Boston Butt or Front Shoulder Roast? Either Way Spells Excellent Barbecue

Two weeks ago I developed a craving for barbecue pork sandwiches and it took me until today to finally take care of that craving.  There are several reasons for waiting until today to satisfy my craving, mainly because I need a full day and not just a full day but a full day with sunshine.  Low and slow is the cry when smoking a pork shoulder.  The smoker starts early in the morning and doesn't stop until early evening.  That is the way it goes to make delicious, moist, fall off the bone barbecue pork.

Years ago, when I first started making barbecue, the first barbecue I mastered was making barbecue pork, probably because it  is he easiest and most forgiving of all barbecue cooking.  The hardest part of making barbecue pork is maintaining the temperature in the smoker.  The recipe couldn't be easier, start with a boston butt roast or front shoulder roast.  Although, I'm not sure why it's called a boston butt when it comes from the front shoulder.  For this particular 'cue I found a 9 pound shoulder roast at the local market.  

For the rub I chose the same rub I used a week ago on the barbecue beef ribs and why not, it's a good all around rub.  Below is the recipe but you can also get the original from the Food Network web site and many others.

Magic Dust:

• 1/2 cup paprika
• 1/4 cup kosher salt, finely ground
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered mustard
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/4 cup ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup granulated garlic
• 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper

As I stated above, this is an all day smoke so I loaded up the charcoal holder to the top.  Also, I chose cherry wood for today's smoking wood choice.  I put a few chunks in at the beginning of the smoking process and add more about half way through.  This gives the pork enough smoke flavor to know it came from a smoker but no so much that it taste like a burnt piece of wood.  

Once the charcoal and wood are ready it's time to load the pork on the grate.  And sit back and wait and wait and wait.

Four hours later and it's time to check what we have and to insert the digital thermometer.  It's already at 145 degrees F. but from previous experience I know it gets there fast.  It seems to take forever to go that last 30 degrees F or so.  I am ultimately looking for 195 degrees F final cooking temperature.  

 Six hours later and the roast is over 185 degrees F.  I decided to take it off at this time because I know it will raise a few degrees as it rest and also because it was getting late and I wanted to eat.  

 After the pork has rested it's time to "pull" the pork.  I prefer the two fork method over cutting the pork up with a knife.  Also, a good indicator to tell if the pork is done, the bone should come out clean as in the case.  Although, I think the roast could have used a little more time in the smoker.

 My favorite way to enjoy a barbecue pork sandwich?  How abut a simple white bun with creamy cole slaw.

 It don't get much better than that.  And I got leftovers for two nights.  Yippie Kay Yay.

Barbecue Beef Ribs

I went to the store today to buy a boston butt, or a front pork shoulder roast for those of you that don't know barbecue jargon.  Now, if you are looking at the photo to the left you are probably saying to yourself "That don't look like no pork roast."  Well, good eye and maybe you should consider your next career as a butcher.  What happened was I didn't like what I saw for pork roast but I did like the beef ribs located above the roast.  Since it can be hard to find beef ribs in this area, and the pork roast wasn't the greatest, I changed direction and decided to go with the beef ribs.  Maybe next weekend I'll make some barbecue pork sandwiches.

Since I have never had a lot of luck with beef ribs, normally end up tough something along the lines of old shoe leather, I turned to my best friend Google to help me out.  I was looking for cooking times to make sure I give the ribs enough time on the smoker since I think this has been my biggest downfall when barbecuing beef ribs.  But one problem, the times I found were anywhere from 1-1/2 to 6 hours at 225 degrees, really not a lot of help there.  After taking into account the thickness and size of the ribs I decided to start at 3 hours and go from there.

The next big decision to be made is what, if any, rub to use.  I decided to go with the Mike Mills' Beef Ribs recipe from the Food Network and his Magic Dust.  It is a quick and easy rub with most, if not all, the ingredients found in the pantry.  The Apple City Barbecue Sauce at the end of the recipe is the inspiration for my own barbecue sauce.  It's the recipe that got me started in the right direction years ago when I wanted to make my own apple barbecue sauce.  While I didn't end up using Mike Mills recipe, this is a very good recipe to try if you like apple flavored barbecue sauce.

