Porkchop

Re: Very nice sanny, with them eyes, it surprises me that you'd need anything else to ignite charcoal!

only concern i would have is using iodized salt. if not kosher salt, use "plain" salt. that's what i use for my rubs as well. my "basic" brine is 1 gal. dihydrogen monoxide, 1 c. plain salt, 1 c. white sugar. as i understand it, the osmosis action of the brine doesn't depend just on the salt, but sugar as well, so, this would be a pretty strong brine, just not crazy salty. add other spices and herbs and boil it up. brining also has to happen at a relatively cold temp, like 35, or the whole thing buggers up, not to mention that it drifts up into the "danger zone", which poulty defo doesn't need to be! i love using those cheapo styro coolers for this task. long as its clean, you toss in your turkey, dump your ICE COLD supersaturated brine over the top, and let er soak. probably not good for overnite, but a good 6 hours or so, you bet. long as everything goes in cold, you'll be set for quite a while. course, a good walk-in would solve that worry.

elasticity is due to the formation of gluten (a protein) in the bread. this is caused more by overmixing or over-working than by any function of water, flour, or air. if you want tender dough, work it less. don't knead it too much. then, let it rise till double in volume, punch down, and let rise AT LEAST one more time. the more you let it rise, the more relaxed it will be. of course, once you have over-worked a dough, there's not a whole lot you can do about it; can't "un-make" the gluten. for flakiness, you are talking oil or shortening. cold lard works best (think pie crust), and use ice water for your liquid. the trick to obtaining "flaky" is producing a dough that has little tiny chunks of oil trapped between layers of dough. not overworking the dough here is KEY as well. the more you knead the dough, the more you warm the shortening and the more it gets absorbed, as well as overproducing gluten in the dough. less is more. i dont know a ton about starting a sourdough without using active yeast from packet or block. the old legend goes that the sourdough that made SF famous came on wagontrain, and was started by "wild" yeasts in the dry southwestern air that settled on ol' Cookie's bread sponge and began to ferment. i guess just try leaving out some flour & water, and see if any "wild" indonesian yeasts set up shop...

elastic dough... if it's really elastic, let it rise longer, punch it down, and rise a second time. if you let it rest a bit after in the fridge, it shoud roll nice and easy. you might also consider letting a dough sit overnite wrapped in plastic after it's risen twice, to let the yeast ferment in it a little bit. awesome flavor there! good pizza dough isn't always "fresh" pizza dough!

something to serve on crackers, just for my Sanny... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu

you dirty b@$t@rd!! oh, man does that look good! where's the cornbread/biscuits/hushpuppies??? i miss our little "chats" deej!

howdy stewsan!! you will defo get the hang of lows n slows with this contraption. easy as fallin off a log. don't mess with that propane; don't need it! good luck on the butt. nothing like the smell of slow roastin pork in the morning! smells like BREAKFAST! (now cue the surfers and the "flight of the valkiries"!) best breakfast in the world is a pulled pork sammich with vinegar sauce, and a side of... pulled pork sammich with vinegar sauce!

farmer john, mine has the same "problem"; i've taken to wedging the tophat in place with a piece of hickory... crazy, isn't it?

never had that problem b4... course, i don't use a guru

i STILL haven't seen the whole pic yet... oh, yeah, and i'm #6 on the memberlist; what's that say about my deportment here???

deej brings up shoulder too. just recently did shoulders and figured the same. i actually flensed the skin away from the roast as opposed to scoring it, like i've seen/done b4. i left the skin attached at the very end, like a hinge, and then applied rub to the roast and re-covered with the skin and put skin down on the smoker. so, it was like a pork fat and rub sammich between the skin and pork. i will be doing this again. and yeh, all those myths you still see perpetuated and permulgated all over the place; even in that bastion of cooking lore, FOOD TV like, searing meat seals in juices. at least AB tells the truth. i think most of those FOOD TV guys know all about the maillard reaction, but just fall back on the bs cause everybody knows it already, or they don't think folks can handle real info.

exactly why i do mine thataway!

krusty, this sounds so awesome! just good ol cheese grits is heavenly!

i do mine fat down, but i used to do up.

