Doing Kalua pork today

My son (previously stationed in Hawaii for 2 years) decided to do kalua pork for his store's Christmas party as well as his always excellent hot wings.

We did up two pieces of pork butt this a.m. one for us and the other for the party tomorrow.

Followed recipe (no matter where we looked it always included liquid smoke -- I didn't write the recipe and I'm willing to give it a go) and scored and seasoned the meat then wrapped in banana leaves (didn't have a source for ti leave) and then foiled and into the ECB.
We're into hour six and it's up to about 160 so we're doing the 185ish and then into the cooler to let it rest

Figure we'll pull and season it with finishing sauce when Anne and I get back from a Christmas program later this evening.

Will give a full report later -- if anyone finds a real live kalua pork recipe with no liquid smoke (and I don't mean you can make one up!!) I would love to have it or at least the URL.

I would just leave out the liquid smoke and just smoke it with out the foil. There's your smoke flavor

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Can't do it that way -- dries out (believe it or not) and the smoke flavor is too heavy!! It's not N. Carolina pulled pork -- the flavor is much more subtle -- remember, this stuff is normally cooked on hot rocks in a pit covered with ti leaves, burlap, and dirt -- no smoke involved.

Anyway, it turned out great -- really moist, pulled easily, and the finishing sauce has just a hint of "smoke" from the bottle

Trust me, I've researched this recipe and even the most traditional I could find used the liquid smoke. I tried it as I was pulling the meat and its great with no finishing sauce at all.

But, cooking it uncovered to get the smoke flavor would have you wind up with pulled pork instead of kalua.

Interesting experiment -- and the meat is great. My son was commenting this afternoon that it's interesting that nearly every culture has some variation on slow roasted meat -- either in a pit or over a slow fire.

The recipe is really simple:

Take a pork butt, score the fat side in several places. Rub with salt (kosher or "hawaiian" salt) then rub with (hang on!!) a couple tablespoons of liquid smoke.

Wrap in ti leave (we used banana) and then wrap in foil. You could oven cook this but we did it in the ECB just as we would a butt for pulled pork. Cooked it to about 185 -- into the cooler -- down to 165 -- pulled it.

Finishing sauce is a couple cups of water, some salt, and a dash or two of liquid smoke.

I'm still scratching my head over this method -- I must have looked at 12-15 different recipes and they were all about the same. Even if you dig the pit, burn the wood, heat the rocks, etc. you still finish it with the "sauce".

Anyway, the meat was super moist -- I think the leave help keep the meat off the foil and may add some moisture to the pack. I know I had at least a cup or two of juice in each foil package.

Apology accepted!

You'll note in my original post that I was SURPRISED at what I found. I know some places do the whole pig in the ground with some kind of Hawaiian indigenous wood and some palm tree trunk "wood" along with the ti leaves or banana leaves (I use banana since they do grow around here in FL) - supposedly the native wood does give some flavor but it's mild.

So, I didn't believe that liquid smoke was used for kalua pork either -- but, like I said, every recipe I found used it on the meat and/or in the "sauce".

Go figure!

The traditional way was with in the ground wrapped in tea leaves over coals and buried

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Yep and the pit is filled with hot rocks -- you even stick a couple in the cavity of the pig just before lowering it into the pit -- REAL PIT BBQ!