Michael Vrobel
TVWBB Member
Since the VWBB doesn't seem to talk about the pork picnic shoulder cut much, I figured I'd post the details of how my cook went. While I was writing it, it turned into a dissertation on the science of barbecue. You've been warned...
For some background on my picnic shoulder questions click here.
Cooking Method I used a modification of the quick cook method that I learned from Cook's Illustrated:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Put your pork in disposable aluminum foil pans
<LI>Cook in WSM at 250*F for 3 hrs (I go until internal meat temperature is 160*F)
<LI>Wrap pork in heavy duty aluminum foil, raise WSM temp to 300*F, and cook until internal meat temperature is 195*F. (You can do this part in an oven; I also would raise that internal temp to 205*F; see below).
[/list]
And here's where I go completely off the rails, to explain what comes in the cooking log.
Science!
My understanding of the food science behind barbecue:
(Disclaimer: yes, I watch Good Eats all the time, and I've read 'On Food and Cooking' and 'Cookwise'. Beyond that, what I don't know would fill volumes. The following is how I've explained to myself what is going on, but I'm not a food scientist. I'm just a computer geek who likes to think he knows what he's talking about).
You want to cook low 'n' slow, with the meat uncovered, until it reaches an internal temp of 160*F for three reasons:
To convert collagen to gelatin, you need three things:
So, for moist, juicy barbecue, you're fighting a war on three fronts:
On a tangent to my tangent: I haven't quite figured out what's going on with the fat. I know cuts with lots of intramuscular fat, like pork butt, seem to wind up juicier than cuts with less intramuscular fat, like picnic shoulder or beef brisket. Intramuscular fat is what makes cuts of meat you grill, like steaks, juicy. The fat liquefies inside the meat and keeps it moist. Fat on the surface of the meat just renders off, and doesn't help the meat much. The conversion of collagen to gelatin seems to be able to make up for most of the moisture in the less fatty cuts that we barbecue. My current theory is that fat acts as another source of liquid to help convert the collagen to gelatin, so you have more leeway when you're cooking a piece of meat with lots of intramuscular fat.
And to digress from my digression: The collagen to gelatin breakdown is also why we have a temperature plateau in the 160*F to 170*F range; until the collagen is converted to gelatin, it doesn't heat up. Or maybe the heat energy is going towards breaking down the collagen and not towards raising the temperature. Either way, we seem to plateau when the collagen starts breaking down.
Why aluminum foil?
In "traditional" cooking, the cuts used for barbecue (brisket, pork shoulder, ribs) are cooked in a braise. A braise is cooking with low temperatures, in a tight fitting, covered pot, with just enough liquid to cover the meat. This low, slow, moist cooking method does exactly what we're trying to do: it converts the collagen in the meat to gelatin.
This leads to my theories on aluminum foil in barbecue. Wrapping your meat in foil helps with the collagen - gelatin conversion. It creates the moist environment we're looking for by trapping escaping liquids so they can be used to break down collagen. In other words, we're braising the meat in a tight fitting, covered container, like we just talked about. The other advantage is you can increase your cooking temperature. Since the foil traps any escaping liquids, we don't have to worry as much about squeezing all the liquid out of the meat with a higher temperature, and we can raise the temperature to the 300*F to 350*F that braises are normally cooked at. These two things (more moisture, higher heat) result in a quicker breakdown of the collagen, which speeds up cooking time dramatically. The foil will also protect your rub from burning with the increased heat. Even if you don't increase the heat, the moist environment in the foil gives you more room for error - there's less chance of the meat drying out and not converting enough collagen. An advantage to using foil in barbecue cooked on a traditional smoker, using only wood as fuel, is that it helps prevent the oversmoking of the meat. Since we (mostly) use charcoal on the WSM, this isn't as big of an issue for us.
Why not just wrap your meat in foil from the beginning?
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>You don't get any bark. Even when you wrap in foil at 160*F, you lose some of the bark you would get from barbecuing without foil.
<LI>You won't get any smoke flavor. Why use a smoker if you're not going to get at least some smoke?
<LI>In other words, you would be braising the meat, not barbecuing it. Why not braise it in the first place? Braises are delicious, but they're not barbecue.
[/list]
Well then, why would you NOT use foil?
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>If you have the details down, and the time, you don't need it. Cooking at low barbecue temperatures gives you all the things you need (time, low temps, moisture in the meat) for juicy meat, with the added bonus of wonderful bark on your meat.
