Four Pork Butts... 30 lbs of Pulled Pork

 

My neighbor asked me to make some pulled pork for them and provided me with two pork butts to do it.  Naturally, I had to buy two more for myself!  All were cut in half as I usually do to speed up the cook time.

The butts that were on top (theirs) came out great, but the middle rack (ours)... one pulled well, but the other did not.  It always seems that the middle rack meat do not do as well as the ones on the top rack.

Total cook time on the 22.5" WSM was 6.5 hours.

First Smoke Of The 2021 Year - Two Pork Butts For Pulled Pork

 

This was the first smoke of the 2021 season.  Outside temperature today was around 45 degrees for a high.  I used the 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain for this cook and put in two pork butts cut in half (my traditional way) to speed up the cook.

The pit temp stayed fairly consistent throughout the cook at around 260 degrees.  I put one butt on the middle rack and the other on the top.  Water was in the water pan.

After about 3 hours, I wrapped the meats in aluminum pans and foil with some water in the pan for moisture.  Surprisingly, the middle grate meat finished first and hit 205 degrees internal temperature after only 5.5 hours.  It pulled like butter!

The top grate meat wasn't as lucky.  It took 7.5 hours but only hit 187 degrees internal temperature before I stopped the cook.  The charcoals were burning out and dropped to under the 185 degree range and I decided not to add more charcoal to continue it.  This one did not pull as well and I expected that. Perhaps if I was willing to add more charcoal to continue to the 205 range, it might have been ok, but somehow, I don't think it would have been as soft as the first one.

Each piece of meat is different and while the middle grate usually finishes last, this time, it finished first and was the better of the two pork butts.  I guess it's hard to gauge where your cook will go since each piece of meat will vary.  Both were purchased on sale at $0.99 per pound, but each had about 1 lb of fat cap which I cut off.  These were Bone-in on both butts.  I used Kick Butt Rib Rub - Chipotle Honey rub as usual.

It was good to get back out there to smoke some meat after a long winter break.

Korean Bulgogi Beef with Broccoli in Rice Paper Wrap

 

The title says it all...

Korean Bugogi Beef

 

Korean Bulgogi Beef for dinner!  Cooked on a Field Company Number 8 skillet and matching cover.  I skewed the cover slightly to allow some steam to escape.

Yum!

Homemade Chicken Tamales

 

My wife wanted chicken tamales, so we decided to make them!  This is our first attempt and we followed the recipe on this video: https://youtu.be/XFwHkwUddZQ 

My wife does not like certain ingredients, so we took out most of everything on the recipe!  We removed the jalapeño peppers, the onions, the cilantro, and the garlic.  So what's left?!

Well, we kept the tomatillos with cumin.  Yeah, that's about it.  Ok, my wife added some salt in there as well.  And she added some sugar and some baking soda to counteract the acidic taste of the tomatillos.  But believe it or not, it still wasn't too bad!  Oh... yeah we took out the lard in the recipe for the masa too.  I substituted a cup of canola oil instead.  Going forward, my wife wants me to skip the oil and just add more chicken stock.  Not sure how that would turn out, but I'm willing to give that a try one day.

Steamed in my double decker steamer for one hour.  I added water a couple of times just to be sure it did not run out, but the steamer has a large section for the water so it was always in good shape.

Even though so much was removed, overall, the tamales were still very good!  It was not hard at all to make really.  Worth trying if you are in the mood for some modified Mexican tamales.  Or, make it the way the recipe says if you are ok with those ingredients.  Overall, the masa made the taste authentic as well as having the cumin in the sauce.  

The tamales are way too thick with the Masa.  It should be spread with a thin amount of Masa.  I did not realize this.  Also, the masa needs to be more wet compared to how I mixed it.  I'll know better for next time.

Dutch Oven Bread

 

Made bread once again, but this time, I wanted to try a recipe from Tasty:  https://youtu.be/91ZXVw58Ths

I followed the directions as stated in the recipe, but suggest not removing the cover for the last 15 minutes during the baking as the video says.  Doing so, the top of the bread darkens way too fast and was on the verge of getting burned.  The photo above was taken about 35 minutes into the total 45 minute baking time.

I used parchment  paper inside the dutch oven to make it easier to remove the bread.

Overall, the bread was decent, but I feel the Challah bread was far better.  This bread however, had good crunch to the crust and I baked it until the internal temperature reached 190 degrees.

Homemade Challah Bread - First Time Making Bread

 

This was the first time attempting to make bread and it turned out great!

The recipe was found here: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-challah-bread-181004 

I followed the instructions to a tee and my wife braided the bread for me with the six braid method.

Overall, I'd say we did really great!  To see a video of the process, go here: https://youtu.be/2CoIJcdIhC4 

Edit Note: A second loaf was made the next day that tasted better.  It's a bit sweeter.  This recipe is most likely better in my opinion: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/four-strand-braided-challah-recipe