Basic Rub Recipe, Revised

After reading a lot of books, watching a lot of barbecue shows and trying out a lot of different recipes on family and friends, I've settled (for now, at least) on this simple basic rub that I use on everything except brisket

2 parts salt
2 parts brown sugar
2 parts paprika
1 part black pepper
1 part garlic powder

For beef it is equal parts salt and pepper. Sometimes I will throw in a touch of either garlic powder or ground juniper berries.

I've either purchased or mixed up a lot of rubs over the past few years and this is what I keep coming back to.

Whole 30 Bacon

My wife has embarked on the Whole 30 diet. If making bacon to support her in her better eating endeavor is something I have to do, I suppose that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. For those not familiar with the diet, it is very similar to a paleo diet. Basically you can eat meat, fruit and veggies. No dairy, soy, legumes, simple sugar, grains, etc. There is a bit more to it than that, but that is it in a nutshell. Since most bacon cures include some sort of sugar, that would mean just about every bacon you can buy in any store anywhere is out.

So the rub/brine for the bacon was roughly 3 parts salt to 2 parts ground black pepper. Coat the pork belly liberally and let it sit in a plastic bag in the fridge for about 5 days, flipping it over every day.

On day 5, prepare the smoker, smoke the bacon for about 4 hours at a temperature somewhere between 160 and 200 (the closer to 160 you can get, the better). Then take it off, let it set on the counter for about an hour, then you can cut, cook and eat, put in the fridge or freeze.

For prepping the smoker I did a little tweaking this time. For bacon you want low heat for the entire smoke time. In order to help assure that I took out the regular fire basket. Then I got two 20 1/2 by 13 inch aluminum pans (about 3 inches deep). These are often sold as full size deep steam pans. One of them I put about a dozen holes in the bottom. The other one I put holes all along the sides, 4 on the long sides and 2 on the short sides. The pan with the holes on the side went in the bottom of the smoker. I loaded that up with maple wood. Then I lit about 2/3 of a chimney of charcoal and when it was going well (about 20 minutes) I dumped it on top of the wood in the pan, then put the pan with the holes on top over it. It wasn't a snug fit, but it was good enough to block most of the heat. I also plugged up most of the air holes around the smoker. I checked the temp several times and it never got above 180.

So there ya go, bacon for people on a diet. Who knew BBQ was health food?

I Just Set My Alarm For 3:45 AM

Some things are more important than sleep. Like brisket.

Competition Brisket

My brisket was not top 3, which ended up surprising me as the people that did try my brisket as well as brisket from other competitors had come back and told me mine was their favorite. I did burnt ends as well as slices. It was by far the heaviest box I turned in.The slices in particular were very thick, as the meat was over done. the thin slices flaked apart, which would be great for sandwiches or to heap on a place to eat, but not very good for a competition box. As it was, the brisket placed 4th, so overall I wasn't too upset.

The brisket, since I did burnt ends, was by far the most work of all the meats. It got hit with a salt, pepper and juniper berry rub as soon as possible, then wrapped up and put in the cooler. One thing about storing a brisket in the cooler with rub is given their size, it is hard to find bags that fit them. I used oven bags. I had the brisket in 3 of them, all 3 zip tied up to help prevent any leaking into the cooler. It worked well enough, but a large plastic container that seals would have been better had I been able to find one.

The whole brisket went on one of the smokers around midnight. The brisket and shoulder each got their own smoker, as they were the biggest hunks of meat. After the ribs went on a smoker at around 6 am, the brisket was pulled off. The point was separated from the flat. At this point that is a pretty easy operation as the fat is very soft and starting to render. The flat got hit with a touch of sauce, wrapped in foil, then put back on the smoker. The point was cubed up into about 1 inch cubes, hit with a heavy dose of sauce, the cubes put into a deep aluminum foil pan and then put back on the smoker.

At about 10:30 or so I took the pan of burnt ends out, hit them all with more sauce and then put the cubes on the smoker outside the pan to let fat drain off, let the sauce get rendered down and sticky and just get more tender and delicious.

The brisket stayed like this until about 11 when it was pulled off, wrapped up and allowed to rest. After the shoulder was turned in the brisket was taken out and sliced. Probably the easiest boxing was finding the 7 prettiest cubes of meat for the burnt ends. I have to say it was tough to not eat the finer looking ones. I knew the ribs would do well, but of all the meats I sampled I liked these burnt ends the best. As mentioned above, slicing was tough as the meat was really well done. Great for eating, less then optimal for competition.

