Smoke em if you got em

During the Memorial Day weekend I plunged headlong into smoking a pork butt for the first time. Of course, I wouldn't have ever thought about doing such I thing if I weren't a fan of Alton Brown and Good Eats.

Back when the episode "Q" originally aired, I was transfixed to make that terra cotta smoker. And guess what I did a few days later? Yeah, I really did.

My only problem was using the electric hotplate. The one I had was old and a tad bit unsafe. The cord melted a bit and I didn't want to burn down some in the process of making BBQ, so I gave up my homemade smoker and smoking. But yeah, I can say AB caused me to make a flowpot smoker!

A few years back, after I gave up on the flowerpot smoker, my mom found a Brinkman charcoal smoker being given away for free at a near by church. She got it for me. It was a beauty. And opened my need to smoke again.

Over the years, I've smoked tons of thing in it. My personal favorite is salmon. And when it came time for BBQ sandwiches, it was beef brisket. But for some unknown reason, never smoked a pork butt. I had operated under the false assumption that beef was better than pork for BBQ sandwiches. But this year it was time to settle this once and for all... I would smoke a pork shoulder to see if this notion was correct.

Being the AB uberfan that I am, I turned to his method of brining the pork shoulder before smoking. And after soaking the little piggy for 12 hours, I followed his rub recipe as well. Early on Sunday morning the shoulder headed to my smoker. From smoking beef and watching the Q episode, oh I don't know 47 times maybe, I knew this was an all day event. I had plenty of newly found natural charcoal briquettes and a bag of hickory chips at the ready.

All totalled, it took about 10 hours of smoking, three chimneys of charcoal and three refills of hickory chips to reach the target temperature. I allowed the shoulder to cool about an hour before pulling with two forks. I found this procedure to be a little easier than with beef. The pig pulled apart nicely. Then into the chill chest until morning.

Bright and early (ok, not so early--I'm not a morning person) Memorial Day, I began the sauce. Something that I whip together, couldn't tell you precisely but it includes tomato sauce, Worcestershire, molasses, ketchup, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, red wine vinegar and what ever else I feel like tossing in. After the sauce cooks for a while, I poured on the shredded pork.




The order of the day was BBQ sandwiches, of course, topped with my all-time favorite cole slaw. And that would be a copy cat recipe of KFC's slaw from Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes cookbook. It is very simple to make and can be found here, if you'd like to make some mighty fine cole slaw.

So with piggy properly topped, the only thing left was the tasting.

I am now convinced pork Q is superior to beef Q. The meat itself is not as chewy as beef and a little sweeter. I can foresee more smokin' butts in the warm summers days ahead.

AB's Q brine and rub recipe.