all of the smithfield butts are already tumbled/brined/whatever. i have to say, i did a brined shoulder very recently, and i'll defo try it again. far as the h2o in the drippan, i dont know how good it is for keeping the drippings from scorching, but, to be honest, you really don't need to use it as a heatsink like with the ECB or other water smokers. matter of fact, bunch of those fellas with ECB's and WSM's were puttin sand in their water pans, cause of the thermal mass. h2o boils away, but sand sticks around thing is, if you are going indirect with a baking stone, that's what you got. water is a pain in the butt as a heatsink. as it evaps, that heatsink effect goes away, temps creep up, etc. that being said, i NEVER add water to a drip pan when i do butts. some of it does burn and get hard, but not so much that it actually smokes or causes creosote deposits on the meat. i think the water soluble proteins just kinda slow-cook and coagulate in the bottom of the pan at low temps. in fact, i regularly reserve much of the fat in the pan and add some of it back to my pull. i save the rest like bacon fat in my fridge, for later addition to green beans, ranch beans, chili, etc. but at a 250 temps, a drip pan resting on a nice thick ceramic deflector doesn't need dihydrogen monoxide. the oil doesn't get hot enuf to smoke, but it does get a nice golden, amber color, and soaks up smoke flavor like mad! my 2 cents, ymmv, fwiw, all that other stuff.

while i cant say that i've doomed quite as many as you to the tender mercies of mexican cement cookers, i've still got acts of contrition to make. pay it forward; do your part to save others the trouble lying down that road. there is a place to do that, so i've heard

my favorite thing to do with left-um-over pull is enchiladas. mexican seems to be the thing i go to on the pulled pork. i've done tacos, and really really good nachos! somewhere in teh intraweb is a recipe for pulled pork pate. never tried it but it sounds delish. pulled pork also makes great pizza topping. a little homemade bbq sauce, some cheddar jack, and some pull makes an awful good thin crust pie! onions, peppers, and shrooms go well with it too. hopefully dub will find this post soon; been groovin on some of his recipe submissions of late!

ah, ronnie... a food SUPPLIER... it figures that bourdain would instantly make friends with an obviously connected vendor! i'm sure your friendship is entirely political! pass on my regards when you meet next; my favorite part of his book is the intro, when he says that he'll never have a show on FTV, cause he doesn't have a fancy catch phrase ("BAM!"), and that he wouldn't be giving Flay shoulder massage anytime soon! thats when i knew he was good people! as for you, since you mentioned "fruit", back in the day when i was using steelies, i made a double barrel smoker with 2 55gal drums and a cast iron stove kit from the farm store. you wouldn't happen to see any containers like that laying around, perhaps previous homes to jams, syrup, or other yummy sweet fruity stuff? they make pretty fun stick-burners! curly, next book signing i do, i will autograph a copy of whatever (bring a crayon) and take you to McDonalds for McRibs! now that's BBQ! BAM!

i understand that his firing went all the way to a court hearing. but it turns out that they were totally justified in firing him. when he was given the opportunity to defend himself, he didn't have a leg to stand upon.

ronnie, saw a few of your posts on a forum that prime referenced here. neat! you say you are in the business of food, and just read your review of "kitchen confidential". you need to fess up and say what you do for a living! how did you come by meeting bourdain? as much as i'd like to meet and/or bbq for somebody like alton brown, i would be a bit intimidated by bourdain. while ive spent some time in the back of the house, never at an even 1-star restaurant... bbq joint, bakery, "german" restaurant... anyhow, nice pics. what do you do for a living that has to do with food?

no pictures of the duck? didn't happen

definitely worth doing, splitting and cleaning the brisket. way we used to do back at the restaurant was just using our hands. we had a special kevlar, heat resistant glove that made this possible. first, put on inner latex glove, then kevlar, then another latex over the kevlar. if you've cooked your brisket long enuf, that fat layer should be the consistancy of jello; dont need a knife. we would pass the gloved hand thru that stuff, flop the point over, and scrape all the junk off the flat with a big scimitar knife. also a big ol vein that needed to be cut out of the center of the flat. points were piled up in a steam table til the end of the night, when they got their bottoms cleaned (nasty fat and veins), then rolled up like you are doing a chiffonade, sliced, then chopped up for chopped sammiches the next day. and i agree, sliced (unless it is exceptional, which is NICE) is for the suckers. the chopped brisket off the points is the cats meow. brisket defo IS a mess when done right, which is why i rarely do them anymore. if you favor the point, you'll like chuck roll. it pulls like a butt, but has that chopped brisket flavor.

have you considered separating the point from the flat after cooking and slicing separate? the grain of the flat and the point run opposite of one another. plus, your point (in general) can take a few more hours of slow cooking due to all the fat in there. plus plus there's a layer of not-so-nice fat and large blood vessels separating the point and flat that are not very nice to eat. separating them after cooking lets you clean that stuff out. you will defo like the chuck roll if you have ANY fondness for brisket. it is yummy!

that's great! with bbq season being "over" (yeh right), the price of pork might drop a tad all over! mmmmm, pulled pork!

honestly, i dont really follow sports at all. just really not into it.