Smoking a pork shoulder

Yesterday was my second attempt at smoking a pork shoulder in order to make pulled pork. My first attempt was about a month ago and that took a bit longer than expected, meaning that after 10 hours in the BBQ the meat was still not done, but I was, since it was 2 AM and bed called. This time around I planned it better, so the meat went in the BBQ at noon.

Using the Minion method for the coal fire.

The shoulder was rubbed in a simple mixture of salt, pepper, sugar, dried bell pepper and chili pepper. Normally I slather the meat in mustard first, which helps the rub to stick better, but since this actually doesn't add any flavour to the final product and only makes it all a lot messier, I skipped that this time around. Wrap it all in cling film and leave it in the fridge for a few hours.

When smoking a pork shoulder, the time it takes can be deceiving. My two attempts have used a shoulder weighing in at 1.5 kgs, so it's quite a small packet but it will still need lots of hours in the barbecue to reach the wanted temperature. The reason for this is called the temperature plateau, which is when the internal temperature of the shoulder simply stops rising, and might even drop a few degrees, and is thought to be due to a conversion process where tough collagen turns into soft gelatin, which can take a couple of hours.

Everybody plots graphs while barbecuing, right?!

Due to that, I cooked at a higher temperature this time (150°C) compared to last time (125°C) in order to speed up the cooking time a bit.That might of course have an impact on the end result, but I rather do that and have a baseline to compare to in the future.

8.5 hours later.

This time around it took 8.5 hours to reach the wanted internal temperature of 94°C, so the shoulder was wrapped in tinfoil in order to let it rest for an hour so that the moisture in the meat could redistribute through out the meat.

A nice red hue due to the smoke.

Use two forks and work those forearm muscles by pulling the pork to shreds. If cooking a larger or multiple shoulders, there are actually attachements to your power drill to do this process, since it can be rather strenuous work.

Ready for consumption.

So was it any good then? It was indeed and had a nice smokey flavour, but I would like it to be a tad bit more moist next time, so I might have another go at a lower temperature. But I'm not sure that it was 8.5 hours good though...

Smoked my first bowl of the season today; "Peterson Connoisseur's Choice", which made me realize that I need to do this more often. To be fair I don't get too much taste out of the actual smoking, but the whole ritual around it really puts me in a relaxed state. The filling, the tampering and the lighting, all major parts of the Art of pipe smoking. Once that's done, you need to keep the pipe going as well, and it's not as simple as fire and forget. If it was, it wouldn't have been known as the art of pipe smoking and it probably would have been known simply as smoking. At the moment I probably have to relight five to ten time per bowl, but practice makes perfect. Pipe smoking is a bit of a contradiction, the smoke tastes the best just before the bowl goes out. Then if you relight it, it's a simple matter to get the smoke belching, but that hot smoke is not what you want, so you have to wait for that ellusive state of smoke.

The reason why I've taken up pipe smoking is that my dad used to do it, so he had a bunch of pipes lying around at home, and let's face it, pipe smoking is cool. Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, James Cagney in Citizen Kane, they maybe didn't smoke a pipe, but they sure wanted to. I just love how second hand, used pipes aren't called that, they are known as "estate pipes" and are actually worth a bit, since a new pipe is frowned upon until it has been broken in. So since my dad had half a dozen of estate pipes lying around from the sixties and seventies, I heard the call, and I haven't looked back.

Brined chicken - Part Deux

Right. That was rather good, I've never had chicken meat that moist. It even beats beer-can chicken, which normally is a rather hard feat. I have to admit that it actually might be a tad bit too moist, if there is such a thing for meat.

Most moist meat.

So now starts part two of my brined chicken experiments, to actually add some flavour to the brine, since this time is was simply just salt and sugar. Imagine; honey and whisky, soy sauce and ginger, lemon grass and coriander, the possibilities are unlimited (and it's a long barbecue season here). Then on top of that add a proper rub as well, since this time I only used a rudimentary salt, pepper and dried garlic one to see how this tasted in it's original shape. Oh joy!

