Black Eyed Pigz

Archive for May, 2009

The chickens were excellent, juicy, spicy, sweet….just beautiful and I do have a pic of the finished product, but I can’t upload now as I’ve imbibed in a few more brews than I shoulda have.  I’ll get that pic posted for you tomorrow.

Finally, after 13 hours on the smoker, the shoulders came off, and I let them rest in foil for an hour, then pulled them and put them in a tray with their own juices for eating tomorrow.  I plan to reheat the meat on the smoker for about an hour or two, and add a splash of apple juice to stir things up with.  I didn’t get a pic of the finished shoulders, but let me tell you, all the bones pulled out of the meat clean and easy.  in fact, only the original fat cap hung on for the ride.  When I pulled that main bone, the fat cap slid off with ease and cleanly.  I’m now the proud owner of nearly 6 pounds of BBQ pulled pork.  All I did was pull it apart with a dinner fork and throw it in a pan. 

We’ll be making potato salad and homemade BBQ sauce tomorrow for eatin’ time.  I’ll do my best to get some photos of that stuff for you too.

Pork shoulders are a great way to learn BBQ and man they’re tasty.  If all goes well, I’ll have a pound of meat left to munch on through the week.  If all goes REALLY well, I’ll be eating a ham sandwich because nothing’s going to be left over. 

I hope you enjoyed the live updates today during the cook and I apologize for not getting you more pictures.  As time wears on, I’ll make sure that future live events have better photo support for you.  Email us with your questions and Smoke On!

Since the shoulders are under wraps for the rest of the cook today, and I don’t want to let all that steamy goodness out by taking a photo, I wanted to update you on the chickens.  At the end of the first 1.5 hours, I’ve got crispy skin, dark smoke and juicy goodness already.  They still need about an hour on the heat, as the current temps are falling between 150 and 165, and I need it 180 before I pull it for feeding time.

I’ll definitely get some pics up here of the birds before they’re cut up for eatin’ tonight.  But man oh man are they looking and smelling good!

Just because I’m using their methods, not their recipe necessarily, I wanted to post their video for you to enjoy.  The BBQ Pit Boys rock!

BBQ Chicken Split Roasted Style

I finally got the camera charged and working so I’m going to share some photos with you now.  The first one is the pork shoulders after about 7 hours of low and slow smoking on the cooker.

Looks tasty don’t it?

Now this one is right after I took the first picture, I’ve set the shoulders in an aluminum pan and added just a few splashes of Apple Juice for flavor and steam.  And I’ve added the two split chickens, which I learned how to split over at BBQPitBoys.com  Thanks fellas!

Those chickens are split across the back so they lay flat down on the smoker.  Usually I stuff a beer can up their backsides and stand them up for cooking, but this sounded good too.  Thought I’d try it out and you get the experience my first time through doing split chickens on the smoker.  It’s history in the making folks.

More updates and photos as the day continues to wind down.  Chicken tonight, pork tomorrow, and goodness ALL the time!

The smoke has kissed the shoulders, and they’re looking GOOD!!!!!  Still no pictures, I think something’s wrong with the camera, but I’ll borrow one if I have to before I wrap these up in foil for the second half of the day.  I’ve now burned through 1 bag of charcoal and started on the second one.

You can smell the rub, mesquite and pork wafting through the backyard and ooooh baby is it tempting to have a taste.  But I can’t, they’re not done, and there’s still at least 8 hours to go on the day.

We’re also going to throw some split chickens on the smoker around 2pm or so today, so I’ll do my best to get photos of that too.  Chickens for tonight, Pork for tomorrow, and delicious all the time!

Keep checkin’ back, more to come!

Hey BBQ Lovers!  We’re cooking shoulders today on the smoker and will be updating the blog throughout the day with pics and info as it continues.  There’s no set update schedule, so some posts might come in at 1 hour intervals, others might be longer in between.

Either way, the smoker is hot and the shoulders are on right now.  Photos will come later on as the meat starts to take the smoke.  I didn’t charge the camera last night, so I couldn’t get pics of the meat before it went on the cooker.

Stay tuned for more!

Yeah, we resisted as long as we could and we’re finally on Twitter ourselves.  You’re welcome to check us out, follow our ramblings and basically join the “in crowd”.

Tweet twitter tweet.

Folks, if you haven’t discovered this yet, you need to check it out.  www.bbqpitboys.com

These guys produce videos of every possible BBQ technique, method and flavor that you can imagine.  And they do it up real professional like.  If you’re wanting to learn the art of BBQ, this is a great place to start.

With recipes ranging from simple hamburgers and hotdogs to more advanced things like brisket, Bacon Explosion Pork Bombs and how to split and grill a whole chicken, you’re going to be watching for hours.

