When It Rains All Day, Barbecue All Night

Like millions of folks, I like to barbecue on the 4th - or any day of the week that ends in -y.  We've been having several days of afternoon thunderstorms lately, though, and the forecast for the 4th was 70% chance of rain and today was 80%.  I had a pork butt in the freezer to make pulled pork from, though, and smoking one of those takes around 12 hours - sometimes as much as 16 depending on the particular hunk of pork you're working from.  These are animals, after all, and it varies with the individual.  It looked like chances of having 12 to 16 hours without rain lasting until an evening dinner time hovered right around zero.   

Yesterday, I hatched a plan to barbecue in the 12 to 16 hours between rain showers or from about 10PM Saturday night until the pork was done this afternoon.  I've done this sort of cook before, but usually starting later, like midnight or getting up at 3AM plus or minus an hour to start.  Sure enough, the rain let up to "chunky mist" before sunset last night and by 10 it was drying out (to the degree it can with humidity close to 100%).  I used my electric smoker for this, a Masterbuilt Digital Electric Smoker (like this model) and the side smoker box.  Everything was on the back porch with the pork butt in the smoker and heating up by 10:10PM.

Up for some barbecue engineering?  Doubtless you've seen pellet grills that use a motorized plunger (an auger?) to drive a calibrated amount of wood pellets in the heat chamber.  These advertise they can be run unattended - I don't have one so I don't know if that's real world or not.  The Masterbuilt side smoker is gravity fed.  The disassembled unit looks like this:

That little screen tray (bottom center) slides onto the wood chute (bottom left) which sits inside the big assembly, just above an electric heating element.  You fill that chute on the left with wood chips, the screen keeps them from falling through, they're heated until they smoke, and the idea is that as they give up their smoke, they turn to ash, which falls into the drawer (bottom right) and now gravity pulls the stack of chips lower into place so that the next layer burns.  The whole thing is supposed to provide continuous smoke for six hours, and pretty much does.   The problem is that the wood chips also release some resins and water vapor that rise inside the chute causing the chips to stick to the sides and each other, forming a clump or clot of chips that needs to be broken up every couple of hours. 

Which is why I get up every couple of hours through the night to look after the smoker.  The alternative, without the side box, is to refill the limited amount of chips the smoker itself holds, which means getting up a few more times through the night; perhaps every 90 minutes vs 120 to 150 with the side box.  Practically, it's not a really big difference but the side box gives us the ability to cold smoke, which the electric smoker itself can't do.

Since I'd made preparations to be done by no later than 2PM, expecting it could be raining by then, the rain held off another two hours.  The pork came out great and a splendid time was had by all.  And tonight, Mr. Kite is topping the bill. 

This is almost a stock picture to represent today's barbecue - a stock butt pic.  It's not today's barbecue because I didn't think to take a picture.  For once.  But it was like this.

Barbecue 101 Again

I've done a lot of experimenting with sous vide and barbecue together, which I've been calling Barbecue 401.  Since last summer, I added comments on indirect smoking in my Weber kettle grill.  This time was a return to real simplicity.  Smoking for a couple of hours in my thermostatically-controlled Masterbuilt electric smoker. 

Pork Belly Burnt Ends

In the barbecue world, burnt ends are usually made from the more tender and fatty portion of a beef brisket called the point. The point is removed from the other portion (the flat) after the two have been smoked (around 12 hours, maybe more) cut into cubes, rubbed, coated with barbecue sauce and smoked some more. The dish is considered a delicacy.

Jeff Phillips, who runs the Smoking Meat Forums as a side to his business selling barbecue rubs, cookbooks and such, put out a recipe that I based this on.

1 pork belly - 3 lbs mine was about that with another pound in skin trimmed away.
1 cup G Hughes sugarfree barbecue sauce
1/2 cup Diced, pickled jalapenos (or to taste)
approx 1/4 cup Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
approx 1/4 cup Wine vinegar
Swerve brown sugar subsitute
Granulated garlic
Smoked paprika powder

Step 1: Remove the Thick Skin

My preference is to purchase them already prepped and ready but the one I had came with a lot of belly skin still in place.

