06/18/2023 – Jeff gave me a Meat Church 4-pack of rubs for Father’s Day and we tried two of them today on ribs and chicken smoked on the Recteq at 250°. The meat turned out good although the ribs had a tough bark likely due to being in the smoker too long and too hot. It was in there maybe 4 hours.
From Meat Church here.
Ingredients
Prepare your Smoker
Prepare your smoker at a temperature of 275 degrees. I recommend medium smoke wood for this cook such as hickory or pecan.
Pork butt prep
Remove all excess fat from the pork butt. Only leave minimal on the bottom, although this is less important as you can remove it after the cook. Optional – butcher the area around the money muscle to expose it. You only want to leave it connected by an inch or so for easy removal near the end of the cooking process.
Optional Injection
Mix Meat Church Hog Injection with a high quality juice (e.g., Martinelli’s apple juice, Welch’s White Peach Grape). Inject in a 1” x 1” grid pattern until the pork butt is nice and plump.
Season the pork butt
Slater the pork butt in yellow mustard to act as a binder for the seasoning. This will not affect the flavor. Rather, it allows the seasoning to adhere more quickly.
Season all sides of the pork liberally with Honey Hog (The Gospel, Holy Gospel, Deez Nuts or other rubs work as well). Allow the pork butt to “sweat out” which just means let the season fully adhere.
Smoking the pork butt
This cook should take around 8 hours or so depending on weight. Plan on an hour per pound at most. Place the butt directly on the grate, fat side down.
Spritz every hour with apple juice or cider vinegr. We are targeting a beautiful mahogany color. This will occur just before the butt starts to turn really dark. This should be around the 6 hour mark with an internal temp near 165.
At this point remove the butt and place it in a half steam pan. Apply a liberal coating of Honey Hog Hot. Then top with the brown sugar and the pats of butter. sometimes I like to add 1/2 can of a good fruit juice. Jumex juices work great. Using leftover injection or that juice you mixed with is also a good call.
Cover the pan tightly with foil and return to the smoker. If you want to separate the money muscle you will want to do that when it is between 190 – 195 degrees internal temperature.
Continue smoking the butt until it reaches 205 degrees internal temperature.
Finishing
Simply allow this butt to rest for 30 – 45 mins. Then shred or pull the butt, continually tossing in its own au jus. In the video at the top of this recipes we show you how to use a fat separator for this step.
I typically add a little more seasoning of choice after the shred for added flavor. Enjoy!
6/11/2023 – Bought a tray of “ribs” at Rouses (on sale of course) yesterday. Salted to dry brine and shook on a moderate amount of 6POGS on opposite sides then rubbed them to get some on the other two sides. Put them back on the styrofoam tray, wrapped in clear food wrap, and into the refrigerator overnight. This cook is building on the ideas and lessons learned in our earlier post here.
6/3/2023 – This Q is like the one last week but with the suggestions cited in that post; i.e. a more spicy rub and slower initial smoke. The 6POGS and additional smoke time made a really good Q.
5/26/2023 – This turned out good and it was also easy. The process below was inspired by the instructions at Recteq here.
Next time:
5/4/2023 – This was an easy dish that was great. The recipe below was inspired by the one at The Mediterranean Dish. This seasoning/sauce would be great with shrimp or pork chops. The original recipe called for anchovies that we did not have and would not have used. They might be something we would like with other proteins.
Continue reading6/7/2023 – This test used the leftover seasoning from 5/2/2023 but measured everything. It had the old-time smell of shrimp being boiled but the salt seemed a bit low and the seasoning was not distinctive. The seasoning-to-water ratio seemed ok as after the pre-boil the water had a good color. Next time: boil smaller shrimp for more surface area; increase cayenne pepper and cloves; let them soak longer.
5/2/2023 – Adjusted the 1/7/2018 recipe below and found it weak likely due to too little added to the water. Boiled one pound of headless shrimp in about 2 quarts with salt and 3 heaping tablespoons of this blend. Next time try at least half a cup in that much water.
INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons mustard seeds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons whole allspice – Ground roughly in a blade grinder
2 tablespoons dill seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper – Next time 1 Tablespoon
8 bay leaves
2 small lemons were cut in half, the juice was squeezed into the water then they were dropped in.
Added salt and seasoning to the water, brought it to a boil then let it simmer for 30 minutes. Brought it back to boiling and added the shrimp. When some were floating turned the stove off and added ice. Let the shrimp sit in the lukewarm seasoned water to absorb more seasoning as is done with crawfish.
Needed more salt and a lot more seasoning.
1/7/2018 – This boil was based on a Zatarian’s Copy Cat Recipe to which I add cayenne and coarse fresh ground black pepper. It was ok but still not as robust as I remember but well balanced. Need to increase the amount of boil mix.
INGREDIENTS
4 tablespoons mustard seeds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons whole allspice
2 tablespoons dill seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
8 bay leaves – Torn into small pieces
ADD:
Salt – poured in some, stirred and tasted until the water tasted a little salty. Not nearly as salty as sea water. [Needed more salt]
2 T Cayenne
1T Course ground black pepper
1 lemon quartered and squeezed
Mixed and crushed the large seeds in our new little mortar and pestle where the pestle fully fills the mortar.
Maybe 15 minutes later we shelled and tried some with shrimp cocktail sauce. The seasoning was evident but still was mild. More salt would have helped and definitely more seasoning.
Many cajun recipes add shrimp boil concentrate and that would have helped.
1/08/2018 – Peeled and had in a “chef” salad. Still very mild seasoning although it seemed well balanced. Tasted the red potatoes and they were bland and no taste of salt.
4/16/2023 – Smoked a brisket and Connecuh Black Pepper Sausage for our Spring BBQ and Pot Luck lunch to celebrate Frank Knippenberg’s and Digger Creel’s birthdays. The brisket was smoked and then “finished” in the oven but after 10 hours was not fork-tender and a bit dry.
This smoke was done the same as the one last week with the Wagyu brisket Jeff and Maggie brought. That cook—not posted here—followed the advice here and is what was followed for this smoke. The Wagyu brisket was very good and more tender than the one today. It also costs 3X as much.
Fired the smoker back up at 1 PM and put on the sausage. Pulled it at 2:30 PM when I remembered it was out there. The casing was a bit leathery as it should have been pulled at 2 pm.
Guests:
The morning after I began reading Raye Minor’s advice here that I should have read before the smoke. The things I want to do differently next time are:
3/17/2023 – Mary made this for Reuben Sandwiches we made with the Pastrami smoked for St. Patrick’s Day here. This prep was inspired by the recipe at Natasha’s Kitchen here but is much spicer. This is not our 1000 Island Dressing that can also be considered Russian Dressing.
She bought a bottle of Chili Sauce in the ketchup section of the store. It tasted like a slightly kicked-up ketchup. Next time try regular ketchup with a little cayenne.
After it had melded for a day or so it was much better.
Could also try adding more mayo, the grated onion, and minced garlic to our 1000 Island Dressing which is actually a Russian Dressing. The ratio above computes to 6.67:1 mayo to ketchup (chili sauce) as opposed to our 1000 island dressing which is 3:1.
3/17/2023 – On this St. Patrick’s Day, we seasoned and smoked a 3.5 lb. corned beef brisket flat with a first-time-ever seasoning/rub. The fat was removed from the vac packing and rinsed. This turned out very good and was an easy way to make pastrami for Mary’s favorite sandwich—the homemade Ruben.
The seasoning was:
The image shows Mary shaking on the whole brown mustard onto the flat with the partially cracked coriander.
This was the day after Ranger died and at the end of the first week we had Daisy the cat.