simpson bbq

Experimentation is at the heart of this blog, or at least as close to the heart as beer and meat. I’ve never used a marinade injector before, but I’ve heard good things.

I’m now officially a hypodermic needle user.

Don’t share this needle

Lots of BBQ blogs espouse their own special marinades. Most include lots of liquid, with saltiness, sweetness, some kind of liquor or beer or wine, and often some pureed spices and perhaps fruitiness (like juice).

I went simple: PBR and some honey apple BBQ glaze my wife bought for me on impulse. I made a 50/50 mixture and liberally injected the shoulder all over from all angles – down to the bone, through the fat, along the sides, through the top… everywhere. I also consumed the rest of that PBR, then several others.

As I injected, bulbous sections of pork protruded. Each puncture wound oozed marinade, some more than others. In all, I injected the hell out of this meat. This butt got stabbed more times than a [insert horribly tasteless joke here].

Onto that went a simple rub of brown sugar, paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, seasoned salt, & Italian seasonings.

Will we see the wonders of a marinade injection?

And the whole thing went on a Weber 22.5″ kettle over indirect heat with cherry wood chunks. I put a thermometer probe through an onion near the meat to get an idea of the grill temperature. Even a conservative amount of coals gave me a hot grill, at or near 300 degrees. That’s a full 100 degrees higher than my typical drum smoker runs.

The answer to “What, what, in the butt?” is apparently: Syringe full of sauce and beer, and a thermometer probe

About 3-4 hours later (who can say with any specificity – it was an 18 pack of PBR), the shoulder was foil wrapped with some BBQ sauce and a sprinkle of some more beer.

Percolating pork

What a wonderful smell comes from a wrapped pork shoulder. Lots of bubbling, cracking going on in there.

Finally, a few more hours later, perhaps after 7 total, I pulled the meat off the grill and opened it to let it rest.

The fruits of my labor

The end result, as usual, looks wonderful. Great smell & color. I’m excited.

What I notice in trying to shred the shoulder was that the meat was separating in chunks rather than typical shreds. I figure what happened was all the injected moisture boiled and steamed and percolated within the meat, which not only tenderized, moistened, and flavored the flesh itself, but also broke down fat and connective tissue. This lets the meat break into hunks of succulent sweet pork, instead of shreddings.

Chunks of shredded pork

It was delectable! I’m thrilled with how it turned out, and I’m definitely making this again. Flavor injection is part of the BBQ regular rotation. Yes, I’m now a habitual needle user.

Leftovers? BBQ pork pizza the next day.

Enjoy the same meat twice

Belated greetings from Atlanta, where we visited my brother-in-law and his family on the way to Florida for a biennial expensive fiasco extended family vacation! I would have posted this sooner, but, in the spirit of the Olympics, I was very busy competing in Competitive Co-Ed Beach Beer Drinking…. I nearly medaled.

I have never cooked anything on a Big Green Egg. I’ve always wanted to, but the opportunity had not presented itself until recently.

Approach me if you dare, mortal

It’s a clay / ceramic hull of a beast of a BBQ smoker in the shape of a (wait for it) big green egg. Just like Busch Stadium II, I’m told it holds the heat well. (HT: Casey Stengel)

Cleaned out and ready for meat

How fancy are these things? They have their own charcoal…

What? Kingsford not good enough for you?

… and their own starters…

What? A coal chimney’s not good enough for you?

… but it started up well and took a heapin’ helpin’ of water-soaked cherry and apple wood chunks.

Fire Burn!

Wood Burn! (Just not as much…)

I picked up some beautiful baby back ribs from a Straubs-like market in Peachtree City, Georgia, so you know I paid out the nose. At checkout, the cashier saw my shirt and asked what a Billiken is. After I told her, she flirtingly remarked that, being from St. Louis, I surely knew how to handle these pork ribs. I’ll take it.