On to the smoker to get it ready.  Today I had to clean the ashes out of the bottom which normally needs to be done after using it a couple of times.  I put enough charcoal in to last up to 6 hours, if needed, and decided on hickory chunks of wood to deliver the smoke flavor to the ribs.  I tend to favor hickory for beef and apple and cherry wood for pork and chicken.  Since it is summer and the temperatures are warmer, I chocked the the air vents down to about 1/3 the way open.  Once the charcoal is ready it's time to dump a chimney full of hot charcoal on top and get this smoker started.  All that's left now is to slip the beef ribs on the grates and wait.  And wait.  

I decided at the 3 hour mark to lift the lid to see how the ribs were doing.  Well, well, what do you know, the meat just getting to the point where it was going to fall off the bone, perfect, let's get the sauce.  My choice today?  How about my own apple barbecue sauce, sweet, spicy and full of apple flavor.  

 After mopping on some barbecue sauce I let the ribs finish for another 15 minutes on the smoker before removing them.  After letting them rest another 15 minutes I cut them apart into single bone servings and drizzle some more barbecue sauce on them.  And of course take a picture just because it's what I do. 

 Mmmmm, sweet, spicy, smokey, juicy, messy an full of beef flavor.  Finally, beef ribs I can be proud of and enjoy for this weekend.  Maybe next weekend I'll get to that barbecue pork sandwich.

Original Recipe

Spinning and Roasting Pineapple While Keeping OSHA Out of the Backyard

I'm always looking for something a little different for the grill and also look for ideas for my rotisserie so when little sis posted a spit roasted pineapple recipe on Facebook I perked up. Now mind you, not just grilled pineapple but grilled pineapple on a rotisserie, don't get much better than that.  

I've grilled pineapple before but always as spears or cut up in rounds mainly because I didn't own a rotisserie at the time.  All the pineapple I've grilled have been good but the use of a rotisserie took the pineapple to a whole new level.  

To properly roast a pineapple we first must start with fresh pineapple, available at most grocery stores.  Fresh pineapples normally are pretty east to spot, due to their size and rather large greens on top.  This pineapple could be a little riper but it was the best I could find at the store this week.  

It's not hard to cut up a pineapple if you follow a few simple rules with rule number one being don't cut towards yourself, isn't that right John?  If I keep him around I'll have OSHA camped out in my back yard writing safety violations.  Follow the link I provided and it will explain how to cut up a pineapple better than I ever could.  

Once the pineapple is ready for the spit it's a matter of pushing the spit through the pineapple, being careful not to push the spit through the pineapple and your hand or you'll end up like John again, with a bandage around your hand.  After the pineapple is on the spit, and no extra holes in your body, it's time to assemble the cast of characters.  It's a simple cast starting with:

• 3 Tablespoons melted butter
• 1 Cup sugar (I used sugar in the raw)
• 2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 Teaspoon ground cloves

Mix the sugar, cinnamon and cloves.

Now it's time to fire up the grill and get it hot.  My grill had cooled off a bit since I used it to cook dinner that night so it took about an hour to roast the pineapple at 350 degrees.  The butter is basted on throughout the roasting time with the sugar mixture applied at the same time.

 It makes me drool just to look at the photo.  Like the wife said "What's not to like?  You got butter, sugar, cinnamon and cloves."

The last decision to be made is how to serve it.  The original recipe gives good options with one being with whipped cream.

No doubt that's a good option but my favorite, vanilla ice cream.

 That's hard to beat in my world.

Regardless what you choose, roasted pineapple on the rotisserie is hard to beat, simple and delicious, let's give it a 5 out of 5 forks.

Original Recipe

Mozzarella Cheese and How I Learned to Use Bottle Water

"Waiting tables is what you know. Making cheese is what I know. Let's stay with what we know here." - Jimmy the Cheese Man from the movie The Pope of Greenwich Village.

I really don't know much about waiting tables and I really don't know much about making cheese, although I did stay at a Holiday Inn once, but I do know how to read directions, or so I thought.  A few weeks ago, when it was her turn, little sister posted our weekly family recipe for making mozzarella cheese.  My first thought, what a great family recipe and I wish I'd thought of that.  