If you've never taken the rind or skin off of a pork belly then you might want to watch a video or two from YouTube to familiarize yourself with how it's done.  While it's basically like filleting a fish, it was much harder.  The skin was thick and hard to separate from the muscle, so I got an uneven trim.  Too much fat (if there is such a thing) in places, too lean in others. 

Step 2: Slice Into Strips and Cube Them

Strips about an inch wide cut into one inch long pieces.  Very approximately.

Step 3: Rub

I made a rub consisting of salt, pepper, garlic, Swerve brown sugar swerve and smoked paprika powder.  Hard to figure quantities so I just dumped stuff until it looked good, and when I ran out, made some more.  If you have a favorite pork rub, use that.

Step 4: 1st Smoke

Place the cubes in a grill basket so that fat can render out and melt into a pan underneath the basket.  Smoke at chamber temperature 225, for about two hours.  The object is a good bark.  I used apple, but use your choice of hardwood.

When I pulled the cubes, they had rendered a lot and the internal temperature was about 180. 

Step 5: Prepare barbecue sauce

This is really "to taste".  Started with half a bottle of G. Hughes sugar free barbecue sauce because it's what I had.  Added about 1/4 to 1/2 cup each of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce and wine vinegar.  Added about a tablespoon of Swerve brown sugar.  Then 1/2 cup diced, pickled jalapenos. 

Step 6: Second smoke.

Pour the sauce into an aluminum or other solid baking dish that will fit in the smoker.  Add the pork belly cubes.  Roll them around to get them well covered in sauce.  Then back into the smoker, still at 225, for one more hour.

I got two of these pans after all that.

The source of the idea, Jeff Phillips, is sort of a “one note symphony chef.” Everything he makes is based on sweetness. I tried to subdue that with wine vinegar, and white vinegar in the jalapeno chunks, but it’s a bit sweet. I need to find a way around that should there be a next time.

Other Activities Around Here

So I hear you asking, “so SiG, what adventures with barbecue and cooking have you had lately?”  Yeah, alright.  Nobody asked that, but I'll tell you anyway.

I've been experimenting with smoking more foods in my Weber Kettle grill that I talked about last summer. After Thanksgiving's turkey, Mrs. Graybeard suggested I do something for Christmas.  Just at that time, the email barbecue group newsletter I get was talking about prime rib roasts, and literally within an hour of that email we saw an ad from Publix saying they had those on sale at about 30% off.  Clearly a message we should smoke a prime rib roast and we found a smaller one (3-1/2 pounds) that came home with us.  That was cooked sous vide style (see my Barbecue 401 post) at 132 for 7 hours on Christmas eve, chilled overnight, and then smoked for 3 hours Christmas afternoon.  I wasn't very happy with the looks of the bark, but it tasted wonderful, it was incredibly tender, and we got three dinners out of it.

For New Year's she suggested I go to something more conventional and suggested pulled pork from a shoulder we've had in the freezer for a long time.  Again, sous vide, this time cooked at 160 for 22 hours and then smoked for another four.  This time, I made a more concerted effort to heat the chamber hotter, measuring the temperature near the hunk of pork, and trying to keep it in the range of 280 to 300 because this helps get a better bark.  I've been unable to recreate the dark mahogany to black bark I've gotten when not preparing the meats by sous vide, and I'm starting to think it relies on cooking chemistry that the sous vide preparation destroys.  Compare this side by side of the virtually black bark on a pork shoulder cooked in my Masterbuilt Electric Smoker, right, with the almost cherry colored bark of Wednesday's sous vide pulled pork on the left.

A complicating fact is that there's also an internal sign of being cooked properly in a smoker, a pink smoke ring within the first quarter inch of the surface.  The one on the left has a smoke ring, the one on the right doesn't.  Taste wise, the sous vide pork butt is great, but I like that dark bark better.  Look at all the pink in this one, once it's shredded a bit.  I want both the dark, flavorful bark and the pink smoke ring.  As they used to say, I want it all and I want it now. 

There's another big set of culinary experiments going on, but I'll have to get to that some other day. 

Branching Out in Barbecue

I've blogged lots of content about barbecue over the years, and specifically about "low temperature, slow cooked, with hardwood smoke".  Most people associate the word "barbecue" with grilling; cooking over high temperature fire.  With the exception of some wood smoke it's the complete opposite of barbecue - and some gas grills don't allow a way to get smoke flavor (from what I hear - never had one).

