Cooking in the Heat by Ben

Butts before

So there was a work potluck and I decided that would be a good excuse to smoke some pig.  Got the butts ahead of time from Frank at the Pig on Folly (who later received a small bag o' Q for his birthday the following Sunday).  I needed to be ready to pull at 4pm, and was already feeling behind at 10pm the night before. I got the butts all prettied up following SOP (no experimentation this time).

And let them sit a bit.

Butts getting their Q on.

I started the grill using the full on minion method. The last few times I have cooked I have either added the water right when I added the hot coals, or I added the meat. The problem was I could never remember which was correct (the former is correct) and would have to wait hours just for the grill to get up to temp before adding the meat. This method is termed Minion Method - Old School.

I didn't know there was an old school version. So this time I tried the new school version. In a nut shell this involves adding your water and meat right when coals are added.  As an aside, I did not add piping hot water as I normally do.  You can look at the temp log below to see how it worked, but basically it took 1.5 h after adding coals before I was ready to leave it alone for the evening. Not too shabby. One last thing though about minion which I never thought about, it is pretty key to use good charcoal since you are cooking with freshly lit coals and so a cheaper brand might cause taste issues.

Butts wouldn't fit

So I had noticed that the butts looked a bit wide, even for me (and I like big butts).  As I was putting them on it became apparent that I would not be able to fit two on each grill. So I took them off and used to string to make them sit up a bit more. Not perfect but good enough considering I was completely unprepared for this.  Also, I put the one smaller butt on the bottom thinking it would cook slower (heat rises right?)... more on that later.

Time	Vents	Notes	grill temp
9:00pm	na	take butts out of fridge	na
10-10:30pm	na	inject	na
11:30pm	na	start chimney	na
12:00am	All 100%	start all @ once	150
1:00am	All 100%	none	180
1:25am	All 50%	none	210
8:10am	put 1 at 100%	none	210
9:00am	put 2 at 100%	trying to get heat up	210
10:15am	all at 100%	evasive actions; add new charcoal, water and baste	200
11:00am	all 100%	water, baste	<200
12:00pm	all 100%	baste; lil' butt at 153	240
1:15pm	all 100%	baste; lil butt at 162	230
1:30pm	50/50/100	baste	250
2:00pm	50/50/0	water, baste; lil butt at 171, remove and wrap; other lower butt at 174, move to top; move top butts to bottom (170)	230
3:00pm	na	top butt at 280, wrap them all and finish	230

Butts before the start getting basted (to get that bark).

One big conclusion here is that the butts on the bottom cooked hotter than the ones on top. Make sense, but still good to know. Also, the ones on the bottom definitely get a bit more grease since they are being basted with the fat from above. For the record I generally cook two butts on top and that's all.

Second, I would say there was probably some sort of wind during the night which raised the temp. I say this because the coals seemed more cooked through than normal, and my internal temps were higher sooner.

We also made sauces, and it turns out I don't think the vinegar sauce recipe is on here. Here it is below:

Carolina Vinegar Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

    2 cups cider vinegar

    2/3 cup ketchup

    1/2 cup brown sugar

    1 tbsp Louisiana Gold hot sauce

    1 tbsp lemon juice

    1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

    2 tbsps butter

    1 tsp red pepper flakes

    1 tsp dry mustard

    1/2 tsp salt

    1/2 tsp black pepper

METHOD:

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring constantly to blend well. NOTE: Make sure that you make this sauce at least a day in advance so that all ingredients and flavors have time to mellow and meld together.

Marion was actually the sauce stirrer.

Finally we were able to pull the meat, and everyone dug it. I think letting it sit at least 2-3 hours is crucial for good texture.