This Little Pig...

[MacKenzie]

8 hours ago, Troble said:

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 cons teach me how to cook on my KK in person!

So you melted the ice on the rink and made a swimming pool, that's wonderful news.  I think you'd be the one teaching me, I'd love to eat your eats.

[woody]

what is Rodneys sauce that you are using for the whole hog?

 

[tony b]

8 hours ago, Troble said:

I’ve never used or cooked with MSG before

You just didn't know it. It's naturally occurring in a lot of foods, like mushrooms, aged parmesan cheese and soy sauce - can you say "umami?" 

[Troble]

3 hours ago, woody said:

what is Rodneys sauce that you are using for the whole hog?

 

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 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Troble

[Troble]

2 hours ago, tony b said:

You just didn't know it. It's naturally occurring in a lot of foods, like mushrooms, aged parmesan cheese and soy sauce - can you say "umami?" 

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 

[Syzygies]

3 hours ago, tony b said:

You just didn't know it. It's naturally occurring in a lot of foods, like mushrooms, aged parmesan cheese and soy sauce - can you say "umami?" 

Yup. For example, Japanese Kombu seaweed.

I love a good Pinot Noir wine, and I understand there's alcohol in there. Still, I avoided parties in college where they poured grain alcohol into punch.

MSG is cheating. Just because everything is sex doesn't mean you can't include a bit of romance.

[tekobo]

59 minutes ago, Syzygies said:

MSG is cheating. Just because everything is sex doesn't mean you can't include a bit of romance.

That’s funny but it is also too easy.  My retort would be to tell y’all to let @Troble have some fun.  MSG is his equivalent of a quick fumble behind the bike sheds before taking his girl home to ask her father’s hand in marriage.  

[Troble]

@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

 

[Basher]

That’s funny but it is also too easy.  My retort would be to tell y’all to let [mention=3485]Troble[/mention] have some fun.  MSG is his equivalent of a quick fumble behind the bike sheds before taking his girl home to ask her father’s hand in marriage.  

Ha, well said Tekobo.
Have some fun with it Troble.
It’ll tick all the boxes for flavour.
A quiet cup of green tea will help get rid of the nervous tic!


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[Troble]

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 

Edited April 20, 2021 by Troble

[tekobo]

Hi @Troble.  I was going to sympathise and then say that you didn't necessarily give the guy's recipe a chance, given you changed out some of the key ingredients.  Then I decided that wasn't the point.  I think it's really about how much you want to mess with the pig and what flavours your guests like.  For my part, I stuck to salt and pepper and oil initially and when it came to basting it was a mix of salt, pepper, oregano, oil and chicken fat.  The strong flavours came with the accompaniments.  The idea was for the meat the sing.  That said, I know that the BBQ tradition in the US includes a lot of rubs and mops and that is what people are used to.  Up to you.  Good that you did a trial run and now know what you definitely don't like. 

How are you planning to cook the pig?  On the rotisserie or grate?  The Husband and I did a post mortem on our piggy cook.  Based on our sample size of one we agreed that spinning the pig puts a lot of stress on the carcass.  The Husband liked the basting effect of the spin but was happy to concede that it might not be the way we cook our next pig.  I talked about jointing the pig and having more control over the cooking of the individual parts.  He wasn't keen.  His view was that the fun is in cooking a pig whole and gathering lots of friends round to eat it.  So we have settled on using the grate for our next pig cook.  Not sure if there is enough space on the 32 main grate for a spatchcocked 9.8kg pig but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  

[Troble]

@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. 

Edited April 20, 2021 by Troble

[tony b]

20 hours ago, Syzygies said:

Still, I avoided parties in college where they poured grain alcohol into punch.

I didn't - LOL! In fact, I went to a "geek school" (Ga Tech) and we put dry ice in our grain punches to evaporate out the water, leaving an actual higher alcohol content by volume (ABV) and it turned the punch into slushies! Putting higher education to practical use! 

[tony b]

Good to experiment before the "big event." But, control the number of variables that you change each time; otherwise, it's hard to do a post-mortem and figure out what worked and what didn't?

[Paul]

3 hours ago, tony b said:

Putting higher education to practical use! 

Higher education?! well it is 4/20!!

[tekobo]

8 hours ago, Troble said:

I’m going to cook it flat on the grate and then flip it towards the end to crisp the skin 

I started to investigate those contraptions that people strap their animals to so that they can flip them.  Not sure that they are needed, on reflection.  If you heat soak the KK, and maybe turn the heat up at the end, the inside of the KK hood might give you all the heat you need to get the skin crispy without risking turning a nice, tender cooked animal.  The pits where they get turned don't generally have a hood.  Something worth experimenting with as part of your prep? 

Every friend who had some of the pig has waxed lyrical about how good it was.  Now I just want to do it again, but even better this time.  Who called this The Obsession?

[Troble]

@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 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Troble

[tony b]

22 hours ago, tekobo said:

Who called this The Obsession?

I think that we be me! 

@Paul - sorry, forgot to wish everyone a Happy 4/20 day yesterday! 

Edited April 21, 2021 by tony b

[Troble]

@tekobo my wife and I sent out the evite today and curiously enough I found one that had a whole pig as the background and I put in the text that I’d be smoking a pig so I’m officially on the clock Sunday May 30th

well be having our friends who were in our bridal party (the ones that still live in San Diego) over with their kids. Everyone’s vaccinated and it’ll be outdoor pool party....I even already made a Spotify playlist for the event 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Troble

[tekobo]

On 5/2/2021 at 4:02 AM, Troble said:

I put in the text that I’d be smoking a pig so I’m officially on the clock Sunday May 30th

A previous macho boss used to ask - who is more committed to your breakfast, the chicken who lays an egg or the pig who died to give you bacon?  All I can say to you @Troble is: you are now committed!  Looking forward to your cook.  Might even listen along to your playlist on the day if you were to share it.