<LI>Some people say that using foil isn't real barbecue (the 'foil crutch' theory). While I'm not that dogmatic about my barbecue, I can understand their argument. I use foil for the convenience, speed, and consistency that it provides, but I think there's something about a brisket cooked overnight that just tastes a little better than a quick cooked one in foil.
<LI>Tradition. Why mess with a cooking method that involves sitting around, drinking your favorite beverage for hours?
<LI>Showmanship. If nothing else, being able to tell everyone that you started cooking last night at midnight convinces them you are a master barbecuer. Or that you are crazy. And I'm not sure if there's much of a distinction between the two, but I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces when I describe checking the temperature at 3AM.
[/list]
Whew! I didn't know I had that in me. Now, back to our cooking log:
Cooking, continued:
I bought three pork picnic shoulders (hereafter: 'the shoulders') in cryovac at K-Mart. Did I mention they were $0.79/lb? Two were 7lbs, one was 8lbs. I trimmed off the hide and all surface fat, put them in disposable aluminum pans, brushed on Grey Poupon (but of course!) and covered with rub.
I fired up the WSM to 250*F using the Minion method, put two quarts of hot water in the water pan, and put the shoulders on at 11AM. I used my Big Green Egg grid extender to fit the third shoulder. Unfortunately, it was about a half an inch too short, so the shoulder on the extender was actually resting on the shoulder on the top grate. It was just barely too tall, so I figured I could live with it. My Polder probe was in the shoulder that was on the bottom rack of the WSM. (My polder was in the shoulder - hey, it rhymes!) I cooked them for three hours, until 2PM; the Polder read 163*F at that point. I wrapped the shoulders in aluminum foil, put them back on the WSM, and opened all my vents to get the WSM temp up to 300 to 325*F. This didn't happen. I topped out at 280*F, so I had to add a half a chimney of lit charcoal at 3PM. That got me up to 310*F.
I pulled them out when the Polder read 195*F, at 4PM. This is when I noticed that my water pan was bone dry. The 195*F shoulder had been on the bottom rack. When I checked the top two shoulders, they weren't done yet. One was 170*F, the other 180*F. The 170*F shoulder was the 8 pounder, so I put the probe into it, put it on the bottom rack, put the other shoulder on the top rack, added a little water to the water pan, and left 'em to cook.
I let the finished shoulder rest for 1 hour, still wrapped in foil, and then I pulled it. It pulled easily, but it felt a little dry on some of the interior parts of the meat. The bark was great, and the bottom end of the shoulder (near where the butt would be) was pretty juicy, so it wasn't too bad. I mixed the pulled pork in two batches with BBQ sauce (one tomato based, one mustard based). The BBQ sauce gave it more than enough liquid to make up for the slightly dry meat. Dinner was a roaring success, and my new mustard based barbecue sauce is a keeper.
Back to the still cooking shoulders: I went to get them when the Polder read 195*F. I checked the temp on the shoulder that didn't have the Polder, and it measured 205*F (!). I picked 195*F originally because I was worried the shoulder, without the intramuscular fat a butt has, would dry out if I cooked it to 205*F. After letting these shoulders rest for an hour (and eating dinner, see above), I pulled them. It turned out that the 205*F shoulder was the MOST moist. (Note: to explain the next sentence, I started on my cooking science dissertation above.) My pork picnic shoulder theory is: shoulder has more connective tissue (collagen) that needed the extra time to break down (into gelatin) to make up for the lack of intramuscular fat; the extra 10*F gave it that time. The lesson I learned is: Next time, cook pork picnic shoulder to 205*F!
Finally:
Shoulder vs. Butt
My experience today was, if you cook the shoulder to 205*F, there is not much difference between the two. At 195*F, which is what I've cooked them to in the past, the butts have been juicier than the shoulder was. Next time I can get butts on sale, I'm going to cook 'em to 205*F and see how it turns out.
If you've read this far, thank you!
For some background on my picnic shoulder questions click here.
Cooking Method I used a modification of the quick cook method that I learned from Cook's Illustrated:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Put your pork in disposable aluminum foil pans
<LI>Cook in WSM at 250*F for 3 hrs (I go until internal meat temperature is 160*F)
<LI>Wrap pork in heavy duty aluminum foil, raise WSM temp to 300*F, and cook until internal meat temperature is 195*F. (You can do this part in an oven; I also would raise that internal temp to 205*F; see below).
