pincushion. Here is the preliminary pron, there will be more details to follow.





I am gonna just say, I really rocked the kettle today. Thanks to Steph of Simply Marvelous and Tom of Big Butz for the assist.

Oh, in case you were wondering...

pretty clean bite, tiny tiny chicken thigh

Wamp, this one is more like Bread and Butter pickles. The real Chow-chow, which I had hoped this would be is a lot more piquant, not hot, but with a bite. This stuff is good, but, it could be better for my palate. I do have some pulled pork that it is gonna get tested on as well.

bigabyte said:

That stuff looks great!:hungry: I would love to dig in and help you eat it.:nod: Isn't that about 6 months worth of meat for you though?:becky:

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No, it should last...hey, where did all that meat go?

Gore said:

Who left the gate from Wood Pile unlocked? Looks great.

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I think it was Bigabyte

Ron_L said:

Who are you and what have you done with Landarc?

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I don't know. (yes, that is an inside joke)

below is my entire blog post for the pulled pork, no need to go to blog.
I made pulled pork today, not some fancy plated braised in stout pulled pork or raised by loving hands of Russian maidens and allowed to eat only Italian acorns pulled pork. Just plain old traditional pulled pork, from an unnamed pig, slow cooked over charcoal and wood. I chose to use a mix of "Cherry Rub" and "Sweet and Spicy Rub" made by Steph Franklin from Simply Marvelous BBQ, Steph is making some of the best rubs out there and it is my go to rub. I mixed these two half/half mostly because I wanted to rub heavily and I didn't order soon enough to have a full bottle of either.

I had the kettle set up for off-set heat, settled in at 275F and waiting for the pork. I had purchased a 3.5lb partial butt, since my usual folks that I dump my leftover sack-O-pork on are traveling. It was a mediocre piece of butchering, but, an excellent piece of pork. Here it is with the first coating of rub.
As you can see, the butt is a little loose, it was partially separated in the fat vein and at the bone, I had to practice a little butcher twine work to get it to a more or less uniform shape (depending on your feeling in uniform). In this next image, the pork has been tied and sat for 40 minutes with a fan running, this sets a skin (pellicle) to adhere the second coating of rub to. The combination of sugar, salt and the proteins drawn from the meat forming the pellicle allows for adhering the rub without using any other ingredients. Next image is with the second rub.
Basically, once this was done and the rub was set a little more, I placed the now well coated hunk of meat into the kettle at 275F for the next 6 hours, this created a very nice bark, a deep rich color and a very tender pork butt. Here is it just prior to resting.
I wrapped into the foil, then inside of a warmed towel to rest and continue to cook slowly and cruise down to pulling temperature. This process takes an hour, believe it or not, an hour is really minimal for this part of the cook. Then I pulled the meat into chunks for cooling and storing, as I intend to eat tomorrow.
Initial taste testing and snacking indicates that this is some terrific pulled pork, I actually added in some more of the original rub mix and will allow to cool. Tomorrow, I will reheat for sandwiches, I can't say how many at this point. Here is a close-up showing the texture, which I hope you can see, is not the least mushy.
A funny aside, I forgot that I had tied the butt, so when I went to pull it, the meat would not pull. My first thought was 'oh no, I pulled a rookie mistake! How could I do that?'. But, no, it was then I noticed the string, cut it and the whole thing came right apart. Whew!

and now the asparagus post, again, in it's entirety, so Vinny doesn't need to ask...:becky:
I eat veggies, well, asparagus


I ate something other than meat, actually, dinner consisted completely of grilled asparagus. I found some very good looking asparagus with large diameter spears, which work best on a grill. I cleaned, trimmed, washed them, then coated with olive oil, kosher salt and Phu Quoc black and white pepper mix. Here is the raw stuff.
These were grilled direct over the hot coals of the kettle as the pork butt was cooking. They cooked up very nicely on the lower heat of the kettle that I normally use for smoking. Here is the end result.

And finally the chicken, which included human experimentation...
I am back! Chicken Beta testing


Thanks to Tom from Big Butz BBQ Sauce, I actually got back on the kettle today. Due to recent health issues, I haven't been cooking out there (the backyard, oh Lordy!). After hacking the kettle loose from what Spring hath wrought during my rehab, I got it fired up to cooking around 275F, this was mostly because I was going to cook a pork butt for tomorrow. Tom had sent me some BBQ rubs to test, they are in late beta testing and I think he has a winner.

I chose to go with chicken thighs, easy to cook, easy to eat. I skewered them, as I intended to cook them vertically in my kettle, which allows for some more effective rendering at lower heats. I rubbed with Tom's new rub, cleverly code named 'Chicken Dust' (they'll never guess what this is for Mooohaahaha) . Then into the kettle along with the pork butt (which had been in there for a few hours already.

The chicken pieces were half sauced and half dry, this was to get a taste for the rub alone and the rub with the sauce. I consider this very important, as the way the rub and the sauce work together is the real way that we taste sauced BBQ. I happen to prefer sauced chicken off the grill. The texture of the new rub was excellent, a medium grain, not a dust really, handled easily, coated and adhered well, evenly distributed when dusted a' la chef sprinkling.
The chicken cooked for 45 minutes until almost done, when I applied some Big Butz Hot-style BBQ Sauce to two of the thighs. 15 minutes later, it was removed. I allow chicken to rest for 15 minutes lightly tented. Here is what we end up with. First, chicken with no sauce and then chicken with sauce.
I hope Tom brings this rub to market, it has an exceptional flavor and has a good balance. It also worked very well with the sauce, really complementing the overall flavor. Tom's stated goal was to get a rub that really says 'chicken' which I think he has gotten very close to hitting that nail squarely.