Replies

The absolute BEST way to cook meat is with La Caja China. You can PROFESSIONALLY cook an entire pig in it in just 3 hours and 40 minutes. An enclosed system with the charcoal tray OVER the meat. Uses both heat and pressure to cook. When pig is done it will taste as good as any Cuban style gourmet pork. You can find videos about this online. Al Roker highly recommended it.

I've looked into that, on your recommendation, and it does sound great. For now, my Brinkmann smoker is working great. The storms have passed, but I had to move the operation indoors to the oven.

It worked out fine--the meat had terrific bark, a great smoke ring, and tasted heavenly. Melt-in-your-mouth juicy. Wish I could share it with y'all.

Next weekend, I'm gonna do ribs. That's a little more challenging.

Here's what I did and how it came out.

I bought the butt yesterday and I cut off the fat cap. I researched this and found that it was almost unanimous that for pork butt or picnic, you cut off the fat cap as it will resist the rub and the smoke, and only render away anyway. Plus, there's plenty of fat and connective tissue to keep it moist anyway.

I brined it overnight in a solution of a half gallon of water, a half cup of salt and a half cup of brown sugar.

I also made the Carolina sauce with a cup of white vinegar, a cup of malt vinegar, some salt, pepper, cayenne, and various savory seasonings.

This morning, while planning to roast Perry Logan, I started the coals and the smoking wood. As the smoker was heating, I removed the pork from the brining liquid, rinsed and dried it. I then slathered it with dijon mustard and rubbed it with equal parts of chile powder and brown sugar.

I then started to DUFU Perry Logan's demise until the smoker hit about 225 degrees. At that point, I put the meat in the smoker, came back in and roasted Perry.

About seven hours into cooking, storms moved in, so I put the pork into a pan, covered it with foil and finished it off in the oven at 325. I chopped it up, adding my Carolina BBQ sauce as needed.

It's amazing. This smoker works out very well, because it has top and bottom doors, so I can check on it without losing a lot of heat, and I can stir the coals and add water without the heat changing at all.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention, the sandwich tastes as good or better as what I used to get in Mount Airy.