While there, I found a plethora of BBQ sauces. It took some time, but I finally picked this one after reading dozens of ingredient lists:

Ingredient list beauty

Apparently this was a home run, as my nephew pointed out that it is his favorite BBQ sauce.

On to the ribs. As is standard rib smoking procedure, I peeled the membrane from the concave portion of the baby back ribs. I then applied a hearty coating of my brown sugar based rub all around the ribs and placed the three slabs on a rib rack. Pro Tip: The large (but not extra-large) BGE cannot comfortably hold three horizontal slabs of ribs, so a rib rack was a must.

Now would be a good time for a beer. How about one of these:

Sweetwater 420

I’ve had the SweetWater 420 many, many times before, otherwise it would be a Drink This Beer entry. Easily one of my favorite beers, and certainly one of the best southeastern US beers money can buy. Anyone who knows me or who has read this blog knows I like a classic, smooth pale ale and SweetWater delivers here. Seriously, buy and drink this beer.

After about 3 hours and some beginners issues with respect to BGE temperature, the ribs were looking good.

The wonderful results of smoke and rub

Even though I have committed the atrocity of parboiling ribs, I do actually know how to make real, honest, decent ribs.

Close up of the porky goodness

Each rib was given a generous slather of the Bone Suckin’ Sauce, along with a sprinkle of rub and a little drizzle of honey, followed by a wrapping in aluminum foil for another 2-2.5 hours on the BGE.

Wrap your meat: A life lesson that transcends BBQ.

I finally managed to get the temperature to hold steady at just over 200 degrees, instead of the first timer problems I was having. Whilst the ribs continued to cook and tenderize, why not try another local beer?

What a clever play on words

As the name suggests, this is a hoppy IPA style beer with an ABV over 6. The fine people at Red Brick did a nice job holding back on the hops. Certainly there’s the typical bitterness, but it is a milder, fruitier, more restrained approach to an American IPA than, say, Hopsecutioner, which is another Atlanta-area beer utterly loaded with hops (to the tune of a 71 IBU!), of which we had many.

After 5 or so hours on the BGE, I pulled the ribs from their foil pouches and prepared each slab according to my orders. Prior to wrapping, one got a little bit of beer poured into the pouch to tenderize the ribs to fall-off-the-bone level. Once taken from the pouch, I coated it in more sauce. The second slab got a coating of the original rib rub, mainly for my son, who loves very sweet and spicy ribs, but not BBQ sauce. The third and final slab (the control sample) was simply re-sauced. Each was put on the Big Green Egg to finish.

The things you do for your kids…

After 45-60 minutes or so (who can be sure, we had 6 hours to drink some beers), the ribs were done.

Ready for my belly

Another brother-in-law (I have five on that side of our family) was in town, fresh from a 6 month jaunt to Australia. You might not believe it, but Australians apparently do a really shitty job of making American-style BBQed pork ribs. He ordered the control ribs (not too tender, with sauce) and they were a hit. The ribs didn’t fall off the bone, but they were tender and succulent. I was pleased.

Though it seemed intimidating and complicated, using a Big Green Egg was neither. If I ever get enough money to purchase one of these expensive items, you can bet I will.

;

As I have mentioned before, I am in the parish men’s club. That comes with certain responsibilities, including working zealously at the annual fish fry and eating food / crushing AB-InBev products at our monthly meeting.

One of those responsibilities was presented to me a few weeks ago: “We need you to cook dinner at the June meeting. It’s the same night as the washers tournament, so plan on 50 guys.”

What’s fairly simple that has wide appeal, especially to a beer-swilling crowd of old men from St. Louis? Pork shoulder, of course.

I have never cooked for more than a dozen adults and as many kids at a family function, but this is a little more intense. I made an epic trip to Sam’s Club. A learned BBQer that I know through a friend told me to make one pound of raw pork meat per person, so I went ahead and bought eight shoulders that came in at about 55 lbs.

