Had a group of college kids from CoC over for dinner last night. I'm doing ribs for the Super Bowl, so I thought I'd experiment beforehand on a crowd that just appreciates any ol' home-cooked meal. 
Prior to discovering this board, I just experimented with things on my own, and I pretty much always use the same brine for both chicken and pork: salt, vinegar, garlic, dried minced onions, water. I've never used rubs before acquiring the WSM and reading up on them here in late December. So, as I'm wont to do when trying something for the first time on the WSM (and in this particular case, the first time ever for me,) I did them two ways:
RACK 1: Brined overnight, light rub. I went light on the rub to make sure these weren't too salty and trimmed them St. Louis style to help with identification.
RACK 2: Heavy rub, no brine. (Untrimmed.)
Here they are on the WSM immediately prior to cooking:
Note that Rack 1 takes on a very whitish color from the overnight brine, while rack 2 starts off more red/pink.
After approx 2 1/2 hours at around 280 (sorry for the finger over Rack 2's pic):
Foiled with apple juice and honey for an hour and a half, then brushed with sauce for 10 minutes. The post-cook pics aren't that great (was a little too dark inside), but here are the ones I have.
You can kinda see the smoke ring (apple) on rack 2 in this shot:
Here's rack 1 before cutting:
And some of each on a plate (along with some leftover pulled pork that we had frozen):
At the 2 1/2-hour mark, I was really worried that Rack 1 was going to end up overcooked. However, it was unanimous among those who had some from both that Rack 1 (brined, low rub) was better tasting, though both were very well received. I'd be happy to serve either to guests again.
Thanks for looking.
Prior to discovering this board, I just experimented with things on my own, and I pretty much always use the same brine for both chicken and pork: salt, vinegar, garlic, dried minced onions, water. I've never used rubs before acquiring the WSM and reading up on them here in late December. So, as I'm wont to do when trying something for the first time on the WSM (and in this particular case, the first time ever for me,) I did them two ways:RACK 1: Brined overnight, light rub. I went light on the rub to make sure these weren't too salty and trimmed them St. Louis style to help with identification.
RACK 2: Heavy rub, no brine. (Untrimmed.)
Here they are on the WSM immediately prior to cooking:
Note that Rack 1 takes on a very whitish color from the overnight brine, while rack 2 starts off more red/pink.
After approx 2 1/2 hours at around 280 (sorry for the finger over Rack 2's pic):
Foiled with apple juice and honey for an hour and a half, then brushed with sauce for 10 minutes. The post-cook pics aren't that great (was a little too dark inside), but here are the ones I have.
You can kinda see the smoke ring (apple) on rack 2 in this shot:
Here's rack 1 before cutting:
And some of each on a plate (along with some leftover pulled pork that we had frozen):
At the 2 1/2-hour mark, I was really worried that Rack 1 was going to end up overcooked. However, it was unanimous among those who had some from both that Rack 1 (brined, low rub) was better tasting, though both were very well received. I'd be happy to serve either to guests again.
Thanks for looking.
Nice!
