The Barbecue Thread

Man this was fantastic... going to try the chipotle one in a blt tomorrow (can't really face bacon before softball tonight.)

What do I need to do for some of that bacon?

I will suck your fucking dick. Point at anything in the room, and I'll fuck it. Just tell me what to fuck!

That sounds wonderful. There's a costco opening up near me some time in November so I'm excited for the prospect of large cuts of affordable meat products.

I'm doing a pork shoulder Sunday, anybody else got any Labor day big barbecuing blowout plans?

Update: Ribs came off after about 5 hours. Seem a little burnt so I'm worried. The sausages as always look beautiful, after just an hour on the smoke. Brisket's humming along but not terribly close to done yet and most of my fuel's been used up. May have to foil it and finish it in the oven.

No pics.
The ribs were indeed burned on either end, so those got cut away. But the ones that made it got raves. The sausage was perfect as always, even had that nice snap to the casing. This was the last of it and now the problem is being able to replicate it when I make it again, because I mostly winged it.
The brisket was oddly, a little drier than the one I did a month ago. I did have to pull it and put it in foil for another two hours in the oven to finish it. It was still very good, but I might have liked the first one I made better.
My abiding problem is keeping the smoker consistently at a certain temp for long periods of time and keeping the coals going that long as well. By all accounts the load of charcoal I had in there should have lasted 10 hours but it only lasted 8. Temp wise it ran higher than the recommended range but I prefer it that way, but it still had problems gradually climbing into the 300 range instead of staying in the 270-280 range I wanted.

OMG.

What doesn't she like about them?

It's amazing how I get twitchy if I haven't barbecued anything in a while. Wednesday night, during a particularly acute bout of insomnia, I suddenly decided to smoke a pork shoulder this weekend.

Back in Plano I had a pretty awesome Asian market 5 minutes from my door, and they'd sell big hunks of shoulder with the skin still on, plus other, smoke-friendly cuts of pig.

I did manage to track down a Ranch 99 market, a national Asian market chain, and went there. Pickings weren't as great. I got a skinless piece of shoulder and a large, thick ham steak, skin on. I'd smoke both and chop them together.

They were on a very unpredictable smoker for 6 hours. The first two hours, the smoker struggled to make it to 240. Then it started climbing rapidly and was in the mid 300s at one point. I made the cardinal sin of trying to rush barbecue, and figured after 6 hours they'd be done, so I pulled both, wrapped them in foil, and let them sit for an hour.

Nope. Not even close to pulling temp. And dry, which was doubly infuriating because shoulder is one of those unfuckable cuts. And yet I fucked it up. Grr.

Been eating off of it all week. Honestly, if it had just gotten to the falling apart stage it'd be pretty perfect. As it is, it's not awful, flavor-wise it's right on, just not what I wanted it to be.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Plus I keep forgetting that that texture is actually more desired in some regional barbecue styles, like Arkansas, Georgia, even Texas (pork steak). So, um, that's what I was doing, yeah!

I have an issue of, I think, Food & Wine magazine which tells of jeolgi-jeolgi (translated "chewy-chewy"), a Korean saying which refers to the desirable chewiness associated with good Korean barbecue. The idea is that there is a primal satisfaction to tearing into a piece of meat with your teeth, an experience that very tender meat simply can't offer.

This knowledge can be deployed in the event of any tenderness "mishaps."









*Note: I can find no reference to this outside of this one article. Seriously, Google it five ways from Sunday and you'll come up with nothing. So, uh, maybe don't try to impress your Korean friends with this one. Your other friends, go for it!

Well, thanks for getting my mouth all watery for something I can't have for at least a few hours!

How'd it turn out? Or since this was only posted 16 hours ago, is it still cooking?

Thinking I might do some baby back ribs this weekend. Usually when I go to buy baby back ribs I end up buying the St. Louis style, since they have more meat and - frustratingly - are still cheaper than baby backs more often than not. But, I really like the balance of baby backs. Anyway, that'll be Sunday's project unless something comes up, which it almost always does these days.