[/list]
And here's where I go completely off the rails, to explain what comes in the cooking log.
Science!
My understanding of the food science behind barbecue:
(Disclaimer: yes, I watch Good Eats all the time, and I've read 'On Food and Cooking' and 'Cookwise'. Beyond that, what I don't know would fill volumes. The following is how I've explained to myself what is going on, but I'm not a food scientist. I'm just a computer geek who likes to think he knows what he's talking about).
You want to cook low 'n' slow, with the meat uncovered, until it reaches an internal temp of 160*F for three reasons:
<LI>It gives the meat time to absorb the smoke from your smoking wood
<LI>It gives the fat in the meat time to render
<LI>Once you reach 120*F, the meat will start to lose liquid (the protein fibers in the meat contract, and start to squeeze out the water in the meat). The low temperature will minimize this; the higher the temperature, the stronger the squeezing.
To convert collagen to gelatin, you need three things:
<LI>Breaking down collagen takes time. This time is measured in hours, not minutes.
<LI>Breaking down collagen takes low temperatures. Breaking down collagen to gelatin happens best at about the boiling point of water, 212*F.
<LI>To break down the collagen, you need liquid. Dry heat alone won't do the job. If we cooked too quickly, we've squeezed out the liquid inside the meat, and we don't have enough liquid in the meat to break down the gelatin. I think that around a 160*F internal temperature, the water left in the meat is now hot enough to start breaking down the gelatin.
So, for moist, juicy barbecue, you're fighting a war on three fronts:
<LI>Water in the meat is being squeezed out.
<LI>Fat in (and on) the meat is being rendered
<LI>Tough collagen is being converted to tender gelatin
On a tangent to my tangent: I haven't quite figured out what's going on with the fat. I know cuts with lots of intramuscular fat, like pork butt, seem to wind up juicier than cuts with less intramuscular fat, like picnic shoulder or beef brisket. Intramuscular fat is what makes cuts of meat you grill, like steaks, juicy. The fat liquefies inside the meat and keeps it moist. Fat on the surface of the meat just renders off, and doesn't help the meat much. The conversion of collagen to gelatin seems to be able to make up for most of the moisture in the less fatty cuts that we barbecue. My current theory is that fat acts as another source of liquid to help convert the collagen to gelatin, so you have more leeway when you're cooking a piece of meat with lots of intramuscular fat.
And to digress from my digression: The collagen to gelatin breakdown is also why we have a temperature plateau in the 160*F to 170*F range; until the collagen is converted to gelatin, it doesn't heat up. Or maybe the heat energy is going towards breaking down the collagen and not towards raising the temperature. Either way, we seem to plateau when the collagen starts breaking down.
Why aluminum foil?
In "traditional" cooking, the cuts used for barbecue (brisket, pork shoulder, ribs) are cooked in a braise. A braise is cooking with low temperatures, in a tight fitting, covered pot, with just enough liquid to cover the meat. This low, slow, moist cooking method does exactly what we're trying to do: it converts the collagen in the meat to gelatin.
This leads to my theories on aluminum foil in barbecue. Wrapping your meat in foil helps with the collagen - gelatin conversion. It creates the moist environment we're looking for by trapping escaping liquids so they can be used to break down collagen. In other words, we're braising the meat in a tight fitting, covered container, like we just talked about. The other advantage is you can increase your cooking temperature. Since the foil traps any escaping liquids, we don't have to worry as much about squeezing all the liquid out of the meat with a higher temperature, and we can raise the temperature to the 300*F to 350*F that braises are normally cooked at. These two things (more moisture, higher heat) result in a quicker breakdown of the collagen, which speeds up cooking time dramatically. The foil will also protect your rub from burning with the increased heat. Even if you don't increase the heat, the moist environment in the foil gives you more room for error - there's less chance of the meat drying out and not converting enough collagen. An advantage to using foil in barbecue cooked on a traditional smoker, using only wood as fuel, is that it helps prevent the oversmoking of the meat. Since we (mostly) use charcoal on the WSM, this isn't as big of an issue for us.
Why not just wrap your meat in foil from the beginning?
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>You don't get any bark. Even when you wrap in foil at 160*F, you lose some of the bark you would get from barbecuing without foil.
