Eric Aarseth
TVWBB Super Fan
Tomorrow morning I'm going to make kalua pork for the first time. If you Google "kalua" pork (as opposed to Kahlua, that tasty coffee liqueur) you will get many recipes that call for cooking a whole pig in an "imu" (earthen pit - Hawaiian style) or in a slow-cooker or oven. That VAST majority of the recipes call for the use of liquid smoke (mesquite to equate to the koa wood used in the Great State of Hawaii). There are some threads within TVWBB that date back to 2007 - 2010 that discuss briefly the use of the WSM. Even within those threads the majority of the discussion is a cooking method using an earthen pit or slow-cooker. No criticism of either of those cooking methods, but in God's Country (aka Alaska i.e. Texas's big brother) cooking via an earthen pit requires a jackhammer - ain't going to happen; I'd like to avoid at all costs liquid smoke, so slow-cookers and other non-smoke producing cooking methods are out. So here is my plan:
Ingredients:
Hawaiian Red and Black salt
Onion (raw, sliced)
Garlic (raw, crushed-knife blade not a press)
Ginger Root (peeled, sliced coins)
Banana tree leaves (purchased frozen, thawed and washed)
10 lb pork butt, bone-in, trimmed fat (less than 1/4 inch on exterior
Smoke Wood - Mix of mesquite and pecan pellets
Smoker:
Traeger Texas XL (Note 1: I couldn't afford the AK version because it was 3x the size of the TX); (Note 2: I'm using my Traeger vs WSM because of time); (Note 3: My experience thus far is that you get much better BBQ results with the WSM than with the Traeger).
Process:
1. Salt butt with red and black Hawaiian salt. Will salt liberally.
2. Place on smoker, smoke at 185 degrees or below for 2 hours.
3. Take off smoker. Bundle butt as follows: banana tree leaves, aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger), butt, aromatics, banana leaves. Tie bundle into an intact but loose bundle. I don't want it too tight, so no smoke can penetrate the leaves, but I also don't want it too loose because as the meat shrinks and the leaves become drier, gaps will open. Assuming I'm on my game I'll take pics.
4. Back on the smoker in a half-sheet aluminum foil pan. Will set temp at 225 and let it go. Temp will likely vary between 210 - 250. I anticipate the cook time to be about 8 hours (ambient temp will be about 25 degrees so could take longer). If I remember, I'll likely monitor meat temp with my Maverick probe. Target meat temp is the standard 190+.
My point of this post, is to give some point of reference of making kalua pork in a smoker, without liquid smoke and approximating the cooking method of an imu. I would use my WSM, but I don't have the time to tend the "fire", etc and so I'll use my Traeger instead. My experience thus far is that my results on the Traeger correlate nicely to what I can expect on the WSM, but with better BBQ flavor from the WSM
.
Questions - post them and I'll do my best to answer.
Ingredients:
Hawaiian Red and Black salt
Onion (raw, sliced)
Garlic (raw, crushed-knife blade not a press)
Ginger Root (peeled, sliced coins)
Banana tree leaves (purchased frozen, thawed and washed)
10 lb pork butt, bone-in, trimmed fat (less than 1/4 inch on exterior
Smoke Wood - Mix of mesquite and pecan pellets
Smoker:
Traeger Texas XL (Note 1: I couldn't afford the AK version because it was 3x the size of the TX); (Note 2: I'm using my Traeger vs WSM because of time); (Note 3: My experience thus far is that you get much better BBQ results with the WSM than with the Traeger).
Process:
1. Salt butt with red and black Hawaiian salt. Will salt liberally.
2. Place on smoker, smoke at 185 degrees or below for 2 hours.
3. Take off smoker. Bundle butt as follows: banana tree leaves, aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger), butt, aromatics, banana leaves. Tie bundle into an intact but loose bundle. I don't want it too tight, so no smoke can penetrate the leaves, but I also don't want it too loose because as the meat shrinks and the leaves become drier, gaps will open. Assuming I'm on my game I'll take pics.
4. Back on the smoker in a half-sheet aluminum foil pan. Will set temp at 225 and let it go. Temp will likely vary between 210 - 250. I anticipate the cook time to be about 8 hours (ambient temp will be about 25 degrees so could take longer). If I remember, I'll likely monitor meat temp with my Maverick probe. Target meat temp is the standard 190+.
My point of this post, is to give some point of reference of making kalua pork in a smoker, without liquid smoke and approximating the cooking method of an imu. I would use my WSM, but I don't have the time to tend the "fire", etc and so I'll use my Traeger instead. My experience thus far is that my results on the Traeger correlate nicely to what I can expect on the WSM, but with better BBQ flavor from the WSM
.Questions - post them and I'll do my best to answer.
Success. Go to the FAQ menu at the top of the page. There is a section on how to upload photos.
