Les went to the store on Friday and bought three Boston Butts. These are the best for BBQ in my opinion, though the shoulders are not bad.
MY grill of choice for this kind of cook is the large Big Green Egg. It is fantastic for doing long slow cooks without drying out the meat. The difficult thing about this grill is temperature control. For good BBQ you want the grill to maintain temps between 220 and 250 for many hours. To facilitate this I use a great tool called the BBQ Guru.
It uses a small draft fan that is computer controlled to regulate air into the grill. By selecting the desired pit temperature with the knob on the right, one can easily dial in the approriate temp and walk away. I've used this system for 24 hour cooks before without any problems!
For this cook, I set the desired meat temp to 200 degrees (this is the target temp for good BBQ; the point at which the fat has rendered into the meat making it super tender). I set the pit temp to 250; I started this cook at 8PM and needed it to be done rather quickly for the get together the next day. 250 degrees is a little hotter than I like to cook it but it turned out fine anyway.
Here are some pics that show you the process. Enjoy!
Lighting the charcoal with an electric lighter. This charcoal is the Wicked Good brand. Not bad, but the pieces are a little small.
Three pork Butts on the grill. Les put some Dizzy Dust rub on there for flavor. (http://www.dizzypigbbq.com/ -> Highly recommended!)
It's about 8:15 in the evening and they are ready to cook! We were out of hickory wook chunks so we put some mesquite in there.
11:00 am the next day it is ready to pull off the grill! WAY AHEAD OF SCHEDULE but I'll take it. One thing I learned from the web about cooking BBQ is that if it is done early, simply wrap it in foil then a towel and stuff it in a cooler. It'll keep grill fresh for 5 hours that way.
MMMMM delicious! It really turned out good this time. I was somewhat concerned about the fast cook (the grill got a little hot and took some time to cool down). I used my uncle Steve's eastern BBQ sauce recipe for this one. This style of sauce is easy to make or you can usually find some variety of it at the grocery store.
Nice! I'll have to investigate the BBQ Guru. Never heard of it before. So you don't use a chimney starter for the charcoal? I assume that would get it a bit too hot?
ReplyDeleteThis is the one I have: http://secure.thebbqguru.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=49&idproduct=156 They have newer ones now and I have been tempted on multiple occasions to upgade. Yeah, you definitely dont want to use a chimney starter for this kind of cook. The little electric starter heats up a few coals and the power draft from the guru spreads it. The starter only needs to remain in contact with the charcoal for 3 to 5 minutes. You then dial the temp on the guru, and it blows fresh air across the coals until the desired temp is reached at which time it begins to "puff" air into the grill to maintain temp.
ReplyDeleteLooks yummy! I want some :).
ReplyDelete