Here's your chance to get a behind the scenes look at how I created my entry for Last Month's Sandwich Throwdown.
The entry..A Wild Cherry-Hickory Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwich topped with homemade NY Deli style cole-slaw and side of Black Bean/Corn/Red and Yellow Pepper Salsa and Baby Back Ribs.
Now how did I get here....
First a couple of weeks before I finally bit the bullet and finally purchased a 22.5 WSM from a local appliance store, who did me a solid, and knocked about $40 bucks off of the list price, which around these parts is pretty rare on Weber products. I put that bad boy together and was ready to smoke. With all of the advice on here, and my previous experience with my cheapo vertical Brinkmann Box, I figured I didn't need to do a test smoke.
(Nice and shiny)
As for the meal... Here's what I did...
I started the night before with a 9 lb Pork Shoulder from the local supermarket and 6 racks of baby back ribs from Costco. I believe the baby backs were Swift Premium. I covered both of them with a generous application of my basic BBQ rub. (1/2 cup Chili powder, 1/4 cup brown Sugar, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 2 TBS black pepper, 2 TPS Cayenne) I think I added a little garlic powder to the mix this time, coverd them with some cling wrap and into the fridge overnight.
(a nice big pile of baby back ribs all seasoned up)
For the pork shoulder, I spent some time removing the skin and some of the excess fat. Then seasoned it and put it in the fridge.
At around 4:30am I fired up the WSM with a mixture of Kingsford Competition Briquettes and Royal Oak Lump charcoal, and some Wild Cherry and Hickory Chunks for the smoke. I also used the Minion method by creating a hole in the middle of the charcoal and placing about 1/3 of a chimney of lit coals in the center. After about 30 or so minutes and some fooling around with the vents, I got the WSM locked in at around 230* and I was ready to go. (You will see that I had the temp probe right over the water pan, I think I learned that right over the pan is about 15-20* cooler than the higher rack). People were arriving at 1:00pm but figured we would eat at 3:00 or 3:30 so I would have about 10 hours to smoke the shoulder.
(Here is the shoulder at around 9:00 am) You can see the water pan boiling away, and how incredibly clean the inside of the smoker was, since it was its maiden voyage. Pork was on at this point for about 4 hours and I think the pork had reached somewhere around 130-140* at this point. Might have been a bit higher, but the big stall was later...
9:00 am was when the Ribs went in the smoker. I squeezed two racks around the shoulder....
And four full racks on the top shelf. So that should answer some questions about what the capacity of a 22.5 WSM is.
As most people have commented, the WSM does remarkably well at holding temps. I only had to tweak the vents a couple of time to maintain the temp through the whole smoke. I did need to add a little charcoal towards the latter part of the smoke because I think I started with a about 1/2 full charcoal ring and the Royal Oak seems to burn a little faster. Learning curve on the new unit I guess.
Here are the baby backs at around Noon, just before I pulled them off and wrapped them in foil with a little apple juice. I didn't spray them at all during the first 3 hours. My plan was to go with the 3-2-1 method because I was keeping the temps a little lower. When I run the smoker in the 250-260* range I go more with a 2.5-2-1 method.
Here's a close up of the baby-backs. At this point they were starting to get a nice pull back on the bone, but they definitely still had some stiffness to them, that said to me they needed the tender in foil treatment.
(I'm ready for my close up)
Another close up shot.
And here is the bottom rack with the shoulder. I didn't take notes, but as I recall, at around 12:00 the shoulder was in the 160-165* range, where it sat and sat for long time. I should have moved the shoulder to the top rack where the temp was a little higher or foiled it to get the temp to go up faster, but I also wanted the bark to improve as well. I also had all the ribs in foil on the top rack so there was no room up there. So the shoulder sat in the WSM for another 3 hours.
