Troble

The source of truth has spoken! Great write up @jonj wish I had this info before I went out there.

I was going out to KC once a quarter for work for about 18 months and got taken to many of the best BBQ joints by locals. Most locals swear by Joe’s which was great but I preferred Q39 personally. Here’s a decent list to get you started https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/food-and-drink/kansas-city-bbq--6-top-picks-you-wont-want-to-miss heres another solid list https://www.kansascitymag.com/the-10-best-kansas-city-bbq-spots-we-ate-at-50-plus-spots-to-pick-em/

Nice skewers and meal @tony b @jeffshoaf good looking butt! I made tri tip tonight, really been leaning on that cut as it allows my wife to have the more well done end pieces and I can have the medium pieces in the middle marinated the tri tip in soy sauce, garlic powder and Montreal steak seasoning for 2 days. Cooked it indirect with mesquite wood then finished on lower grate. Turned out perfect for both of us slow baked sweet potato served with Greek yogurt grilled asparagus with olive oil, salt, black pepper & garlic powder I had some leftover beef broth and a small package of leftover mushrooms that I’d be throwing out in a day or two and since I’ve been on a sauce kick I decided to wing it and make a sauce and see what happened. Let’s call it a Au ju. Beef broth, red onion, mushrooms, garlic, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, brown sugar and black pepper, finished with a bit of meat juice after slicing. Turned out good!

I’ve had high quality ketchup at the hipster Gastropubs in San Diego. There is such a thing.

@MacKenziedo you make your own ketchup?

And I was proud of my meal last night.....great looking cooks folks. Well done!

Bone in Duroc pork chop. Rubbed with olive oil, Peruvian pink salt, black pepper, garlic powder, brown sugar & rosemary roasted baby potatoes with olive oil, truffle salt, black pepper & thyme Iowa sweet corn w/butter, salt & pepper roasted baby carrots with Momofoku savory seasoning served with balsamic Pinot noir red wine reduction sauce

@Basher good looking chops. Love Thai salad @jonj mouth watering plate. Well done

Anchor steam was first, never really cared for it, always thought it tasted like barnacles. Started drinking Sierra Nevada and Sam Adam’s in college, I’d bring my own 6 pack to parties cause I didn’t like cheap keg beer. Stumbled upon Arrogant Bastard in 1998 when I was 19 years old and began my love affair with local San Diego beers

@tony b my game was bad that’s why I chose to sit down and take in the view. Course is getting ready for US Open in June so it’s hard enough but 25mph winds coming into your face from the Ocean only make it harder. By hole 17 I was ready to cry uncle

@jonj yesterday at Torrey Pines South IMG_6966.MOV

@tony b my cucumbers started to flower today, as did the Thai peppers. Been harvesting my strawberries every morning the past week. Sadly the one thing I want most Aji Amarillo has not sprouted from seed

@tekobo I’m definitely obsessed. I’ve been pissed off all day about not executing my pork but good and getting flustered. I usually reserve judgement on my BBQ till I eat it the next day and I just ate it again, not terrible but nothing close to my standard for pork butt. I need to jump back on the horse again as soon as possible

@tekobo I’m going to cook it flat on the grate and then flip it towards the end to crisp the skin I had the same thought about me messing with the recipe but A. I usually sissy’s have cayenne and red pepper fishes at home and as I was mixing everything up I realized I didn’t and I did not want to go to store (again) so I improvised. The other thing was when cooking pork shoulder you usually wrap it in foil with liquid and obviously his hog recipe didnt call for that, so because it was taking so long to cook and I was starting to get worried about dinner I thought I had to wrap it and given that I was in the pool with the kids enjoying a couple of beers, I made a snap decision to wrap it like I normally do and it just didn’t work.. I had a jar of rub leftover that I saved so I tasted it again it tasted fine so I’m left to thinking it was my Thai chili sauce that didn’t go well. I’ve used it before but I think I put way too much in. Recipe says two tablespoons I used the entire bottle. Not smart. I was panicking cause I was 17 hours into the cook abs it was still 160 and I was watching my kids swim while trying to wrap the pork. Snap decision. Bad decision. I think I’ll grill a pork chop with my leftover rub to see how it tastes in general though my style of bbq at least with Brisket is salt & pepper only. The pork butt I use the slap yo daddy recipe I posted earlier. I think for the pig I’ll stick to mostly salt & pepper. The challenge I have with that cool is my wife’s Brazilian friends will be coming and Brazilians don’t like heat, they think black pepper is spicy and there no way I can use this sauce recipe or rub which called for red pepper flakes. I thought his sauce was spicy and granted I didn’t execute it right but I could tell based on the spoon taste it was too spicy. this is why I started this process now when I plan to do the cook in a month. I’ve got some tinkering to do and lucky for me you did a test cook and showed me that the main grate is the best way to go for now. I came to that conclusion before you even finished your cook when I saw you seeing that pig up I said to myself “there no way I can do that”. So at least for my part that was hugely helpful.