The truth is, I enjoy grilling, too.  My last grills, though, rusted out and needed to be hauled to the curb well over a year ago.  One was a large combination grill/smoker with a side box for the wood fire, sort of like this model but I'm sure an older version.  I could never get that to keep a good low temperature for smoking, and it consumed mind-boggling amounts of wood, but it was a decent grill.  My grill was a Weber kettle grill, their bottom end model like this. 

This summer, we treated ourselves to an upgraded Weber 22" Premium grill, which has some convenience features I'm learning to like.  I spent all of last summer waiting for them to go on sale, only to find out they pretty much don't.  At least, not usually.  If you want one, you pay what they're asking (or find one used).  I did our first grilling on it a couple of weekends ago. 

Why the kettle grill?  Because it's capable of being a smoker and a grill - which could thin the herd in the garage.  To grill or sear, you pile coals up in the center of the grill and cook in direct heat; to smoke, you put the charcoal around the perimeter of the grill and cook by indirect heat.  A popular version is called the "snake method".  Coals are arranged to be lightly touching each other along the seam between the grate your briquettes sit on and the walls of the kettle.  You light a few pieces of charcoal and then place them at one end of the "snake" of carefully stacked charcoal.

Like this.

You can see four ashed-over pieces of charcoal on the left that came out of a charcoal starter.   The snake is about 1/4 of the perimeter of the kettle with two coals in touching rows on the bottom and one row down the middle of those and on top of them.  In between are some chunks of hickory to add those flavors.  

This shot is from this afternoon, the first time I've ever attempted to smoke something this way.  I thought it would be good to get a feel for how the temperature regulates, and how long it takes to use up a quarter of the circumference of the bowl.  So what to make?  What to make?...  Something easy to whip up, tastes good, and is pretty darn easy to cook.  A fatty! 

This one is a one pound package of pork sausage, filled with provolone cheese, Genoa salami and a spinach/kale blend.  Rolled up and wrapped in bacon weave - as they have to be.

I forgot to take a "before" picture but this one is before adding the salami and rolling it up, so half-stuffed.  And here's the "after" pic.

The 1/4 perimeter of the grill lasted three hours.  I think I can get more than 3/4 of the circumference but it's not possible to get the full thing.  You can only light one end, so there has to be some amount of gap.  If the coals don't need to be fussed with, that's 9 or 10 hours of smoking.  By limiting the number of coals that will burn at once, the kettle doesn't get very hot.  It stayed in the range of 220 to 240 for the three hours as measured by the built-in thermometer in the lid.  I experimented with adjusting air flow to lower and raise temperature and that worked as it should.

There are alternatives to doing a snake method smoking session, although a search of YouTube shows many videos.  There's a very popular commercial product, the Slow 'N Sear  and people have made their own versions of this idea.  I can see the advantages of doing this.  Those coals seen in the top picture get a grate over them where the food sits; that means that if you need to do something to the coals, you have to take off the lid, the food and the grate. 

More research and more cooking experiments will certainly follow. 

The Barbecue Results

The results of the Double Smoke Sous Vee Barbecue experiment were fantastic. The bark was better than the single smoke after sous vide approach. It pulled very easily. Moist, delicious. All in all the process took from about 11AM Wednesday through to 5PM Thursday, so there’s the aspect of planning, and doing things on schedule, but with the exception of needing two consecutive days outside with no rain, that’s not particularly hard.

Right out of the smoker:

Compare that to the picture in the previous post.   Better yet, compare the previous post to this one, since it's the same situation as the previous post - pulled for serving.

I had my doubts this would be worth it yesterday morning after the sous vide bath. It went into the bath (double bagged) Wednesday night around 5PM, and when it went in, the Internal Temp was 145 (F).  After 18 hours at 165, at 11 AM on the 4th, the roast had given off a lot of juices, and I assumed it washed away the bark that had started. It’s tricky to handle food at this stage because it’s fully cooked and fall-off-the-bone tender. It was trying to fall apart right then and there, but I gave it a rub with yellow mustard and then the same spice rub I used before the first smoking. When I put it in the smoker, the meat was trying to slide off the generous fat pad that the pork had. I think next time I’ll tie it up with butcher twine.