At around 3:00 I put the ribs on the Weber Genesis to glaze them (Sweet Baby Rays) and firm them up. Because the shoulder was taking so long, I let the ribs sit in foil a little longer than I would have liked. This made them super tender but some of them wanted to just fall completely off the bone (See rack on the left where they just separated completely)
(jammed in on the Genesis)
Here's a bear view of the rib that split when I tried to move it. (This photo is currently my avatar I liked it so much)
The Pork shoulder came off at around 3:30-3:40 when it reached around 195*. I couldn't wait any longer for it to get to 205* because people were getting hungry (luckily we had burgers and dogs for the kids). Here it is a few minutes before it was ripped apart.
Oh and the presentation photo of the rack of ribs I reserved for myself.
On to the pulled pork. Here are some photos as I was pulling and shredding. After shredding, I mixed it up with some NC style finishing sauce from Smoke & Spice cookbook. (2 cups cider vinegar, 2 TBS brown sugar, 2 TSP salt, 1 TSP black pepper, 1 TSP cayenne pepper)
Now a quick word on the sides...
NY Deli Style cole-slaw. We made this all by hand the day of the BBQ because we wanted it nice and crisp. We used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. It is a nice tangy slightly sweet cole-slaw recipe that we like a lot.
Black Bean and Corn Salsa with Red Onion, Yellow, Orange and Red Peppers. The Basic processes here was to slightly char 4 ears of corn, saute the onions and peppers in some olive oil, add in cider vinegar, black beans and corn, some garlic and lime. We cooked this the day before and served it cold.
(I also hand pressed about 5 lbs of burgers for the picnic too. Basic 85% ground with salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce. Those were good too).
The result... The sandwich I entered in the competition. If you look in the back you can see everyone at the BBQ.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed everything. The ribs were devoured and there wasn't much pulled pork left. My law school friend's oldest daughter (age 10) told me that the ribs were "outrageous." That, to me is a great compliment because, as I'm sure most of you know, kids WILL tell you if your food is good or terrible.
Thanks for reading. I had a great time entering the competition. I actually thought about combining everything from the BBQ in a giant monster sandwich (Probably would have been a cheeseburger topped with the pulled pork, cole slaw, with a baby Back Rib sticking through the bun but this one just looked great as a classic).
The entry..A Wild Cherry-Hickory Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwich topped with homemade NY Deli style cole-slaw and side of Black Bean/Corn/Red and Yellow Pepper Salsa and Baby Back Ribs.
Now how did I get here....
First a couple of weeks before I finally bit the bullet and finally purchased a 22.5 WSM from a local appliance store, who did me a solid, and knocked about $40 bucks off of the list price, which around these parts is pretty rare on Weber products. I put that bad boy together and was ready to smoke. With all of the advice on here, and my previous experience with my cheapo vertical Brinkmann Box, I figured I didn't need to do a test smoke.
(Nice and shiny)
As for the meal... Here's what I did...
I started the night before with a 9 lb Pork Shoulder from the local supermarket and 6 racks of baby back ribs from Costco. I believe the baby backs were Swift Premium. I covered both of them with a generous application of my basic BBQ rub. (1/2 cup Chili powder, 1/4 cup brown Sugar, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 2 TBS black pepper, 2 TPS Cayenne) I think I added a little garlic powder to the mix this time, coverd them with some cling wrap and into the fridge overnight.
(a nice big pile of baby back ribs all seasoned up)
For the pork shoulder, I spent some time removing the skin and some of the excess fat. Then seasoned it and put it in the fridge.
At around 4:30am I fired up the WSM with a mixture of Kingsford Competition Briquettes and Royal Oak Lump charcoal, and some Wild Cherry and Hickory Chunks for the smoke. I also used the Minion method by creating a hole in the middle of the charcoal and placing about 1/3 of a chimney of lit coals in the center. After about 30 or so minutes and some fooling around with the vents, I got the WSM locked in at around 230* and I was ready to go. (You will see that I had the temp probe right over the water pan, I think I learned that right over the pan is about 15-20* cooler than the higher rack). People were arriving at 1:00pm but figured we would eat at 3:00 or 3:30 so I would have about 10 hours to smoke the shoulder.
