BigButzBBQ
is Blowin Smoke!
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2010
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- Age
- 44
- Location
- Northwestern Wisconsin
I know this is a touchy subject for some but, we've all most likely run into it at some point, the dreaded discussion of which people prefer Pork cooked on the smoker and then pulled or Pork cooked in a :shudder: crock pot and then pulled. For the most part, this discussion doesn't come up regularly in my household because, my wife and family have come to understand the fine quality of a good bark and appreciate the labor of love that is smoking.
However...
Recently a request was put in for a pork roast to be prepared for a party specifically in the dreaded crockpot. The request was not put into me personally but, there were some mild merits to it. The main reasoning was, they aren't big fans of bark :shock:, they intended to hold the meat in a crock pot, they believed that it was more tender
, and more flavorful :crazy:.
Instead of taking the immediate stance of hostility towards this situation, being as I wasn't the one that was asked to prepare it in this manner, it got me to contemplating. I decided it was to do some experimenting and change up the way I cook pork to see what it might yield.
I started off by tossing a load of coals into the UDS along with some peach wood.
Then on went the first grate and the taracotta defuser.
Then it was time to whip out my meat. A nice 9lb butt!
Next I mixed up a whole new rub and used half the sugar that I normally would.
I then slice the fat cap almost all the way through and pealed it back.
The rub was then applied.
and the fat cap replaced.
Now my reasoning for doing this is simple, most of the spices won't make it through the fat cap so any seasoning applied is just mainly flavoring the fat and barely the meat but, by doing it this way, the fats melting into the meat would draw the spices in along with them. Next was to apply rub to the rest of the butt.
Then onto the UDS it went, fat cap side up.
The UDS started at 250 but, it was left unattended and the wind picked up so, when I got back 4 hours later, it had risen to 300. But the butt was looking great!
At this point I placed it inside a foil pan with the fat cap down and covered it with foil. It sat in the UDS for another 3 hours until it hit 200 internally.
Now...
This point in the story, is where things go a little bad. I go to take the butt off the UDS and I decided to just use a couple of pot holders. I didn't realize what monster I had created, by sealing up the butt in foil, the fat had completely liquified and no moisture escaped. When I picked it up off the UDS and started to carry it in, the pan heaping with liquid pork fat and juice bent, and the liquid rushed down my wrist. Shockingly, I didn't drop the pork, immediately. Infact I realized I was about to be in a ton of pain before the pain actually hit and I set the tray down on the ground. The dogs immediately took this as a sign that the food was theirs and began swarming, not wanting my butt to become dog food. I picked it up and headed for the door. The pain finally hit when I got to the door and found I had no free hand to open it. I began kicking the door, my wife came running, once the door was open, I ran into the kitchen and set the pork next to the sink where I cranked on the cold water full blast and proceeded to stand there for 20 minutes. Here is what it looked like after 30 minutes had gone by.
While I was standing there at the sink, I was using my free hand to pull apart the most juciest pork roast I have ever cooked. I took a hunk of it and knew that once I had tasted it, the burn was totally worth it. I would attempt to fully describe how good this tasted but wouldn't do it justice. In short, it had great smoke flavor with a nice ring and the bark tasted awesome just like you would expect from cooking a butt on a smoker but, it was sooooooo juicy and the flavors of the seasoning were in every bit of the meat. The only thing I might have changed was letting it go for another half hour or letting it rest for longer. I hope to put some pics of it on here soon seeing as I managed to horde half of the butt to myself. One thing I know for sure though, I have a way of cooking a butt now that no family member will argue over as the best they have ever had. To quote Craig Ferguson "It's like sex in my mouth!"
Thanks for looking.
However...
Recently a request was put in for a pork roast to be prepared for a party specifically in the dreaded crockpot. The request was not put into me personally but, there were some mild merits to it. The main reasoning was, they aren't big fans of bark :shock:, they intended to hold the meat in a crock pot, they believed that it was more tender
, and more flavorful :crazy:. Instead of taking the immediate stance of hostility towards this situation, being as I wasn't the one that was asked to prepare it in this manner, it got me to contemplating. I decided it was to do some experimenting and change up the way I cook pork to see what it might yield.
I started off by tossing a load of coals into the UDS along with some peach wood.
Then on went the first grate and the taracotta defuser.
Then it was time to whip out my meat. A nice 9lb butt!
Next I mixed up a whole new rub and used half the sugar that I normally would.
I then slice the fat cap almost all the way through and pealed it back.
The rub was then applied.
and the fat cap replaced.
Now my reasoning for doing this is simple, most of the spices won't make it through the fat cap so any seasoning applied is just mainly flavoring the fat and barely the meat but, by doing it this way, the fats melting into the meat would draw the spices in along with them. Next was to apply rub to the rest of the butt.
Then onto the UDS it went, fat cap side up.
The UDS started at 250 but, it was left unattended and the wind picked up so, when I got back 4 hours later, it had risen to 300. But the butt was looking great!
At this point I placed it inside a foil pan with the fat cap down and covered it with foil. It sat in the UDS for another 3 hours until it hit 200 internally.
Now...
This point in the story, is where things go a little bad. I go to take the butt off the UDS and I decided to just use a couple of pot holders. I didn't realize what monster I had created, by sealing up the butt in foil, the fat had completely liquified and no moisture escaped. When I picked it up off the UDS and started to carry it in, the pan heaping with liquid pork fat and juice bent, and the liquid rushed down my wrist. Shockingly, I didn't drop the pork, immediately. Infact I realized I was about to be in a ton of pain before the pain actually hit and I set the tray down on the ground. The dogs immediately took this as a sign that the food was theirs and began swarming, not wanting my butt to become dog food. I picked it up and headed for the door. The pain finally hit when I got to the door and found I had no free hand to open it. I began kicking the door, my wife came running, once the door was open, I ran into the kitchen and set the pork next to the sink where I cranked on the cold water full blast and proceeded to stand there for 20 minutes. Here is what it looked like after 30 minutes had gone by.
While I was standing there at the sink, I was using my free hand to pull apart the most juciest pork roast I have ever cooked. I took a hunk of it and knew that once I had tasted it, the burn was totally worth it. I would attempt to fully describe how good this tasted but wouldn't do it justice. In short, it had great smoke flavor with a nice ring and the bark tasted awesome just like you would expect from cooking a butt on a smoker but, it was sooooooo juicy and the flavors of the seasoning were in every bit of the meat. The only thing I might have changed was letting it go for another half hour or letting it rest for longer. I hope to put some pics of it on here soon seeing as I managed to horde half of the butt to myself. One thing I know for sure though, I have a way of cooking a butt now that no family member will argue over as the best they have ever had. To quote Craig Ferguson "It's like sex in my mouth!"
Thanks for looking.
