I bought over 2kg of pork shoulder at Costco for less than £5, but that piece of meat is going to need some “good lovin” to make me go yuuuummmmm.
I was using Jamie Purviance’s recipe from Weber’s Smoke: A Guide to Smoke Cooking for Everyone and Any Grill
On Friday I checked the weather for the weekend and Saturday was nice, but Sunday was better. This “good lovin” to your pork (I am sure there is a joke there somewhere) takes a long time and plenty of planning in advance. Per Jamie this recipe will take 8 to 10 hours to complete, so mine was about 11 hours. I guess it takes 8 hours if you know what you are doing?
I bought the joint at Costco on Saturday and needed to do some prep work on it. I used the Jaccard
in the flesh for the brine to infuse. My brine was unsweetened apple juice and two tablespoons each of sea salt and brown sugar.
Then into a Sous Vide bag for a lovely night in the fridge.
I was supposed to get up early the next day to get the fire stoked and smokin!!! Ya so at about 10:00 in the morning I rolled out of bed and thought I have about 11 hours of work before it gets dark, this is going to be tight.
I got the pork shoulder out f the fridge and decanted the brine, rinsed in cold water and set to the side to get to room temperature. Load the starter with lump wood charcoal and dump it into the smoker.
I made 4 knots of newspaper by taking two sheets of newspaper and rolling them up in a tight tube then tying and overhand knot in them. Two of them go into the Weber charcoal starter and two underneath sitting on top of my Weber Smokey Joe. Light the paper underneath and in no time you have hot coals.
While the coals are getting ready, I created the Basic Barbeque Rub (but toned it down a little per my kids critique of my ribs.
¼ cup coarse sea salt
¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup paprika
1 tablespoon ground pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes (I used onion powder)
½ to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon celery seeds
I rubbed the rub (hmmmmm) all over the joint.
Coals were ready and meat was ready so lets….. smoke it baby!!!! That is how you are at the beginning of the day all full of whoo haaaaa lets go, it was 11:00am. It was a good smoke up until about 3:30 when I decided to go some more Mt. Dew from Sainsbury’s (come on I am American). When I got back there was lots of smoke but the temperature had plummeted, so it was smouldering (damn you road works). Quick pile up of coals and a little bellows action and another can of lit briquettes took care of that issue. At about 5:00 I had a look; it had been 6 hours with not even a sneaky peek. The temperature was close but not quite to the required 160F per Jamie’s recipe and I did not think another can of coal was going to get where I needed to be anytime soon.
So I wrapped it foil and tossed it into the oven on gas mark 1. At about 8:00pm I checked the temperature and it had reached 190F and I took it out for the one hour rest.
At about 9:00pm it was time to pull and eat…
I pulled some of the corner of the pork with my hands, it just fell apart. Into a saucepan with some Cattleman’s BBQ Sauce and a little stir up. Onto some buns and here it is plated up.
Oh ya I am the smokin Daddy this weekend!!!!! It is also 9:30pm and I absolutely smashed up tired, beer and bed me thinks.