It was into the smoker by just before noon for the second smoke and by 3 PM I could see it was getting a good looking bark.

At this time yesterday, I would have said this will be my standard way of doing pulled pork from now on.  I don’t know if the bark that started in the first smoke really did get washed away, and I put it back in the second smoke, or if it mostly survived and I added to it.  I just know it’s better than my single smoked version with sv first and then a few hours in the smoker.

Today I got started thinking of it differently.  It was in the smoker a total of about 9 hours: four on the first day and five on the second.  Was the bark better simply because it had 9 hours of time in the smoker or because of the special treatment?  When I used to do the smoking from a raw piece of pork, it would be in the smoker 12 hours or more.  Once, I think it went close to 15 hours.  Maybe it's just the total time in the conditions found inside the smoker that matters.  For comparison again, compare this butt, ready to pull, that I did back in 2013.  Notice how much darker it is than the most recent one?  

More research - more barbecue - is definitely called for.  Mustn't rush into these sorts of decisions. 

The Fourth of July Barbecue is... Complicated

I wanted to do something different for the big day.  My adventures in Sous Vide barbecue (recent example) have gone well.  After several hours of reading, I decided on what to do.  I'm going to call it Double Smoke Sous Vee Cue. 

A few weeks ago (and I see I didn't post about it) I did sous vide pulled pork.  The idea was to cook 24 hours at 170F, followed by three hours in the smoker.   Except it went horribly wrong and still came out excellently in spite of that.  At about the four hour mark, I went by the sous vide container in the kitchen and the water was discolored.  Somehow my vacuum sealed bag had leaked. When I went to take it out to rescue the butt, the bag fell apart, dumping the roast into the water. The tub was now full of weak soup that, frankly, didn’t have enough ingredients in it to make a good smelling soup. 

After clean up, I re-seasoned the butt with the same mix as initially used, then vacuum sealed it again. This time, I double bagged it- the vacuum sealed bag inside a gallon Ziploc bag sealed by water displacement. Re-set the timer for another 20 hours, and the bags held this time.  After the overnight soak, it was back on plan.  Took it out of the sous vide cooker, chilled it in ice water for an hour, did a barbecue rub and then into the smoker for 3 hours.  Very good pulled pork. 

While reading on how to up my game, I came across the idea of smoking it first for a few hours, then putting it into the sous vide bag.  The idea is that you get a better bark and more smoke flavor.  I came across a guy who did some interesting experiments with a pair of beef briskets and he really got me intrigued.  Medium rare brisket - pink like medium rare steak but phenomenally tender?  You won't get it any other way.  (I know I have one or two readers who are interested in this subject - you owe it to yourself to read that link.  It's long, full of pictures, and lots of insights from a chef.)

Back to pork butts (which are really shoulders, but that's not important now), they're ordinarily cooked to a final internal temperature of close to 200 but during the cooking process, I've always experienced what's called "The Stall".  The internal temp reaches about 165 and will sit there for hours.  What's happening is that the collagen in the meat, what makes it tough, is breaking down and converting to gelatin.  How long this takes depends on the particular cut of meat and its history.  This leads to the attraction of cooking sous vide, because I can stick it at 165 so that the temperature is uniform from center to crust and leave it until I know it has broken down and gotten tenderized. 

This led me to come up with the experiment.  This morning, I started with a completely raw pork butt, rubbed it with some spices, and then put it into the electric smoker with a thermometer probe on the rack in front of the meat.  I kept that thermometer reading 225 and smoked from 11:30 to 4:30.  The internal temperature was 145 when I stopped.  I brought it into the house and let it cool down to a temperature that was touchable because some handling was necessary.  I put it into a vacuum bag, sealed it, and then double bagged it in a one gallon Ziploc bag.  I had preheated a large pot of water to 165 to fill my sous vide cooking tank, and suffice it to say everything went more or less on time as planned.  The bath reached 165F at about 5:10 PM  It will cook for 18 hours, which will be over a little after 11:00 AM tomorrow.  Then it will be unbagged, cooled, dried and go back into the smoker probably by noon for another few hours.   

A little graphic I put together from two others at Serious Eats.

