Holiday weekend labors

With the Labor Day holiday weekend signaling the official end of summer we decided to drown our sorrows in smoke and meat. The extra day also gave me the opportunity to attempt a pork shoulder – a struggle for a mere mortal like me on a normal two-day weekend. The downside of this was that in attempting it I had to plan for all to go well (have enough food to feed a small African nation) and so invite people round to lend a willing mouth, but also have a contingency plan should all go horribly wrong and be faced with hungry guests, armed with little more than a takeaway menu. One way we thought we’d been more cunning than a fox was to invite people we knew tended to be busy and have plans, thus reducing the chance of people turning up. However, everyone could make it – so the pressure was on... During a planning conversation with Joe-be-wan, he pointed out that the shoulder could be prepared the day before guests arrived – giving me the entertaining day to just work on the ribs (back-up plan) – brilliant.

So, with plans formulated and spices bought, the weekend arrived: first things first...get the meat from the butchers. The shoulder was rubbed with magic dust, tenderized as recommended in Peace, Love and Barbecue and refrigerated. Next on the list was to make the marinade for our beer-can chicken (dark beer recipe from Raichlen’s book). Once done and the chicken marinating we set about making the sauces to go with the chicken and the apple/bacon sauce to go with the shoulder.

After this had been completed and all our pans and cutlery washed for about the fourth time in as many hours we took the chicken out of the marinade, dried and rubbed it with the dry spices and oil and put it on the (gas) grill, then we sat down with a drink. The chicken turned out great, lovely and juicy with a great crisp skin and had we been more awake we’d probably have remembered the sauce we’d made earlier in the day!

Sunday dawned, birds sang, dew glistened, myself and Mrs Flamb barely stirred. Once I’d worked up the energy, I got started on the shoulder with a chimney full of lit lump and slightly less in the grill to start with. Initially I had all vents open about half, though soon realized that this was burning a bit hot, so ended up adjusting my airflow to get the temperature down nearer to 250. The first hour or so cooked in between 250 and 300 and after that dropped to somewhere between 200-250, I know this is lower than suggested but this was a learning experience judging when to add coals and how to play with vents. For smoking I used a mixture of apple and hickory chips (roughly 85:15 ratio). The first lot of coals burnt for about one and a half to two hours, then after that I added a half chimney of lit coals (Mike Mills suggests never adding unlit coals to a fire) every 60-90 minutes to keep the temperature where I wanted it. After the first hour and a half we began mopping, and then did so every half hour or so until we reached the five and a half hour mark. By now the shoulder had started to blacken so we wrapped it in foil and left it on the grill for another hour and a half. After seven hours the temperature of the shoulder was 160ish, so we left it for another hour and it reached the target of 170. We unwrapped it, painted it with the apple/bacon sauce and left it on the grill for another 20 minutes. Then it was wrapped in foil again and placed in a paper bag for two hours. The meat was pulled by hand and could maybe have been a little more tender (more time on the grill or not letting the temperature drop too much may have solved this) but for a first attempt I was happy, and it tasted good on buns.

Monday was rib day and with the shoulder having worked out okay I was feeling good about things. The ribs had been rubbed the previous day with a chipotle chile based (wet) rub and refrigerated. They were brought up to room temperature and placed on the grill at a temperature just below 300. The grill was set up exactly as for the shoulder and kept going in the same way, just at a slightly hotter temperature. To add some variety we used red wine barrel staves for smoking. With today being the holiday, I was made to feel nostalgic for the great British barbecue with the rain pouring down and grilling undercover. The ribs were turned every hour to ensure even cooking, and after about four hours painted with a chipotle barbecue sauce. The ribs were then left for half an hour and then wrapped in foil for the last hour on the grill. For resting the foil-wrapped ribs were placed in a paper bag for about 30 minutes before slicing.

The ribs turned out great, not too tender even though some of the bones fell out of the meat as I sliced them up. The pulled pork heated up nicely in the oven. From what I could gather everyone enjoyed themselves, and as far as I know no-one has had any stomach complaints.

I learnt plenty about keeping my fire going this weekend, and reckon I’d be a better judge of when to start lighting coals to add in the future. I also found that The Onion is a pretty poor paper for lighting a chimney starter – it creates lots of big flaky ash that almost suffocated one chimney – much better to stick with the free paper that comes through the door.