Weekend smoke w/ Qview

[jirodriguez]

Was running low on frozen packages of pulled pork so I decided to smoke a couple of butts (on sale at Safeway for 0.99 per lb.). One butt got my dry rub, which is a brown sugar base with all the usuall suspects - garlic powder, cumin, paprika, chili powder, salt, CPB, crushed fenel seed, dry mustard, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg - or whatever I happen to have on hand.

The other butt I decided to try injecting, so I mixed applejuice, 2 caned chipoltle peppers with about 2 tsp. of the chipoltle pepper sauce from the can, juice of a fresh orang, juice of a fresh lemon, honey, fresh garilc, cumin, crushed fenel seed, salt, fresh cilantro.... and might be forgetting one or two more... not sure. I boiled all that in a pan tasted and made adjustments to sweet vs. salt vs. spicey, and then drained it through a cheese cloth. I injected the butt with about half of the mix and reserved the rest for basting it.

The butt with no rub on the ends was the injected one (ran out of rub)


Rub only butt pulled at 165° getting foiled.


Injected butt pulled at 165° getting foiled... I like the color!


Injected butt pulled from smoker at 205°, and rested in cooler for 1 hour.


.... bone just slid out!


And finally the rub only butt... had a nice tasty bark!

 

[ciolli]

Lookin mighty tasty! I'm sure with all the ingredients in that injection you got an awesome flavor profile. I could sure dig in!

 

[jirodriguez]

I was actually a little bummed on the injection. I didn't plan far enough ahead, so I injected the meat, and it only had about 1 hr. to rest in the fridge. It had great flavor on the outside and in the bark, but not much in the middle. I think next time I will inject it with a lot more injection and then let it sit for at least 4 hrs.

It still tasted good, but I was hopeing to get more chipoltle and honey... but being the first time I ever tried an injection... meh... not to bad.

 

[mballi3011]

Ok now I see the rub recipe. At least your not like them other ( miami rick/ fire it up) guys that cann't remember what they put in it. Your butts look good to so which one did you like the best????

 

[jirodriguez]

I really liked the flavor of the bark on the injected rub.... I think if I inject them more and let them sit in the fridge for about 6-8 hrs. to get more injection flavor I will really like that one!

But both were good

, this time around I toasted fresh cumin and fenel seeds then ground them in the spice mill. That made a wold of differance in my rub... was sooo good.