I put the pork butt on at 12:50am last night. It was a 10lb bone in butt which is a little on the heavy side. Usually mine are about 8.5-9lbs, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. Put it on at 215 degrees and it cooked from 1am-6am at 215. I know lot of you use fancy thermometer gadgets but I don’t. I use the Tru-tel and my fingers to gauge temp as well as an instant read thermometer. Bumped the temp up to 225 at 6:30am. started spraying the butt with apple juice every 30 minutes from 6:30am-12pm. First temp reading at 12pm was 140 degrees. Strange.....went to gym, went to store for Cole slaw, came back at 2:30pm and temp was 150.....strange. Bumped up temp to 250 cooked another 90 minutes temp reading was 158....strange wrapped the butt in foil added beer, butter, siracha and sweet Thai chili sauce like I normally do and bumped the temp up to 275. checked back at 5:00pm temp was 160.....strange. Moved butt from indirect heat to direct on top grate and left it till 6:30pm, when it finally reached 195 internal temp. Pulled it out let it rest for an hour notice a ton of liquid in the foil pouch after and did what I normally do which is pull the pork, sprinkle some brown sugar on it and put it under the broiler for 10 minutes to crisp it. tried to make the Rodney Sauce BBQ sauce but didn’t follow instructions and mixed all ingredients at once instead of warming the vinegar and adding ingredients in slowly. Good thing my wife told me to pick up a bottle of sweet baby Ray’s bbq sauce when I went to get Cole slaw cause the sauce is 1. Too spicy and 2. Too runny to use since I start it earlier took pork out of broiler and served on my normal Hawaiian rolls. It tasted good but something tasted foreign and almost over powering. Not sure if it was cause I used a bottle of Thai sweet chili sauce with the foil step but ive used it before but perhaps not the entire bottle.still there was a distinct, foreign taste. It could be the MSG, could be too much Thai chili sauce Food was good but both my wife and I preferred my original method of cooking pork butt which is the slap yo daddy method. I’m glad I did a test cook cause I definitely wouldn’t want to do a pig this way. I’m sticking to my tried and true method that we’ve used for over 15 years. https://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/2012/04/slap-yo-daddy-bone-in-pork-butt-2/https://www.slapyodaddybbq.com/2012/04/slap-yo-daddy-bone-in-pork-butt-2/ good experiment but sometimes you don’t mess with a good thing. It’s possible the weird taste was the fact that I substituted cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes for paprika and chili powder (since I did t have cayenne & red pepper), but I don’t think so. I’ve used those spices before, this tasted different and I wasn’t a fan of it

@tekobocan you ship some of those my way? Looks amazing

@Syzygies @tekobo I’m simply trying the recipe from the person who’s most well known for smoking hogs and I’m gonna report back on my thoughts after I eat it. @Syzygies maybe you should let the James Beard foundation know that Rodney Scott is a cheater 😀 https://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/food-drink/article210780499.html

Yeah I get that but I’ve never used t as a slice I’ve only eaten Chinese food that says “No MSG”. Mushrooms, aged Parmesan and soy sauce are 3 of my favorite flavors so all that makes sense to my taste buds

Rodney sauce is the BBQ sauce he makes. Hog Seasoning is the rub, which contains MSG. The recipes for both are in his new book that I provided the link to on page 1 of this thread. I’m about 12 hours into a pork butt I’m trying with the hog seasoning and I’m making the bbq sauce tonight so I’ll report back once it’s ready to eat

I’d be very happy to eat that @jonj well done!

@Basher I’m going to follow his directions to see what happens. The guy is known for doing the best whole hog in the US. I’ve never used or cooked with MSG before and I know there’s some negative beliefs about it but I also don’t plan on cooking a whole pig very often and that is also the reason im doing a test cook. In the book Rodney devotes 3 pages to the discussion on MSG, I read it and decided I’d try it but I pretty much try everything at least once in my life...we’ll see how it goes As for sleep issues, it’s currently 1:30am PST and here I am on the couch writing you.....

Sweet corn on the cob homegrown purple & yellow fingerling potatoes with homegrown rosemary, truffle salt & Parmesan filet Mignon, reverse seared and finished on the cast iron pan marinated with sure shot sids gunpowder rub and topped with a balsamic red wine reduction sauce served with a Lucas & Lewellan Cab my boss sent me for hitting my Q1 sales targets. Super tasty. I usually say I’ll make a sauce then get too busy to ever do it but this was great. I used some Aussie gelatin that @Basher sent me and honestly it was a restaurant quality cook. I need to do this more often. Tasty

@tekobo I’m doing a test cook tomorrow with pork butt. I went out and bought some MSG today per Rodneys recipe and I decided to also inject the pork shoulder but realized I had no apple juice at home after I just went to the the grocery store, the butcher and a Asian market to score the MSG. So I improvised and used beer and apple cider vinegar. Will be putting the pork shoulder on tonight hopefully if I don’t fall asleep to early. I plan to test the hog seasoning as well as Rodneys BBQ sauce on this pork shoulder then assuming everything works I’ll do the pig on Memorial Day when all my crew are fully vaccinated and able to come over. I’m sure I’ll mess up but we’ll learn together here. I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for this board and group that welcomed me in. You all helped me survive 2020 for the record pool season opened today at my house. @MacKenzieif you get too cold you should hop on a flight to San Diego and come teach me how to cook on my KK in person!

You hit the nail on the head with that comment. In a few years when you and your friends think back about COVID ending all everyone will remember and talk about will be how delicious your food was and how lovely it was to see you. You did a fantastic event for your friends. You brought people joy through your cooking efforts and that’s what’s important I was so jealous that you beat me to the first pig cook that l was incessantly checking my phone for updates from you while I was standing in lines at Legoland. Thank you for taking the plunge first and sharing the challenges and lessons you learned. I’m planning on attempting this Memorial Day weekend so I will share my efforts, but a sincere thank you @tekobofor all your contributions to my cooking education. You help make me a better cook with all the knowledge you share and my friends and family benefit as a result. how are the leftovers today? Assuming there was some

What’s a last frost date? Never had one