One tip I heard for knowing which way to cut the brisket is to notch the corner of the flat in the direction you want to cut before cooking. this works out great. The grain of the meat is very easy to see before you start cooking it. You want to cut against the grain, so find the direction the grain runs in, follow it to a corner, then cut a small hunk of meat off against the grain. When you pull the brisket off and are ready to start cutting, just find the flat nubby end and start cutting in the same direction.

Competition Pork Shoulder

This ended up being my worst category. I wanted to do some slices of money muscle along with the piles of pulled pork, but the pork was over done. As I was pulling the money muscle off it flaked apart just like the rest of the shoulder, so the judges each got their own pile of pulled pork. I think the biggest issue with this was simply that I've done so many shoulders I may have just phoned it in a bit.

For prep this got a generous dose of rub and sat in the cooler from about 2pm until around 10 pm. No injection, no brine, nothing. Next time it will get a little liquid love.

It went on the smoker at around 10:30 or 11. And it didn't budget until it was pulled off at around 11:30 to rest until turn in. The meat was pulled off at noon, portioned up and hit with a generous dose of sauce.

Competition Chicken

Disclaimer: If you are tempted to smoke chicken breast, I would advise against it. Stick with the dark meat on the smoker, or maybe a whole chicken. This is only included here for completeness. The competition called for chicken breast, so that's what we did.

The competition called for chicken breast, which is a little out of the ordinary. I thought the chicken was a little dry, but then I would guess everybody's was. It was probably the prettiest box I turned in.

Given that the breast is predisposed to drying out, the first part of meat prep I did was to brine the chicken after my inspection was complete. I wanted that meat to sit in a salty bath as long as possible before cooking. The brine consists of 64 oz (2 boxes) of chicken broth, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of salt. That sat in a cooler in a plastic bag from about 2pm until 6 am the following morning.

When it was time to put the chicken on the smoker it was lightly seasoned with the rub mentioned here. At this point the whole chicken breasts went on the smoker, which was running between 225 and 250 at the time. I put them on roughly at 7 am. Turn in time for the chicken was 12:30. Looking back I could have put the chicken on later. And I probably should have.

Starting at about 10:45 I basted the chicken in BBQ sauce every 20 minutes or so. That is why it had the really nice glaze you see in the photo above. It also helped a bit with the dryness. I pulled the chicken off as soon after 12 as I could, right after the ribs were turned in. The chicken was given roughly 10 minutes to rest before cutting. Longer probably would have been better. 20 to 30 minutes wrapped in foil would have probably led to better texture for the meat.

For boxing I took the most cylindrical pieces I could and I cut about 1/2 inch medallions. As with all the meats, we had to turn in 7 pieces. After selecting 7 pieces that led to a nice tapered look in the box, all of the chicken medallions were sauced one more time and spritzed with apple juice. A spray bottle full of apple juice is a good thing to have at a barbecue competition. It adds another layer of flavor and sweetness while providing a nice sheen to the meat.

The chicken ended up placing third in its category. I believe it would have done better had it gone on the smoker later. It was a little dry.

Bacon Redux

So Sunday the pork belly went on the smoker. Many of the recipes I've seen call for running a cool smoker for bacon, around 160 F. At its peak I think mine was at 200 and by the time I took the bacon off it was running around 125 F. For fuel I used several pieces of apple wood and one chimney of charcoal. Instead of my usual fire basket, which is usually elevated a bit to let the ash fall, I had the fuel in an old aluminum roasting pan at the very bottom of the smoker and the pork belly was up on the top rack, putting it as far from the heat as possible. I left it on the smoker for about 3 1/2 hours.

After removing the bacon from the smoker, you will be tempted to cut into the bacon, fry some up and taste it. Go ahead. But then put it on a rack and let it cool. After cooling for an hour or two, put it in a plastic bag and set it in the fridge for a few hours. This really helps set the meat up and makes it much much easier to cut.

You may notice that the bacon above doesn't have that deep read or mahogany color you are used to seeing in bacon you get from the store. The main cause of that is that I did not use any nitrites or nitrates at all in curing the bacon. You can use any of a number of curing salts that contain those ingredients to get that color if you so desire. I won't comment on whether or not they cause cancer, because I'm too damn lazy to do the research.

So now I have roughly ten pounds of bacon. Five of it has been cut up. The other five is still whole. All of it is going to our family Thanksgiving gathering. I'm sure we'll figure out what to do with it.

Also, the rendered pork fat came out great. After it was done rendering I drained it then let it sit in the fridge. Some was used for cooking eggs over the past couple of days, and then I felt like making biscuits, so the rest of it went into the biscuits in the place of the margarine or shortening most recipes call for. It was a good move.