Even though I lived in Wisconsin and actually been through a few cheese plants, I still didn't have a clue how to make cheese.  I knew cheese came from milk and I knew the pasteurization process and I knew, somehow, whey came from the cheese making process and I knew when the whey was separated from the solids, also known as cheese curds, it was the curds that were the start of the cheese.  Well, maybe I had a small clue but what I didn't know was how the whey and curds were separated and what to do with the curds afterwards.  

It turns out to be a relatively simple process with some relatively tough lessons learned.  To be honest, I've tried four times and failed on two of those occasions. We'll get to the lessons learned but first lets introduce the cast of characters for mozzarella cheese which is simple and few:

1/2 Rennet Tablet (Found at a local grocery store)

1-1/2 tsp Citric Acid (Found at pharmacies)

1 gallon milk (Found from contented cow)

Water (Found from a bottle)

For my first attempt at making the cheese I used the recipe that little sis posted for our weekly family recipe.  Epic failure.  What did I do wrong?  Since the wife was helping we were both sure we had followed the directions to a tee.  We made sure we didn't use ultra pasteurized milk, a warning supplied with the recipe.  I wasn't alone in failure, big sis attempted and failed too.  Little sis had much better success than we did and she assured us the recipe worked.  

After failure, I knew of only one place for answers, the internet.  Google, at times my best friend, supplied me with plenty of information but one piece of information I came across stood out, use bottled water.  Could bottled water make the difference?  There is only 3/4 of a cup of water required for making cheese which makes it hard to believe that could be the difference.  The reason my water may not work?  It's chlorinated, or at least that's the only thing I could find.  That might make sense too, since little sis's water is good ole country water from a well.  

A few days later it was time for another shot at cheese making, with bottled water this time.  I also decided to use the recipe that came with the rennent tablets, American Mozzarella.  I heated the milk up just like the instructions instructed(?) and let it sit for 2 hours.  After 2 hours I looked in the pot and  I couldn't tell if anything happened but after feeling down in the whey, yes it was actually whey, I found it, the cheese curd.  Yippie Kay Yay success.  Was it perfect? No, but I had cheese and it tasted good, definitely worth another try.

Now we fast forward to 3 months later and time to make cheese again.  Simple right?  Yeah right, read on.

Once again, I follow the directions, heat to 88 degrees stir in the dissolved rennant and citric acid, wait 2 hours and....................UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  NO CURD!!!! All I could think of is "What did I do wrong?" as I was dumping the failure down the drain.  For 2 days I kept thinking about it, what, what, what?  Then one night, as I was watching the Nats baseball game, it hit me, like a Ryan Zimmerman homerun, whack, "ITS THE WATER STUPID!!!!"  How could I be so dumb?  I knew from before not to use tap water, at least our tap water, but I did anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid.   Oh well, if nothing else now we will find out once and for all if the water really does make the difference.  

The weekend came and I bought another gallon of milk, at least the diary farmers are making out on the cheese making experiment.  Once again, heat the milk to 88 degrees, add the dissolved rennent and citric acid in BOTTLED WATER this time and wait for 2 hours.  After the 2 hour wait feel in the pot and, YES, we have curds.  From here on it's clear sailing, heat back up to 108 degrees for 35 minutes, stir to keep the curd separated, and strain through a cheese cloth.  The whey can be saved for later and make ricotta cheese but when I tried it I didn't think the amount of ricotta cheese I got was worth the effort.  

After the curds are separated from the whey it's time to add salt and mix in thoroughly.  Now the fun part, microwave and stretch, microwave and stretch.  The hotter it gets, the more it can be stretched and the more it burns.  Stretch until you are satisfied with the smooth consistency of the cheese.  Once finished, form into a ball and store it in the frig in cool salted water for 24 hours.  

There you go, as easy as opening a bottle of water, mozzarella cheese.  The hardest part was finding the rennent and citric acid.  Taste?  I'll guarantee, nothing you buy in the store will compare to making your own and it's fresh.  The possibilities are endless, this batch ended up on a prosciutto, basil and mozzarella cheese pizza cooked on the grill.  

The next time you got a couple of hours to spare and don't know what to do, give cheese making a try, just don't forget the bottled water.

30 Minute Mozzarella Cheese Recipe

American Mozzarella Cheese Recipe  (Need Adobe Reader to view this recipe)