Summary and pictures after the holiday.

A Barbecue Day

Since I started writing about my barbecue adventures with sous vide cooking, Barbecue 401, in December,  I've been doing most of my experiments with the smoker rather than finishing in a hot pan.  In addition to brisket, I've made beef short ribs a couple of times and today was the second chuck roast I've done.

For my first chuck roast I followed a recipe that called for 133 for 24 hours, this time I cooked it at 155 for 48 hours.  How temperature and time work in sous vide cooking is that temperature sets the appearance "doneness", while time affects the tenderness.  In other words, the rules of thumb we've grown up with about rare vs. well done kind of go out the window.  Cooked at 133 for 24 hours, it was supposed to have the texture of a medium rare steak, but the long cooking should make it more tender.  It looked like a medium rare pink (bordering on just medium), but it was more tender than any medium sirloin I've had.  You can see the texture looks very steak-like.

Today's roast, cooked at 155 for 48 hours, is another thing entirely.  By temperature, 155 is well done which we think of as tough, but by time, the long hours at the temperature act to break down the tissues that make a well done cut of beef tough.  It figures to come out much more like a pulled beef consistency and it did.  For scale the thickness of the roast is around an inch and a half.  That's a salad fork (in both pictures).  What you can't see is that it's juicy, (the surface literally dried out in the 30 seconds it took for me to go get my camera), as well as tender and delicious.

I should take videos of this to show just how easy it is to separate the groups of muscle fibers (the technical term is fascicles). The lightest twist of the fork pulls them apart, like good pulled pork only made of beef.

The other meal I've done a couple of times with different settings is beef short ribs.  Again, the first time was using an online recipe and that called for 172 F for 14 hours.  These were successful and good, but one of the gurus on a forum suggested 133 for 72 hours, based on an article at Chef Steps. To clarify a little, my cooker is made by Anova and the website they publish recipes on is Serious Eats (plus their own), while the other major brand, Joule, publishes on Chef Steps.  When I asked him to describe what cooking at 133 for 72 hours got me; what they're like, he said, "Like nothing else. Medium rare, steaks, but braise tender. There’s no way but Sous Vide to get them there."  I was off to do the test.

The scale here isn't easy to figure out.  That's a full sized dinner plate and the chunk that's on the left is bigger than my hand.  Rough guess about 2" thick by 6" long.  This guy was right.  The texture is like nothing else. 

I've been doing the smoking at higher chamber temperatures after reading that should help the bark formation.  It seems to have done that. 

I know there are people who say, "it's not real barbecue", but I'm not doing competitions and I don't care.  It has pushed me to considering making some improvements to my smoking and barbecuing setup.  I've needed a grill since my last one rusted out, and I'd like to hit higher temperatures in the smoker.  Doing some reading and research, thinking about the options available: something like a pellet grill or Weber Kettle?   Get an Adrenaline kit for a Weber?  Or just an Amazen for my electric smoker, to get more smoke? 

Like all good hobbies, you can learn this quickly and spend the rest of your life studying how to get better at it.  I do have to eat all the rejects, but so far that hasn't been a bad thing.

I'm Here for the Brisket

To the tune of "Here for the Party" by Gretchen Wilson 10 (!) years ago.

Almost exactly two months ago, I posted about some Barbecue 401 stuff I was starting into.  Most people just call it sous vide cooking, but the manufacturers like the term precision cooking.  (Intro from one of the big names in the business)

Since I rather inartfully let on that today's my birthday, and sous vide barbecue was the centerpiece of the day, I might was well update my Barbecue 401 piece.

So why sous vide cooking?  In virtually all cooking you actually want to cook the outside and the inside differently.  There are tricks to cook them effectively separately and sous vide is one way.  If you want a classic rare steak, you want a cool pink inside and a seared outside.  You control what the oven or grill turns out by controlling time.  You cook the outside and heat conducted deep inside cooks that to some point on the rare to well-done scale.  If you leave it on the flame too long, too much heat is conducted to the inside and you overcook the center and the converse is true if you don't leave it long enough.  With sous vide, your vacuum bagged steak is cooked top to bottom to that cool pink temperature (120 or 125F).  After 1 to 2 hours, or enough time to conduct that 120 to the center (and don't be alarmed, the outside does oxidize and turn browner/grayer), then you remove the steak from the vacuum bag and quickly sear the outside.

