Tasty Juicy Butt
A few weeks ago I bought myself a Webber Smokey Mountain Cooker, aka “The Bullet”, because as much as I love my gas grill sometimes you just want to make some slow-cooked BBQ. I’ve used it for a few things so far, but I really hadn’t done “real” BBQ on it until yesterday, for you see yesterday I did a butt. A wonderful fine tasty pig butt from Costco. The best place in the world to get info on cooking with your Bullet is here, at the Virtual Weber Bullet; it’s an invaluable resource and there are tons of very experienced cooks on the forums to answer your questions and help you on your way. Everything I did was based on their advice and techniques.
So I went to Costco and got my butt. Well, butts, actually, because there are 2 in the cryovac package, for a total weight of about 15 pounds. I was only going to cook one, so using the rough cooking time formula of 1.5-2 hours per pound I was looking at something like a 14 hour cook. Let’s see, I told our friends to come over at 5, so counting back 14 hours that means I need to put this on at…1 am. As in 1 am right after the wine and steaks and scallops and corn on Friday night. Oh boy.
Not surprisingly, me getting up to cook at 1 am Saturday morning didn’t happen, due in large part to the fact that I didn’t go to bed until nearly 12:45. And the wine. And the scotch. But mostly the wine. Mostly.
I did manage to get up at 3:30, though. I opened up the cryovac, re-wrapped the butt I wasn’t going to cook and popped it in the freezer and tied this beauty up with some butchers twine to hold it together for the rub
The rub I used was from TexasBBQRub.com, and I was also using their method of applying it: you coat the butt with worchestershire sauce and then rub on the, er, rub.
The key to BBQ is low and slow cooking. Low temperature (around 225-250) maintained for a long time will allow the meat to break down and just become the softest, tastiest stuff imaginable. But tending a fire for 12 or 14 hours obviously sucks. A lot. So this fellow named Jim Minion devised a way to get his bullet to cook for up to 18 hours without needing more charcoal. For this he should be awarded the Nobel Prize.
Anyhow, I started the Bullet up using the “Minion Method” (probably 8 lbs of charcoal and 5-6 chunks of hickory) and at 4:15 am put Porky on
It was a bit of a struggle keeping the temp low enough, but over the next few hours I got it to settle in the 250-ish range by adjusting the vents, and by 2:30 in the afternoon the internal temp was up to 170 (you need to get it up to 190) and he looked like this
Now the folks on the forum all sing the praises of the ABT ( which stands for…”Atomic Buffalo Turd”) as an appetizer to accompany the piggy. The “atomic” comes from the jalapeño (or hotter) peppers used. I’ve learned to tred carefully around hot peppers, so I used this great recipe as a starter and made a few minor changes.
Set the 2 packages of cream cheese out to come up to room temp, and wash the peppers in the sink
I used a mix of sweet peppers and mildly hot anaheims (it turns out I was too timid; they needed more kick from the peppers. Next time I will use anaheims and jalapeños).
When the cream cheese is squishy add to it a tablespoon of dried onion, two tablespoons of honey, a heaping teaspoon of garam masala, and 1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar
and mix it all up
and let it sit while you de-seed the peppers. On mild peppers like these this is not such a big deal, but when you use the nu-kyoo-lar ones this is a very important step
Put the cheesey goo in a ziploc freezer bag and snip off a corner
and you can pipe the filling right into the pepper
and then you put the two halves back together and wrap a slice of bacon around them, holding it all together with a couple of toothpicks.
Can you hear your arteries crying, Clarice?
You cook those for about an hour at 250 until the bacon is done.
Meanwhile, it’s now after 3 pm. Porky’s been cooking for about 11 hours and the internal temp is up to 185.
Why, yes, I will. Thank you.
Finally, at 4:45, after 12 1/2 hours of cooking (and not adding any charcoal at all to what I started with in the Bullet) the temp reached 190, so I took the butt off, tightly wrapped it in a double layer of aluminum foil and set it on a folded towel in a cooler in the garage to rest until I was ready to pull it. Our friends arrived at 5, I put the ABTs on the grill, we had the first few rounds of drinks and at 6 we pulled the pork.
Unbelievable. I can honestly say it’s one of the tastiest things I’ve ever cooked.
They left about 1.
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
May 25, 2008 1:01 pm
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Damn fine job.
I need to plan a vacation up that way around the next time you cook one of these things.
But is there anything to actual see and do up there?
Looks very tasty!
I’d burn a steak today, but it’s raining here now, I placed a concrete pad yesterday (11 cubic feet of sackrete, using a small mixer), *and* I helped with a local triathlon this morning. I’m bushed!
And I still need to mow my lawn, if it doesn’t rain any more. Plus I’m biting the bullet, and mowing the yard next door, which is up for sale by the bank (one of those walk away mortgages, thank you, Congress), who won’t put a dime into the place. I’m sick of the pasture next door.
“So this fellow named Jim Minion devised a way to get his bullet to cook for up to 18 hours without needing more charcoal. For this he should be awarded the Nobel Prize.”
Pshaw, the Nobel Prize is beneath such achievements.
But is there anything to actual see and do up there?
Jeez, Son, don’t you know there are the state-sponsored tours of the landfills and chemical dumpsites? Not to mention the “Jimmy Hoffa Burial Sites” tour.
The food looks great Bings. I have a smoker (a Brinkmann) I really should get it out again.
Meat looks yummy. ABT? The name alone kinda kills my appetite. 😉
In my neck of the woods, hell froze over and my dad actually fired up the grill that we kids bought him for his b-day LAST JULY. Thank God it worked great so there are a lot of grilled hot dogs ahead of me this summer. (Booze notes for Bingley–we had liebfraumilsch (sp?) which is my mom’s fave. She even mixed some of the punch with it.)
Definitely gonna hit “Famous Dave’s” tomorrow before grocery shopping.
A supreme feast, Bing.:D
Why is that Sir Mix-a-Lot rap Baby got Back stuck in my head?
” I like big butts…”
Spider – if you haven’t before, go to youtube and find the Gilbert and Sullivan version of Baby Got Back.
No, really. Someone did do this, and even synched it to clips of “The Pirates of Penzance.”
‘Fly, that ranks up there with “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” sung to “Come On Baby Light My Fire.”
Beg pardon, I think I had something bizarre in my eyes. I did NOT just read that, did I?
My brain is now broken.
I know you’re singing it right now!
“A mighty fortress is our God
A bulwark never fail-hail-ling
Our helper he amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevail-ail-ling…”
Who do you think is spinning faster, Luther or Morrison?
Well, I’m sure the Catholics amongst our readership are sure that it is Luther who is spinning on a rotisserie in Hell…
There are paintings and sculptures and such depicting folks in Hell, but those aren’t canonical. Strictly speaking, the Church makes no such pronouncements – the reverse of sainthood, so to speak – not even for the heavy hitters like Hitler or Mao. Even Judas Iscariot gets nothing other than a grim “He went to his own place.”
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the Church had listened to Luther and held the Reformation without the huge schism. Would Henry VIII have started lopping heads? Would the Pilgrims have sailed, and under what impetus? How would the USA have looked, and how would we be handling the culture conflicts and the jihad? Would Europe have emasculated itself so absolutely?