My bounty from Sam’s Club

As you can see, I also bought a ton of other stuff, like beans, corn, beer (for me), wood, charcoal, buns, seasoning, cole slaw, etc. At any place but Sam’s, the jackass cashier would ask about your weekend plans and then semi-jokingly invite themselves.

I got to the school parking lot around 10:30am with plans to serve dinner at 6:00pm. Most unfortunately, I came across a couple septuagenarian dudes grilling burgers for some octogenarian ladies having a luncheon in the cafeteria. The grill was full (FULL!) of charcoal and the thermometer said 500 degrees. This is a problem.

After evicting those guys and cleaning out the grill, I was ready to go at noon. I set up the fire box on the side of the smoker with a huge amount of water-soaked hickory wood chunks on top of the coals.

Hickory wood ready to do its magic

We bought this grill to replace the rusted-out shitbox of a grill that we had been using for years. It was a custom rig from some shop in Memphis and cost a pretty penny.

Behold the wonders of modern BBQ

As the smoke began to fill the chamber, I got my rub ready to go. Again, having never done this before, I made way too much rub.

I needed enough for eight shoulders, so I poured in 2lbs of brown sugar, a full container of paprika, a half container of seasoned salt, and a bunch of garlic pepper.

Too much pork rub

I made about 40% too much, which is a damned waste. But, having rolled a bunch of raw pork in it, the remainder had to be tossed.

55 lbs. of pig meat… never too much

The shoulders were arranged fat side up on the grill with the smoker in full force, and then I sprinkled on a little more rub for good measure.

Shoulders covered in salty sugar

I figured I would rotate everything around at about the 1.5 hour mark.

A profile photo of the raw pork

After an hour and a half, I reloaded the fire box with more wet wood and did a little ballet of moving the meat around so as to evenly cook it all.

Smoke reloaded

I shuffled the meat around a couple more times to get things cooked up evenly.

Three hours of smoking

I decided to BBQ up 2 lbs of maple bacon to chop into the baked beans. You really can’t have enough pork at this BBQ.

The shoulder looks amazing and is coming along nicely, evidenced by the bubbly fat cracking through the plaster walls of the charred sugary rub.

Eat me

After around four hours of cooking, each shoulder was wrapped. I made an X out of heavy duty aluminum foil and put the pork in the center. I made a boat around the meat, then poured in half of a PBR and maybe 3-4 oz. of BBQ sauce, along with a little seasoned salt and garlic pepper. Each was crimped and put back on the grill to finish.

Percolating beer and spice

The beans needed more than the original 1 lb of bacon, so a second pound cooks above. Some canned corn has joined the party! I also bought a cookie tray.

Finally, after about 7 hours total on the BBQ, I was ready to shred / chop the shoulder into some pans. All of the luxurious beer / seasoning / fat drippings went right into the meat.

Chopped pork. Ready for your belly.

I served it all up on a long folding table and the metal tray behind the grill.

Eat up, people.

So maybe I grossly over-calculated two things: (1) how many people would show up, and (2) how much meat each person would eat. After everyone had eaten their fill and more, I still had two unshredded shoulders and some more meat in the pan. I pawned off as much leftovers as I could on people, who were all to willing to fill up to-go containers with the good stuff. It made a great lunch and dinner for me today.

Pork.

It was universally well-received, even by the two hardcore BBQers in the men’s club. They were either bullshitting me to protect my feelings or were genuinely impressed, and frankly either one of those is fine by me. The rest of the men’s club, full of beer-chugging washers players in 90+ degree heat, were all thrilled with the dinner. I enjoyed a smug sense of self-satisfaction, despite the fact that I lost both washers games and then crapped out at poker that night.

I’ve never tried to cook for anything larger than a big family outing, so tomorrow is a big step. I was tapped to make dinner for 50 men at the annual washers tournament. Here’s everything the night before, including eight pork shoulders coming in at 54 lbs total and a monstrous amount of hickory wood.

My bounty from Sam’s Club

Hopefully the post on Friday that gives an account of my adventure is more positive than negative…