First Pulled Pork

[Pecker]

I had 16 people over for a barbecue yesterday, so I did a mixture of pulled pork (from a 4lb boneless shoulder), kebabs, sausages and burgers. I'll post pics of the pork later.

There's a lot I could say - it was lovely and tender, went well in the buns, etc, and most of it you know and/or have heard before. So I'll just post a few slightly different thoughts.

Firstly, accompaniments. We tried a few of these - traditional red barbecue sauce, North Carolina vinegar sauce, etc, etc. But without doubt the best accompaniment was sage and onion stuffing. An absolutely perfect balance of flavour and texture alongside the pork. It may not be traditional American barbecue, but it was tastiest and most popular (which I suppose is the idea at a barbecue) and had I done ribs, it'd have been a nice change, and something a bit different to sweet & sticky.

Secondly, flavour. Again, without doubt, the biggest flavour hit to the pork was the juice. The pork was cooked open until it hit 140 degrees f (c.3 hours), then triple wrapped in strong foil until the end of cooking (4 more hours), and to rest for an hour. Just before serving I poured the juice into a saucepan and gently re-heated it, then poured this over the pork just before eating. I reserved a little bit of meat (some from the smoke ring some from the 'middle') without juice for comparison.

The smoke ring portion was nice and smokey - good, traditional match for pork flavours. The rest of the pork tasted like...roast pork. The thing is, if I'd separated the smoke ring, it'd have maybe have filled one bun. And it'd have been a bloomin' frustrating task. That’s a hell of a lot of work for one pork sandwich!

Now when the meat juices were poured there was a really nice smokey hit from it. At this point, when tasted straight off a fork, it became very difficult to distinguish between the smoke ring and the rest. In a bun it would have been absolutely impossible.

My rub was:

2 Tbsp Hot Smoked Paprika
1 1/2 Tbsp Maldon Sea Salt
1 Tbsp Garlic Granules
1/2 Tbsp Garlic Pepper
2 Tsp Coleman's English Mustard Powder
2 Tsp Dried Sage

I'm not sure how much of the smoke in the juice was from the wood (3 handfuls Hickory Chips) or the Paprika, but based on rubs-to-juices flavours from previous meals, I suspect it's the Paprika.

BTW, heresy I know, but the final 4 hours were in the kitchen oven. Most people appear to agree that you can't take on any smokey flavour after the outside is cooked, and it was heavily wrapped in foil anyway. The first three hours had involved lots of fiddly temperature control (I have a Weber One-touch, not a smoker) and I simply couldn't have afforded to spend the last five hours pratting about like that. As far as I can tell, there would be no advantage to cooking the pork on the barbecue after 3 hours, wrapped in foil, and the over gave a much more even, easily controlled temperature.

Just a quick word of thanks to everyone here. I’ve had a few questions over the past few weeks leading up to this, and you’ve been a big help.

Steve W

[Pecker]

Pics as promised - sorry for the delay.

Rubbed:



On the Roasting Rack. Note, water pan below the pork and water pan above the coals - it appeared to help regulate the temperature:



Using the new Maverick for the first time. Weber One-Touch at a nice 130 degrees C:



Pad at the ready to jot down times & temps for future reference. I did fill it in, this is just the last pic I took of the pad:



The result. Not too bad for a first attempt, I hope. The outer parts pulled very easily. The core still felt a little tough when trying to pull with forks, and I cut it into chunks with a sharp knife, then pulled those pieces. This worked. In the bread buns I was afraid this might have brought about bits that were tough and chewy, but it was all equally tender. Similarly, I had cold pork and stuffing in a bun for my lunch yesterday. Pork is notoriously dry and chewy when cold, but this was just wonderfully tender:



Steve W

[The Social Smokers]

What was your final internal meat temp?

[Pecker]

88C - spot on.

It was ready early, so I turned the over down to...I think maybe 80C or similar, and left the pork in the foil in that oven for 30 minutes.

Then I removed it from the over and left it in the foil for another 30, resting.

Then I pulled it.

As I recall, the temperature held at 88 for that entire last 30 minutes in the oven.

Steve W

[keith157]

Hi Steve, nice one to be honest the sage and onion doesn't surprise me, other then at a good restaurant or bbq the nearest most people have to soft crummy pulled pork is at a Hog Roast and there is usually S&O stuffing.

[Pecker]

Cheers.

It surprised me at the time, but thinking about it now, it shouldn't.

Roast pork is roast pork, and whether it's firm and sliced or pulled and in a bun, has no impact on the basic flavour. And we know that roast pork with S&O is a classic, tried and tested combination.

The one thing that could stop it from working is the smoke, as that's a new flavour you're adding to the other two, but it didn't clash at all.

I think maybe if I was only doing pulled pork, and I wanted to push people to something else, I'd do a barbecue sauce. But as I said above, if I was also doing ribs, I'd definitely not want both ribs and pulled pork with a similar sauce.

Steve W

[Pecker]

Oh, and I should mention, I made a simple North Carolina vinegar sauce, following exactly the recipe in Steven Raichlen's Barbecue!: Sauces, Rubs and Marinades.

Hideous!

It's not that I'm not used to trying different things - I love chimichurri sauce, which has a fair bit of vinegar in. But I don't know how anyone can eat that stuff, it should be banned.

All IMVHO, of course.

Steve W

[London Irish]

Nice work Steve

[Riverrat]

Only a beginner myself and like you using a kettle, but have found that it is better to have a butt (shoulder) with the bone in, I have cooked boneless and they never seen to turn out as good. From one of the pictures you posted it looks like you cooked with the skin (rind) on? I remove the skin as it will stop the smoke and flavours from the rub you are using from penetrating the meat (so the guru's over here tell me!!) It turns out like rubber anyway, makes some nice crackling if you cook it in the oven later!!!!

Wish I had been there to conduct a taste test, it looked good!!! You can always put a sample in the mail!!!

[keith157]

I'm sure he'd love to, but being the upstanding honest chap that he is he'd have to correctly label it as meat so it wouldn't get passed US customs.
A bit like red smarties