(Here is the shoulder at around 9:00 am) You can see the water pan boiling away, and how incredibly clean the inside of the smoker was, since it was its maiden voyage. Pork was on at this point for about 4 hours and I think the pork had reached somewhere around 130-140* at this point. Might have been a bit higher, but the big stall was later...
9:00 am was when the Ribs went in the smoker. I squeezed two racks around the shoulder....
And four full racks on the top shelf. So that should answer some questions about what the capacity of a 22.5 WSM is.
As most people have commented, the WSM does remarkably well at holding temps. I only had to tweak the vents a couple of time to maintain the temp through the whole smoke. I did need to add a little charcoal towards the latter part of the smoke because I think I started with a about 1/2 full charcoal ring and the Royal Oak seems to burn a little faster. Learning curve on the new unit I guess.
Here are the baby backs at around Noon, just before I pulled them off and wrapped them in foil with a little apple juice. I didn't spray them at all during the first 3 hours. My plan was to go with the 3-2-1 method because I was keeping the temps a little lower. When I run the smoker in the 250-260* range I go more with a 2.5-2-1 method.
Here's a close up of the baby-backs. At this point they were starting to get a nice pull back on the bone, but they definitely still had some stiffness to them, that said to me they needed the tender in foil treatment.
(I'm ready for my close up)
Another close up shot.
And here is the bottom rack with the shoulder. I didn't take notes, but as I recall, at around 12:00 the shoulder was in the 160-165* range, where it sat and sat for long time. I should have moved the shoulder to the top rack where the temp was a little higher or foiled it to get the temp to go up faster, but I also wanted the bark to improve as well. I also had all the ribs in foil on the top rack so there was no room up there. So the shoulder sat in the WSM for another 3 hours.
At around 3:00 I put the ribs on the Weber Genesis to glaze them (Sweet Baby Rays) and firm them up. Because the shoulder was taking so long, I let the ribs sit in foil a little longer than I would have liked. This made them super tender but some of them wanted to just fall completely off the bone (See rack on the left where they just separated completely)
(jammed in on the Genesis)
Here's a bear view of the rib that split when I tried to move it. (This photo is currently my avatar I liked it so much)
The Pork shoulder came off at around 3:30-3:40 when it reached around 195*. I couldn't wait any longer for it to get to 205* because people were getting hungry (luckily we had burgers and dogs for the kids). Here it is a few minutes before it was ripped apart.
Oh and the presentation photo of the rack of ribs I reserved for myself.
On to the pulled pork. Here are some photos as I was pulling and shredding. After shredding, I mixed it up with some NC style finishing sauce from Smoke & Spice cookbook. (2 cups cider vinegar, 2 TBS brown sugar, 2 TSP salt, 1 TSP black pepper, 1 TSP cayenne pepper)
Now a quick word on the sides...
NY Deli Style cole-slaw. We made this all by hand the day of the BBQ because we wanted it nice and crisp. We used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. It is a nice tangy slightly sweet cole-slaw recipe that we like a lot.
Black Bean and Corn Salsa with Red Onion, Yellow, Orange and Red Peppers. The Basic processes here was to slightly char 4 ears of corn, saute the onions and peppers in some olive oil, add in cider vinegar, black beans and corn, some garlic and lime. We cooked this the day before and served it cold.
(I also hand pressed about 5 lbs of burgers for the picnic too. Basic 85% ground with salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce. Those were good too).
The result... The sandwich I entered in the competition. If you look in the back you can see everyone at the BBQ.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed everything. The ribs were devoured and there wasn't much pulled pork left. My law school friend's oldest daughter (age 10) told me that the ribs were "outrageous." That, to me is a great compliment because, as I'm sure most of you know, kids WILL tell you if your food is good or terrible.
Thanks for reading. I had a great time entering the competition. I actually thought about combining everything from the BBQ in a giant monster sandwich (Probably would have been a cheeseburger topped with the pulled pork, cole slaw, with a baby Back Rib sticking through the bun but this one just looked great as a classic).