Brined chicken

This seems to be a rather nifty idea, hence I'm testing it. Whenever we cook or barbecue meat for a long time, moisture will invariably escape making the meat less moist, i.e. Not Good™. So if we could increase the amount of liquid in the meat, that would be good, right? So to the rescue comes chemistry and osmosis, which is natures way of making sure that things are balanced and fair, or at least at a molecular level. Meat contains a level of salt water already, so if we stick the meat in a solution with a higher level of salt, osmosis kicks in and tries to balance the levels of salt between the meat and the brine, thus pulling our brine into the meat and with it any spices or flavouring that we've added.

Osmosis on a non-molecular level.

So what I've done is to stick a chicken in a brine solution overnight and this morning I took it out to let it airdry before I put it on the grill. The airdrying is to help the chicken skin to become crispy during cooking, since smoking can easily produce a rubbery skin. There are techniques to produce a crispy skin, some involving blow torches, but for now I'll simply see what happens.

Oak smoked, whisky injected Chateaubriand

The one activity I really like to do while drinking beer is barbecuing, and for a long time I've questioned if it's actually physically possible to barbecue without drinking beer, but so far I haven't found any willing subjects to test this theory. The reasons behind why I like barbecuing so much is probably because it connects with the cave man inside of me. Fire! Meat! Beer! Ugh! So today we had a very sunny afternoon, so I decided to put some Whisky injected Chateaubriand on the grill.

Food junkies only.

So this might be a good oppurtunity to mention that I like to experiment with food as well. My barbecued sallad was a hit due to it really soaks up the smoke flavour, while my Tabasco injected meat was perhaps a tad bit too strong. But Whisky injected steaks works rather well, adding a subtle flavour to the meat.

Oak smoke.

Add to that some mushrooms, pak choi, tomatoes and chili, that made up a nice afternoon meal. Life's hard.


Actually. The vegetables really soaked up way too much smoke, making them more or less too bitter to eat. The meat turned out absolutely fantastic, flavourful and perfectly cooked. So I might have to get a separate grill for those courses that needs less amount of smoke...

Computer-bothering

I like building computers, I like to write up the shopping list of parts and then spend the next month comparing each item against its peers, trying to find that sweetspot between price and performance. Once satisfied and ordered, then comes the building phase which, surprisingly, I like a lot as well. Who would have thought that cable management could be that fun, right?!

Clearly in need of a new power supply fan.

If price wasn't a concern, I think that to really milk the enjoyment, I would first buy a computer with crappy parts and then slowly swap out all the parts over the next coming months. But even though I've bought proper components from the beginning, I'm still fiddling and pondering and trying to share some of the fun with the wife. "Honey, wouldn't you agree that we need a new CPU fan"? Right now I feel that I need to replace the fan inside the power supply, since it really could be more quiet. I mentioned this to the wife and I got a blank stare in return, which I've realized over the years is her body language for saying "Yes"!

We need more Coriander

Until two years ago, that's a phrase that I wouldn't dream about saying. Coriander was an ethnic way of ruining good food. One year ago, I wouldn't say it either, but my mind had started to kind of include it into the "things we might have to reconsider" folder in my brain. So today my wife, who has always loved Coriander, did a lurid happy dance in my direction when I said those words while doing soup. So yes, I now love Coriander.
What I haven't decided upon is if it will improve our cooking or not. It used to be that whatever we cooked, we always thought that it could be improved by adding garlic and chili, so now we will include Coriander as well. I have to admit that popcorn wasn't improved by adding garlic, although Tabasco did. So now most of our cooking will contain those three ingredients, and while garlic and chili can sneak under the radar for some houseguests, Coriander won't. Perhaps we'll need to start having Coriander free Thursdays or something...
But it's funny how ones tastebuds can change over the years, or that you simply is a late bloomer to some tastes. So now I'm just waiting for my wife to warm to beer...