<LI>You won't get any smoke flavor. Why use a smoker if you're not going to get at least some smoke?
<LI>In other words, you would be braising the meat, not barbecuing it. Why not braise it in the first place? Braises are delicious, but they're not barbecue.
[/list]
Well then, why would you NOT use foil?
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>If you have the details down, and the time, you don't need it. Cooking at low barbecue temperatures gives you all the things you need (time, low temps, moisture in the meat) for juicy meat, with the added bonus of wonderful bark on your meat.
<LI>Some people say that using foil isn't real barbecue (the 'foil crutch' theory). While I'm not that dogmatic about my barbecue, I can understand their argument. I use foil for the convenience, speed, and consistency that it provides, but I think there's something about a brisket cooked overnight that just tastes a little better than a quick cooked one in foil.
<LI>Tradition. Why mess with a cooking method that involves sitting around, drinking your favorite beverage for hours?
<LI>Showmanship. If nothing else, being able to tell everyone that you started cooking last night at midnight convinces them you are a master barbecuer. Or that you are crazy. And I'm not sure if there's much of a distinction between the two, but I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces when I describe checking the temperature at 3AM.
[/list]
Whew! I didn't know I had that in me. Now, back to our cooking log:
Cooking, continued:
I bought three pork picnic shoulders (hereafter: 'the shoulders') in cryovac at K-Mart. Did I mention they were $0.79/lb? Two were 7lbs, one was 8lbs. I trimmed off the hide and all surface fat, put them in disposable aluminum pans, brushed on Grey Poupon (but of course!) and covered with rub.
I fired up the WSM to 250*F using the Minion method, put two quarts of hot water in the water pan, and put the shoulders on at 11AM. I used my Big Green Egg grid extender to fit the third shoulder. Unfortunately, it was about a half an inch too short, so the shoulder on the extender was actually resting on the shoulder on the top grate. It was just barely too tall, so I figured I could live with it. My Polder probe was in the shoulder that was on the bottom rack of the WSM. (My polder was in the shoulder - hey, it rhymes!) I cooked them for three hours, until 2PM; the Polder read 163*F at that point. I wrapped the shoulders in aluminum foil, put them back on the WSM, and opened all my vents to get the WSM temp up to 300 to 325*F. This didn't happen. I topped out at 280*F, so I had to add a half a chimney of lit charcoal at 3PM. That got me up to 310*F.
I pulled them out when the Polder read 195*F, at 4PM. This is when I noticed that my water pan was bone dry. The 195*F shoulder had been on the bottom rack. When I checked the top two shoulders, they weren't done yet. One was 170*F, the other 180*F. The 170*F shoulder was the 8 pounder, so I put the probe into it, put it on the bottom rack, put the other shoulder on the top rack, added a little water to the water pan, and left 'em to cook.
I let the finished shoulder rest for 1 hour, still wrapped in foil, and then I pulled it. It pulled easily, but it felt a little dry on some of the interior parts of the meat. The bark was great, and the bottom end of the shoulder (near where the butt would be) was pretty juicy, so it wasn't too bad. I mixed the pulled pork in two batches with BBQ sauce (one tomato based, one mustard based). The BBQ sauce gave it more than enough liquid to make up for the slightly dry meat. Dinner was a roaring success, and my new mustard based barbecue sauce is a keeper.
Back to the still cooking shoulders: I went to get them when the Polder read 195*F. I checked the temp on the shoulder that didn't have the Polder, and it measured 205*F (!). I picked 195*F originally because I was worried the shoulder, without the intramuscular fat a butt has, would dry out if I cooked it to 205*F. After letting these shoulders rest for an hour (and eating dinner, see above), I pulled them. It turned out that the 205*F shoulder was the MOST moist. (Note: to explain the next sentence, I started on my cooking science dissertation above.) My pork picnic shoulder theory is: shoulder has more connective tissue (collagen) that needed the extra time to break down (into gelatin) to make up for the lack of intramuscular fat; the extra 10*F gave it that time. The lesson I learned is: Next time, cook pork picnic shoulder to 205*F!
Finally:
Shoulder vs. Butt
My experience today was, if you cook the shoulder to 205*F, there is not much difference between the two. At 195*F, which is what I've cooked them to in the past, the butts have been juicier than the shoulder was. Next time I can get butts on sale, I'm going to cook 'em to 205*F and see how it turns out.
If you've read this far, thank you!