Take this sous vide T bone steak I cooked.  Medium rare top to bottom (130 I think) then seared on the outside briefly in a very hot frying pan.  It could have been seared darker, but it was my first attempt.  A very popular alternative is to use a torch instead of the frying pan or the charcoal grill. Seriously. 

Today I finally made a sous vide barbecue brisket.  It was the best brisket I've done.  There's still something I need to work on - more on that in a minute.

First, I used the Serious Eats sous vide brisket tutorial page.  Let's start with the obvious question of "why?"  Everyone cooks brisket in a regular smoker for 16 hours or so.  The famous restaurants in Austin have a night shift that put tomorrow night's briskets in the smoker during tonight's cleanup. I've done three that way.  They were good, but none of them were killer good because brisket is hard to do.  A full brisket, called a packer, is two distinct pieces of meat.  A fatty thicker portion called the point (or sometimes deckle) and leaner, tougher portion called the flat.  As Serious Eats puts it:

Two factors: It's tough, and it's lean. With traditional smoking methods, a pork shoulder will tenderize in a matter of hours, and it has tons of connective tissue and fat to help keep it moist as it slow-cooks. A brisket, with its tougher meat, needs to be cooked overnight to completely tenderize. Not only that, but there isn't as much fat or connective tissue to lubricate the dry meat when it's finally tender. Unless you have either the experience or the luck to nail every single step of the process, moist, tender brisket exists only in the realm of dreams.

Sous vide cooking changes all that by allowing even a novice to produce brisket that's as moist and tender as the very best stuff you'll find in Austin or Lockhart.

The question is how do you want your brisket?  Like the traditional Texas barbecue or more like a steak?  With the precision cooker it comes down to two combinations:

135°F for 36 to 72 hours	Firm and meaty, like a tender steak
155°F for 24 to 36 hours	Extra moist, with a traditional texture

I opted for the traditional texture, heating to 155 for 36 hours.  With intent to have smoked brisket for birthday lunch, that would mean leaving 3 to 4 hours for the smoker, so I put the brisket in the water at 6:30 Friday night.  Over the course of the couple of months I've been playing with this, I've gotten a couple of accessories that made this trivially easy compared to previous attempts.  A tank and a tank cover.  In 36 hours of heat, I might have lost a quart, but I'm not sure it was that much.

My local source doesn't carry packers, so I was left to use a flat. Serious Eats comments on this, saying to get the fattiest cut you can find with both marbling and a good fat cap.  I did what I could.  

Standard practice after a long soak like this is to put the vacuum bags in ice water.  This stops the cooking process so that it doesn't overcook in the smoker (Serious Eats shows how to finish in an oven, too).  Once that's done, you apply a second barbecue rub and then pop it into the smoker, keeping the chamber temperature at least 250.  This is the brisket at about 11:30 this morning, right after pulling from the smoker. 

What do I need to work on?  Getting a better bark. Around the front of the portion on the left, you can see a dark crust on the left edge and some on the top.  The rest of the top looks like granules of the salt and spices that haven't flowed into a bark.  The smoked barbecue source describes bark this way:

Bark is an incredibly tasty crust that forms on your smoked meat. It is actually the result of some complex chemical reactions that have happened throughout the cooking process. Specifically, the Maillard reaction and polymerization.

In basic terms, bark forms when the surface of the meat is exposed to heat and oxygen. When the meat is also exposed to smoke, the bark will become a dark, licorice color. Without exposure to smoke, the bark will be more of a dark red, mahogany color.

A persistent myth is that adding sugar helps with getting a bark, but sugar doesn't caramelize until heated beyond the temperature for the Maillard reaction.  300 vs 285. 

Late in the day, I looked at the bottom of the piece on the right and it had a good black bark on it.  A check of the other piece showed it also has a better bark on the bottom than the top.  Since the Maillard reaction depends on proteins, and the top of both of those pieces is the fat cap on the brisket, it makes sense that they may have less protein than the bottoms. 

While it's tempting to say that's why the bark isn't as good as I'd like, I've gotten better barks on the briskets I've cooked the conventional way. I still need to research this.