Check out their site at:  www.bbqpitboys.com and see what you think, I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

BBQ Beef Brisket, quite possibly the toughest cut of beef you’ll ever come across on purpose.  Brisket is a beef cut taken from the breast section beneath the first five ribs, behind the foreshank.  It does alot of work, and therefore is packed with connective tissue, muscle fibers and fat.

You can get a Brisket Flat, which is basically just a piece of the entire brisket.  This is fine and I’ve cooked these many times when the stores had nothing else on hand, but they don’t have as much fat on them, making it a little more difficult to cook into something tender and juicy.

I use the whole brisket whenever I can.  Weighing in at 10 + pounds and usually as long as your arm, this is a massive hunk of beef.  But a TOUGH hunk of beef if it’s not prepared properly.  So let’s get into the cooking process next.

To BBQ your brisket, you should have some sort of dry rub on hand.  This is a mixture of spices applied to the surface of the meat prior to putting on the cooker.  Myself, I will rub the brisket the night before, wrap in foil and refrigerate until the next morning.  It allows the salts and spices to work their way into the meat just a little bit.

Get your smoker fired up, anywhere between 230 and 275 degrees would be perfect, as the idea here is to cook it over low heat for a long time.  Once your smoker has achieved temp, it’s time to slap the meat on.  I usually place mine in there with the fatty side up, to allow the juices from the fat as it renders out to help self-baste the meat while cooking.

I NEVER add sauce, juice or mopping liquids to my meat while it’s cooking.  I do however, throw a handful of wood chips or chunks into the firebox as soon as the meat goes on the grate.  I like to get the smoke into the meat early on in the process.

From here on out, I only check the firebox to see if I need to add more fuel to keep my temps where I like them.  I don’t even LOOK at that brisket for the first 5 hours.  Once I see that the brisket has taken on a nice dark color and is starting to shrink up thanks to the fat loss, I’ll transfer it into an aluminum pan, add a little apple juice and cover loosely with foil.  And I let it cook for another 5 hours or so.

You really want to achieve an internal temp of 140 degrees farenheit before you consider it ready to eat.  Depending on your cooker, and how well it maintains your heat, this should take between 10 and 12 hours on average.  it will vary due to a variety of conditions, but that’s a good average to get you started.

Now some folks don’t agree with placing the brisket into foil or a pan to finish cooking it, they claim that at this point it’s no longer BBQ and that you’re steaming your food.  I disagree.  The BBQ process has played out for the first half of the cook, it’s taken on as much smoke as it can handle, and is now just trying to cook through. 

Regardless if you finish the brisket in foil or not, once you achieve your internal temps, you need to remove the meat from the heat.  At this point EVERYONE will wrap their brisket in foil or something else, and let the meat “rest” for up to an hour before serving.  What this does is help the juices to reabsorb into the meat and keep your food nice and juicy.

You’ll see some briskets that you can slice into neat little servings.  When you cook it my way, it’s going to pull apart effortlessly, juicy and delicious.  I’ve have nothing but rave reviews on my brisket, and it’s so tasty with my cinnamon chipotle rub that very few people ask for sauce.  While mine will never win a “good looking” brisket contest, I can guarantee you that if you sit some on your head, your tongue would beat your brains out trying to get to it.  It’s just that good.

Now, this is one of the trickiest cuts of meat to master on the BBQ and you may have a little trouble the first time through, but don’t get discouraged.  Keep your temps low, you times slow and quit lifting the lid to take a peek at it.  The more fat it has, the juicier it will turn out.  If it has less fat, consider putting a few strips of bacon on it before BBQ’ing it, as that fat will help to moisten your meat too.

With Memorial day now just a distant memory, ok ok, with Memorial day over now, I wanted to look back on the weekend.

First off, I didn’t get to do the big cookout I had planned on.  My wife got bitten by a Brown Recluse spider on Friday and has been laid up in the house all weekend with an infection.  Since she couldn’t move around, it fell to me to take care of everything around the house, the 4 kids the 2 dogs and the partridge in the pear tree.

SO, in lieu of spending all day on the smoker and making a feast fit for 2 kings, I decided to scale it down to just some Chicken Legs.  I marinated the legs for about 4 hours in some Lawry’s Chile Lime marinade, and then put them on the smoker with Hickory chips for flavor. 

I let these cook for about 2 - 2.5 hours and when I pulled them they were the prettiest shade of brown you could ever hope for.  I brushed lightly with a little Carolina Sweet BBQ sauce and served them up with some BBQ Beans and Potato Salad.

Normally, if I just grill up 12 or so legs, there’s always a couple left over because the kids just won’t eat them.  But when I smoked them, there wasn’t enough to go around all of a sudden.  So I guess I know how to do chicken legs from now on.

We’ve postponed the cookout for another random date sometime in June hopefully and will get back to the day-long cooks at that time.  However, I suggest to everyone, if you can grill it, try smoking it.  It takes a bit longer, but it always seems to come out much more flavorful, tender and juicy.

Until next time, Smoke On!