Real New England BBQ

Real New England BBQ?  Yes, I said "New England" BBQ, because that's where we live.  ;)

We are big BBQ fans -- which in case you don't know is not the same as "cooking out."  Texas, Carolina, Memphis, Kansas City, you name it.  It's all good.  And while there are a slight few worthy restaurants near us for this type of food, it's still hard....very hard....to find good BBQ around us.  So, why not make our own, right?

What we have for you in today's third foodventure installment (can you tell it's a catch up day on the blog?) is yet another Alton Brown recipe.  He calls it AB-BQ, and while it's time consuming, it's easy peasy.  Here's how we did it (of course we didn't stick exactly to the recipe)....

YOU WILL NEED:

• 3 quarts water
• 12 ounces kosher salt
• 8 ounces  molasses
• 8-10 pound boneless pork butt (We only used about 3 pounds, because we're only 2 people and also that's the size we found at our local supermarket)
• Special Equipment:  A smoker and 4 ounces of hickory or oak wood chunks

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

1.  Place the water, salt, and molasses in a large container and stir until the salt dissolves.  Add the pork butt to the brine and weigh it down to make sure it is completely submerged.  Alton suggests filling a zip top bag with 2 cups of the brine and laying it on top of the pork to accomplish this, but we opted instead to lay a couple of small plates on top of the pork -- works just as well.

2.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.  Remove the pork from the brine, and pat dry.

3.  Heat your smoker to around 225 degrees F.  Add the wood chunks, and place the pork into the smoker.  AB's recipe didn't call for it, but since our smoker has a separate tray for liquid, Hubby filled it mostly with water and then added a 12-ounce can of Coke to the water.  In it went to the smoker.

4.  Cook until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees F, or 4 to 5 hours.  We didn't use a thermometer, and since our pork butt was a lot smaller than what AB's recipe calls for, we just smoked it for four hours.  Note: you may need to add more charcoal or wood chips throughout the process, depending on how long you soaked your chips, the temperature outside, and how fast things burn off.

5.  A bit before you go to take the meat out of the smoker, heat your oven to 300 degrees F.  Wrap the pork in aluminum foil and transfer to a pan with high enough sides to catch any drippings (we don't want no messes in the oven, now do we?).  Place on the center rack and cook until the pork reaches an internal temperature of at least 200 degrees F, anywhere from 3 to 5 hours.

6.  Remove from the oven and rest, covered for 30 minutes before serving, pulling, or otherwise messing with it.  This is what ours looked like after resting:


Dayam, right?

 

Look at that caramelization!  Mmmmmm.



And the smoke ring.  Ooooooh!

7.  Use two forks to pull the pork apart.

So.  freaking.  good.  We served it with garlic-chive mashed potatoes, buttered corn, and a sliced garden fresh tomato.  The sauce that you see on top here was whipped together by Hubby.  Unfortunately, like most of his rubs and sauces, no measurements were done, but we can tell you that it contains ketchup, molasses, Worcestershire sauce, tamari (that's gluten free soy sauce), garlic powder, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, and that he cooked it on the stove to reduce it to a desired consistency.  No worries, though, sauces are a personal thing and you should make yours (if you even want one) to your own liking.